10 games similar to Cities: Skylines, a Strategy, Simulator game, drawn from IGDB's similarity data. Each pick below notes the genres it shares with Cities: Skylines.
01Shares SimulatorStrategyBoth games center on building and managing cities from an isometric perspective, balancing economy and infrastructure as your population grows. Anno 1800 applies this city-builder formula to the Industrial Revolution, adding naval warfare and colonial expansion across multiple continents. Where Cities: Skylines emphasizes modern urban planning, Anno 1800 layers historical progression and strategic empire-building into the same satisfying management loop.
02Shares SimulatorStrategyBoth games center on management simulation where you build and maintain a complex system under resource constraints. Judgment: Apocalypse Survival Simulation applies this framework to a post-apocalyptic base rather than a city, requiring you to construct facilities, allocate resources, and balance survival needs. Like Cities: Skylines, progression unlocks new structures and capabilities as your colony grows, creating that same sense of expansion and strategic planning.
03Junkyard Simulator 2021Shares SimulatorStrategyBoth games put you in charge of building and managing an operation from the ground up, balancing resources and economic decisions to grow your enterprise. Cities: Skylines focuses on urban infrastructure and taxation, while Junkyard Simulator emphasizes hands-on resource collection and yard expansion. Each rewards strategic planning and long-term development within a sandbox structure where your choices shape the final result.
04Shares SimulatorStrategyBoth games put you in charge of a growing enterprise from the ground up, managing resources and making strategic decisions in a sandbox environment. Where Cities: Skylines has you balancing city budgets and infrastructure, Startup Company tasks you with building a tech business and competing against rivals. Each game emphasizes long-term planning and resource allocation through an overhead perspective.
05Shares StrategyBoth games share a bird's-eye perspective and deep management systems that reward planning and resource allocation. Endless Legend layers turn-based strategy over city building, requiring you to grow settlements, balance production chains, and expand territory much like managing a sprawling metropolis. Steam Workshop mod support appears in Cities: Skylines, while Endless Legend offers comparable customization through mods, letting you reshape either game to your preferences.
06Shares SimulatorStrategyAcademia: School Simulator shares Cities: Skylines' top-down management structure and sandbox freedom. Both let you design and construct facilities from scratch, then balance budgets and resources as your institution grows. Where Cities focuses on urban infrastructure, Academia applies the same design-and-manage loop to running a school, letting you decide between quality and cost-cutting while watching the consequences unfold.
07Shares SimulatorStrategyBoth Unclaimed World and Cities: Skylines are single-player strategy simulators played from a bird's-eye view, where you manage resources and adapt systems to survive changing conditions. Unclaimed World shifts the setting to a hostile alien planet where you balance human needs against nature's threats through discovery and crafting, replacing the urban infrastructure focus of Cities: Skylines with ecological adaptation and survival.
08Shares SimulatorStrategyRise of Venice shares Cities: Skylines' management-focused strategy gameplay and bird's-eye perspective, letting you build and expand operations across multiple locations. Both games emphasize economic systems, requiring smart resource allocation and trading decisions to grow your empire. Where Cities: Skylines focuses on urban infrastructure, Rise of Venice centers on maritime commerce and naval power, offering a different setting for similar strategic planning.
09Shares SimulatorStrategyPlanet Zoo shares Cities: Skylines' sandbox management structure, letting you build and expand a complex facility from the ground up while balancing budgets and resources. Both games use a bird's-eye perspective and reward long-term planning as you unlock new features through progression. Where Cities focuses on urban infrastructure, Planet Zoo emphasizes habitat design and animal welfare within the same strategic framework.
10Shares SimulatorStrategyBoth games share a top-down sandbox where you build and manage interconnected infrastructure systems. Cities: Skylines focuses on urban planning and services; Factorio emphasizes production chains and automation on an alien world. Each rewards creative problem-solving through placement and optimization, supports mods to extend gameplay, and runs on Steam with cloud saves for continued progress.
Frequently asked
10 games similar to Cities: Skylines: Anno 1800, Judgment: Apocalypse Survival Simulation, Junkyard Simulator, Startup Company, Endless Legend, Academia: School Simulator, Unclaimed World, Rise of Venice.
Most of these games share Strategy, Simulator, Business and Sandbox with Cities: Skylines, based on IGDB's similarity data. Each pick has a short note explaining what it has in common with Cities: Skylines.