Highlights
- Building games allow players to create realistic and immersive designs, with some games focusing on themes like theme parks, medieval villages, and Mars colonies.
- Games like Planet Coaster and Planet Zoo offer intuitive yet complex tools for designing roller coasters, rides, habitats, and landscapes, resulting in stunning and realistic creations.
- House Flipper allows players to renovate houses, dealing with issues like cleaning and termites, and providing opportunities for interior design with modern furniture and decoration.
Building games or games that allow players to design and build in one way or another, are extremely popular, and players who fall in love with these games often end up spending hundreds of hours perfecting their creations.
While a game such as Minecraft might be the most popular building game, other building games aim for realism, either with the latest modern graphics or with detailed design mechanics. These games allow players to strive for both realism and immersion in their builds, with the most skilled players creating masterpieces that would look at home in the real world.
7 Planet Coaster
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- Platforms: PC, macOS, Xbox One, Xbox Series X/S, PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5
Planet Coaster is the premier theme park game and while it is slightly older than Frontier Developments' other major building game, Planet Zoo, its graphics still hold up making it one of the most realistic building games on the market.
Naturally, the main draw of the game is in designing the best roller coasters and rides, and players will enjoy the intuitive yet complex tools that make this possible. Players can then create stunning backdrops and facilities for their theme park, and with enough effort spent on the details, they will get realistic results.
6 Medieval Dynasty
- Platforms: PC, Xbox One, Xbox Series X/S, PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5
Medieval Dynasty is a game initially about surviving in the medieval world, but players will soon find themselves focusing on building and managing their own bustling villages. The game is played in the first person, with realistic graphics which instantly makes it one of the most immersive building games.
While there isn't too much customization with the buildings themselves, players can create realistic and natural layouts for their villages and watch how they change over the seasons
5 Surviving Mars
- Platforms: PC, macOS, Linux, Xbox One, PlayStation 4
Despite technically being a sci-fi city building game, Surviving Mars is nonetheless mostly realistic on the whole and one day humanity may see something similar to the colonies that players build in the game. Surviving Mars features beautiful graphics with the stunning backdrop of Mars in every shot, allowing players to become fully immersed.
As a survival game too, players have to think carefully about what they build and where, while being diligent with resource management and finances. There are also plenty of dangers to the colonies such as deadly sandstorms that add to the realism.
4 Ostriv
- Platforms: PC, macOS, Linux
Ostriv is one of the best historical city builder games currently available with players taking on the role of a governor for an 18th-century Ukrainian town. While other city builder games often have a large emphasis on the management side of things, Ostriv is more about the building and design side of things with players more easily being able to realize their dreams.
The game allows players to create incredibly realistic and well-thought-out layouts with the fields being just as important as the rural buildings. The only downside to the game is that it is still in the early access stage of development, meaning players may encounter some issues
3 Cities: Skylines
- Platforms: PC, macOS, Linux, Xbox One, Xbox Series X/S, PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5, Nintendo Switch
Until the release of its sequel, Cities: Skylines is the most realistic city building game available, certainly out of those set in the modern world. Not only can the cities that players create look like they are taken out of the real world, but players will find that managing them is almost as challenging as it can be in real life.
Every aspect of city life has been thought of in Cities: Skylines, allowing players to get fully immersed, perhaps even recreating real cities from around the world.
2 House Flipper
- Platforms: PC, macOS, Linux, Xbox One, PlayStation 4, Nintendo Switch, Mobile
House Flipper is easily one of the best games about building and designing houses with players taking on the role of renovators. After purchasing run-down and decrepit houses, players can then repair and renovate them before hopefully selling them for a profit.
The entire process of renovating a house is incredibly realistic with players first having to clean up and deal with issues such as termites. When it comes to the interior design in House Flipper, players can completely transform the houses they work on with modern and bespoke furniture and decoration.
1 Planet Zoo
- Platforms: PC
If players want to design, build, and manage a realistic and immersive zoo, then there is no game better than Planet Zoo. Players can sculpt stunning landscapes for their habitats and scenery, while also letting loose their architectural skills by designing realistic animal houses, shops, restaurants, and much more.
Players have access to countless assets, both in the base game and in paid DLC, enabling them to make incredibly detailed designs. With access to the Steam Workshop, players can also download Blueprints created by other players, some of them built out of hundreds of tiny pieces. The animals themselves in Planet Zoo also look realistic, which helps with the immersion.