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That doesn’t mean world-building in simulation games doesn’t exist. Some of them were awesome enough to combine fantasy, slice-of-life, or parody elements into their simulation gameplay. Consequently, such games also managed to build up their own lore or add more context to their game world so that it’s easy to get lost in them.

Updated January 14, 2023 by Sid Natividad:Simulation games have always been broad and covered a lot of niches. Among those are world-building games that let players create their own fictional space. Others build the world for the players themselves, and these tend to be more memorable.

Because simulation games with great world-building also tend to have an inviting plot and a more compelling atmosphere. Turns out there are more of those kinds of simulation games, and these additional titles will surely enrich the list of simulation games with great world building.

13 Dwarf Fortress

Release year: 2006 Platforms: macOS, Microsoft Windows, Linux, Mac operating systems, Classic Mac OS

Dwarf Fortress presents a simple premise. Players control a kingdom of dwarves and as always, dwarves love to mine and tunnel. So players will manage that underground kingdom and expand it so that their dwarves can accumulate more and more riches.

Now, despite the simple graphics, Dwarf Fortress’ theme and the atmosphere are quite stellar thanks mostly to its idea. It’s a great way to roleplay as cantankerous and gruff dwarves as it encapsulates their very essence more so than most other adventure RPGs where they’re taken out of their natural habitat.

12 RimWorld

Release year: 2013 Platforms: PlayStation 4, Xbox One, macOS, Linux, Microsoft Windows, Mac operating systems

RimWorld was primarily inspired by Dwarf Fortress and it too is a colony management sim. But instead of fantasy dwarves in their halls of stone, RimWorld takes players out into alien environments in a sci-fi setting where players can manage their colonizers and even simulate intricate aspects of colonization such as medicine, trade, art, relationships, climate, and even psychology.

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To that end, it’s not for the faint of heart. RimWorld can get more personal and immersive than Dwarf Fortress since the people players will control are prone to haunting levels of psychological accuracy. But hey, no one said planetary colonization was going to be easy, especially with hostile aliens involved.

11 Papers, Please

Release year: 2013 Platforms: Android, iOS, Mac operating systems, Microsoft Windows, PlayStation Vita, Linux

Papers, Please is Kafkaesque and Orwellian delve into the complexities of bureaucracy where players assume the role of an immigration inspector who must judge, approve, or deny immigrants at the border of their fictional communist nation.

The job is more important than most players think since their role is pivotal in ensuring that spies, bombers, and smugglers don’t get inside the border town and into the state. The only problem is, the inspection procedures are primitive, so it’s up to the players’ astute judgment and deduction skills to determine the genuine immigrants from the fake ones.

10 Potionomics

Release year: 2022 Platforms: Microsoft Windows

Released just in October of 2022, Potionomics is one of the latest entries here. And sure enough, players assume the role of a potion seller (whose potions are too strong for any traveler). The premise is that the players inherited their uncle’s potion shop and they must learn to run the business.

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That includes brewing potions and even dabbling in deck-building. As far as business management sims go, this one is one of the most charming and the quirkiest. At the moment, the game has no sandbox mode and has a rather short story period but the developers might fix that soon.

9 Elite: Dangerous

Release year: 2015 Platforms: Xbox One, PlayStation 4, Microsoft Windows, Mac operating systems

As far as world-building goes in sci-fi sims, Elite: Dangerous is one of the pack leaders, along with the likes of the yet-to-be-released Star Citizen. This space sim allows players to do most of the interesting stuff available in space-themed sci-fi settings.

That includes piloting and customizing starships, shooting lasers as a ground troop, and exploring unknown worlds. The game was made to be as immersive as possible and it’s easy to become absorbed just from the flight sequences alone. The learning curve is naturally steep but, give it some time and patience, and it won’t let go.

8 Stardew Valley

Release year: 2016 Platforms: Windows, macOS, Linux, PlayStation 4, Xbox One, Nintendo Switch, PlayStation Vita, iOS, Android

For a farming or rural life simulator, Stardew Valley sure goes above and beyond. This cute 16-bit-style game starts off as a millennial city kid’s dream of going off-grid on some farm and retiring early. Soon enough, players will discover that the titular town holds more personality than a mere provincial retreat.

It probably helped that Stardew Valley was filled to the brim with hot and quirky singles, most of whom are gender-fluid or at least bi-curious. But this town’s charm makes players feel like Stardew Valley is alive and is welcoming their weary urbanized souls— a second home, but with lots of potential romances.

7 Kerbal Space Program

Release year: 2015 Platforms: Linux, macOS, Microsoft Windows, PlayStation 4, Xbox One, PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X/S

It’s a good thing Kerbal Space Program opted to feature little green men as its astronauts instead of the usual, boring Homo Sapiens Sapiens; otherwise, it would have had as much charm. This space and astronaut lifestyle simulator is one of the cutest simulations out there.

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It’s all thanks to the personable and comical aliens called Kerbals. They’re a species of small green humanoids who somehow are only slightly ahead of humans when it comes to the space race. They also have a home planet named Kerbin and players will have to be kerful with these aliens if they want to bring them home.

6 The Sims 4

Release year: 2014 Platforms: PlayStation 4, Xbox One, Macintosh operating systems, Microsoft Windows, Xbox Cloud Gaming

The Sims have always had great characterization and backstories for their NPCs even in the older games. They happily extended this made-up semi-satire lore to the usual population of The Sims 4. NPCs in The Sims 4 all have their own personalities, quirks, and unique families,

Some of them are stereotypes, like the uber-rich Landgraab family who don’t need any introduction as to why they became wealthy. Other families consist of reclusive vampires, sitcom-style housemates, and the video game equivalent of the Kardashians all helping to make the simulation more colorful.

5 Microsoft Flight Simulator

Release year: 2020 Platforms: Xbox Series X and Series S, Microsoft Windows, Xbox Cloud Gaming, OpenXR

Microsoft Flight Simulator 2020 is a good example that simulation games don’t need fantasy or parody elements in order to have great world-building. They just need satellite data from Google Maps, because Microsoft Flight Simulator photo-realistically recreates the world from a satellite view.

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So in a literal and technical sense, this is great world-building. Players can even fly above their houses if they want, or visit the airspace of their faraway relatives’ houses if they want. More than anything, it’s a demonstration of just how far graphics technology has developed in gaming, but nevertheless, quite impressive as far as world-building examples go.

4 Two Point Hospital

Two Point Hospital is a simulation where players build, design, and manage their hopefully functioning healthcare system. But that’s only half of its charm; the other half is that the game world is quite cheeky and has a penchant for being a parody of the real world.

If patients die inside the hospital, they turn into ghosts, and the announcer in the lobby is always spacing out or blurting tongue-in-cheek jokes. If anything, it looks like what a hospital from a sitcom would be. Players will surely keep coming back for more even if their hospital keeps going bankrupt.

3 Fallout Shelter

Release year: 2015 Platforms: Android, iOS, Microsoft Windows, Xbox One, Nintendo Switch, PlayStation 4

Think of Sims except it’s a nuclear bunker and everyone lives underground, trying to min-max their lives down to a few minutes of additional survival. That’s Fallout Shelter. It would have been as stressful as that description, were it not for its cartoonish art style and relatively relaxing gameplay.

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Fallout Shelter is partly a construction and management simulator where players act as the boss or proprietor of the nuclear bunker. They’ll have to build the facilities and assign the correct survivors to their appropriate tasks. Thus, the people are also resources here. Since it takes place in the Fallout universe, its world-building is definitely top-notch.

2 Railway Empire

Release year: 2018 Platforms: Nintendo Switch, PlayStation 4, Xbox One, Microsoft Windows, Linux, Macintosh operating systems

A simulation game would have been the last place anyone would look at if they ever wanted to roleplay as an American western frontier tycoon, but Railway Empire manages that experience well. It’s a railway tycoon simulator set during the turn of the century during the industrial age.

Players will have to lay down tracks and manage one of the vastest railway networks back in this time period. Along the way, players will also be directly helping the development of outlaw-ridden backwater towns, bringing law and order into the Wild West. It’s a great game to play after finishing Red Dead Redemption 2’s depressing ending.

1 Tropico 6

Release year: 2019 Platforms: Microsoft Windows, macOS, Linux, SteamOS, PlayStation 4, Xbox One, Nintendo Switch, PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X/S

Tropico 6 tasks players in bringing in a different kind of law and order. In this simulator, players take on the role of a dictator running their authoritarian communist island country. It’s clearly a parody of Cuba. It’s part city-builder, part tycoon simulator.

Because apart from developing their cities, players will also need a source of income, and tropical resorts or other attractions are some of the ripest opportunities here. What does make it different from other city and tycoon simulators, is that politics and ideology play important roles here; players can even choose their own political policies based on how they want to run their country— whether that’s a socialist utopia or a totalitarian dystopia.

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