Everyone has a favorite game genre they return to on a regular basis. Even if you try something outside your comfort zone, almost certainly you will fall back on your favorites.
While some people blow off steam in shooters, seek adrenaline in horror games, or crave adventure in RPGs, others become architects, creating what they can’t build in real life.
But what games to play if you want to find an outlet for your passion for building, and you don’t have The Sims at hand? Here are a few examples.
| Game | Release | Genre | Developer | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
 | Prison Architect | 2015-10-06 | Indie | Introversion Software |
 | Cities Skylines II | 2023-10-24 | Economy | Colossal Order |
 | Minecraft Java Bedrock Edition | 2011-11-18 | Sandbox | Mojang Studios |
 | No Mans Sky | 2016-08-12 | Adventure | Hello Games |
 | Townscaper | 2020-06-30 | Building | Oskar Stålberg |
 | Terraria | 2011-05-16 | Adventure | Re-Logic |
 | Fallout 4 Game Of The Year Edition | 2017-09-26 | RPG | Bethesda Game Studios |
 | Valheim | 2021-02-02 | Sanbox, survival | Iron Gate Studio |
 | Prison Architect 2 | 2025 | Indie | Double Eleven, Kokku |
 | Satisfactory | 2020-06-08 | Building | Coffee Stain Studios |
 | Cities Skylines | 2015-03-10 | Economy | Colossal Order Ltd. |
 | Project Highrise | 2016-09-08 | Strategy | SomaSim |
 | The Elder Scrolls V Skyrim Special Edition | 2016-10-27 | Adventure | Bethesda Game Studios |
 | Lego Worlds | 2017-03-07 | Adventure | TT Games |
Cities: Skylines
| Release date: | 2015-03-10 |
| Genre: | Economy |
| Developer: | Colossal Order Ltd. |
This 2015 production from Finnish developer Colossal Order is the most popular city builder game.
Here, you essentially start from scratch. With only a few dozen thousand dollars in your pocket, you book a piece of land that catches your eye.
You start building a city by connecting it with a national road, and then you decide where you want to place the residential, commercial and trade zones. Good city planning is very important; the population is growing quickly, the streets are starting to get congested and sometimes in order to widen the roads, a decision to demolish an entire district has to be made.
Cities: Skylines is distinguished by the expansion of public transport, not only through bus lines, but also the underground.
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Minecraft
| Release date: | 2011-11-18 |
| Genre: | Sandbox |
| Developer: | Mojang Studios |
Minecraft is a real treat for builders.
It offers not only the survival more – where you build settlements and then fiercely protect them against enemies, but also the creative mode, which can be a true creative outlet for you.
It’s like LEGO blocks, only in a virtual world! Unlike in the case of the real blocks from the Danish brand, you will never run out of pixel cubes here.
With their help, you can create whatever you dream of — whether it’s monuments from the other side of the world or wonders of the world, which you only learned about from historical chronicles, the possibilities of Minecraft are practically endless.
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Skyrim
| Release date: | 2016-10-27 |
| Genre: | Adventure |
| Developer: | Bethesda Game Studios |
Skyrim is not just an epic adventure with dragons in the background — in this production you can also build our own house.
You start by buying a plot of land in the chosen part of the in-game world; then, you can go to the construction site and get down to work.
Building in Skyrim is quite advanced and it consists of more than just choosing the interior through dialogue options, as is the case in some role-playing games. To build a house, you will need two things — a drawing table and a carpenter’s workshop. At the table you will create a house plan, and at the workshop you will make all the structures you need.
The in-game guide suggests that you build from the ground up, i.e. all the supports first, and only then the roof. You will make all the construction elements thanks to the resources that you must previously obtain throughout Skyrim.
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Terraria
| Release date: | 2011-05-16 |
| Genre: | Adventure |
| Developer: | Re-Logic |
In this charming 2D sandbox in a retro style, the most important thing is of course building.
At the very beginning, all you need to do is build a spawn point, where you are to be reborn after each death that might occur as you explore the world.
The house is a safe zone, and it can be expanded as well as populated with NPCs. It is worth placing all the necessary elements for crafting in the house, such as a workbench, furnace or alchemy station, and a warehouse with chests for storing items.
In Terraria, gardening is a helpful function, thanks to which you harvest the crop and gather resources; the game has a lot of plants and mushrooms for you to grow.
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Fallout 4
| Release date: | 2017-09-26 |
| Genre: | RPG |
| Developer: | Bethesda Game Studios |
Fallout 4 is the first game in the series to introduce the ability to build a settlement.
Your own base offers many possibilities, including access to legendary weapons. There are many places in the game where you can build your own base, and the first one is in the Sanctuary, which you encounter at the very beginning of the gameplay.
Accessing more places requires completing quests and helping other settlements — thanks to which you can annex them to the Community. In the edit mode, you can not only build new structures, but also disassemble elements, and thus obtain resources. Unfortunately, the construction of the base is not unlimited — the size of the base is determined by the size indicator, which cannot be exceeded.
Each settlement is inhabited by people whose level of satisfaction dictates the dynamics of the settlement’s development. If the residents have their basic needs met and feel safe in the settlement, their satisfaction increases, which translates into the increased efficiency of a given settlement. But that’s not all! You also have to manage the settlers by assigning them specific roles or sending them out to other settlements.
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Which of the games listed has attracted your attention? Whichever you choose, may the game be fruitful! Happy creating!