Top 13 Best Games Like Banished

153

Since 2014, Banished has been a fun mainstay for many people interested in the city-building strategy genre. It has been highly regarded for its impressive visuals and its unforgiving difficulty for players, particularly at the start of their journey. 

If you have been interested in more recent games that share many of the same qualities and aspects of Banished, consider checking out some of the additions here on this list. We’ve curated over 13 different games that share many things people love about Banished, each with its distinctive style and character aspects. 

So, without further ado, let’s begin! 

1. Spacebase DF-9

For those that love the city-building aspect of Banished while wanting a more sci-fi world, Spacebase DF-9 is perfect for you. Here, you’ll create a population out in the final frontier for several different humans and aliens as they move about their daily lives. 

The game will have you mining asteroids, discovering derelict ships, and dealing with the innate realities that come with galactic resettlement of Earth’s population. Meteors, explosive decompressions, space invaders, to even dealing with unbearable loneliness as your inhabitants look out into the vacuum of space and nothingness. 

2. Clockwork Empires

If you felt that the difficulty in Banished was challenging, Clockwork Empires takes this up a notch. Based on the steampunk and cosmic horror game, Clockwork Empires delves deeply into many Cthulu-esque themes as you build a colony of different people, each with their own goals and desires. 

Here, you’ll be able to build a large colony and community, create your own religion and religious institutions… and even awaken an ancient and eldritch god. 

3. Life is Feudal: Forest Village

A great town-building simulator strategy game allows you features and options to truly make your town as you see fit, complete with survival aspects to add a level of difficulty and ingenuity to each interaction. 

You play the game as a town leader ruling over a small group of refugees forced to restart their lives on an unknown island. There, you’ll be able to completely reshape the land into how you want, expanding out with orchards, farms, houses, and various other buildings. 

4. Planetbase

A fun and engaging strategy game, Planetbase takes you to a remote planet as you manage the survival and daily lives of a colony of humans in an outpost. You play as the Base Architecture, tasked with directing your colonist on what structures are needed for your overall survival. 

The game measures everything from obvious aspects like food, water, and materials, to even space-centric inclusions like oxygen and defense against meteor showers. 

5. Project Aura

Another great simulation/strategy game, Project Aura, takes place in the (potentially not too distant) future where a colony of climate disaster survivors works. Create a means of survival for the remaining human population itself. 

You’ll be tasked with numerous choices, from finding functioning forms of food to deciding whether to trade with others. Or become entirely self-sufficient in acquiring valuable remains from the previous human society that caused all this trouble to begin with. 

6. Stonehearth

A nice fusion between Banished and Minecraft, Stonehearth has you pioneering a living world filled with warmth and heroism. You’ll create numerous structures and buildings to shelter your people as well as monitor their mood and emotional levels. While not the most difficult game on this list, every step of your growth and expansion journey will be wrought with challenges and potential dangers. 

7. Northgard

If you’re a fan of the Norse-era and Norse Mythology, you’ll certainly be a fan of Northgard. This game takes a group of brave Vikings to a new land filled with adventure and mystery. There, the bravest of warriors will work to conquer the lands while establishing trade and settlements for their people. 

Here, you’ll get all of the expected aspects of a city-building/survival simulation game as you grow your settlement from nothing. In addition, however, your Norse men will also combat powerful undead, giant dire wolves, and even dragons and giants. 

8. Gnomoria

A fun and lighthearted addition to this list, Gnomoria has you playing as the leader of a small group of gnomes seeking to survive and thrive in a large and bustling world. 

What makes this game so fun, outside of its innate city-building aspects, is the use of Gnomish lore and standardized racial traits that any fantasy player will be all too familiar with. Gnomes can build their locations throughout the world and deconstruct any building they come across and rebuild it later. 

You’ll acquire resources and wealth as you attract wandering nomads to your cause. Be careful, however, as you may also potentially attract enemies as well…

9. Project Zomboid

A surprisingly good and engaging zombie survival game that does well in the sandbox/city-building genre, Project Zomboid has you struggle to survive a zombie hoard as best you can with death and danger only a moan away. You’ll loot houses, gather materials from malls, and build shelters and compounds to help you delay the ultimate inevitable for at least one more day. 

10. Kingdoms and Castles

If you are someone that is a particular fan of the expansive growth from only a small area to something truly huge and impressive, check out Kingdoms and Castles. This game starts you in a small hamlet that slowly, over time can grow into a sprawling city and eventually a large and impressive castle. 

Here, you’ll be beset by bandits, raiders, dragons, and even mother nature herself. How well you do is primarily based on your own abilities as a city and castle planner. 

11. Dwarf Fortress

Dwarf Fortress is an incredible game that marries beautiful 2-D visuals with an intense and intricate world simulation while putting you in the world of the Dwarven people from various fantasy lore. 

You’ll build a fortress to help your Dwarven brothers survive or attempt to delve deeper into the earth as a solitary adventurer, seeking wealth and fortune. 

12. Rimworld

One of the more… exciting entries on this list, Rimworld is a sci-fi colony simulation game-driven entirely by an intelligent AI storyteller. You’ll simulate various stories based on psychology, ecology, climate, diplomacy, and many other aspects. 

13. Factorio

Finally, Factorio is a game in which you’ll (surprise, surprise) build and maintain factories. This goes much deeper than most other games, however. Rather than click a button to create a giant factory instantly, you’ll be running and operating all the ins and outs of the miniature ecosystem, mining resources, researching technologies, building infrastructure, and automating production, as well as many other aspects. 

While in the beginning, you’ll be mining ores and chopping trees, as you grow in productivity and manpower, you’ll become an industrial powerhouse, creating trains and robotics to grow your machine empire.