Summary
Some say the world will end in fire, some say in ice, and some say it’ll be zombies doing us in. Whatever flavor of apocalypse you prefer, there’s something undeniably fascinating about the end of the world.From indieto triple-A it’s a well-represented subject, in video games.
While there’s some form of post-apocalypse for most video game genres, arguably the most interesting is that of the post-apocalyptic city builder. After all, how do you continue after the end? Do you rebuild? Try to fight it off? Escape? If you’re interested in rebuilding after the end, here are the best post-apocalyptic city builders.
Great If You Like
City builders as a genre are generally well-known to be a drawn-out affair, a slow burn where you start from humble beginnings and gradually develop a whole society. Not so with T-Minus 30.
This game puts you right at the end of the world with 30 real-life minutes and two goals: Build a city that can not only sustain itself, but have surplus resources, and then use those resources to power the last rocket off the planet. It’s a refreshingly fast-paced take on the genre that’s a brisk test of your city planning skills.
Frostpunktakes place in a frozen world where all civilization was buried under the snow. To keep society alive, you’ll need to manage common resources like food or building materials, as well as a resource we often take for granted: warmth. You’ll also have to manage something more esoteric: the hope of the people.
You start as a small colony that had the luck to find the Generator, a massive furnace that keeps the surrounding area warm. Find what you need to fuel it, feed your people, and grow your settlement. Eventually, you’ll develop more steampunk tech and range further from the Generator in a search for more resources.
At home, you’ll have to pass laws and pit morality against practicality to decide what kind you’re willing to sacrifice to preserve society because at the end of the day, one thing is clear: the city must survive.
Perhaps the most down-to-earth of the post-apocalypse city builders, Surviving the Aftermath is brought to you by the same people that brought you Surviving Mars. After space debris pummeled Earth and shattered part of the moon, society crumbled as cities were reduced to wastelands.
It is your job to start a new settlement to bring together survivors and to thrive in this new, wilder world. This game has the standard colony sim stuff you expect, but with the distinct aesthetic of using old things for new purposes. One interesting aspect of this game is waste management and hygiene, something games rarely cover.
Build bathrooms and other cleanliness facilitiesto make sure your people don’t succumb to sickness, in addition to all the other stuff you have to think about when rebuilding society.
Infection Free Zone is a zombie apocalypse base building game that hits close to home. Literally, because this game has a unique feature: thanks to OpenStreetMap,the action takes place in a real-world location, which could even include your own neighborhood. You start with a small walled area to keep the biters at bay, but pretty soon, you’re scavenging resources from the nearby buildings, clearing them out, and even claiming more territory.
While not a City Builder in a classical sense, existing buildings can be repurposed to keep your Zone running. You might be able to rebuild your neighborhood as it is, zombie free. Or you could end up in a place that looks much like your own, but vastly different in its function.
In a world where theundead have all but won, the last few thousand living humans must make their stand against the titular billions of zombies. You’ll have to build a colony and staff it with workers to produce the goods your settlement needs to flourish, while also employing soldiers to fight off the undead.
Build walls to keep the zombies at bay so your troops can kill them with ease. They’re stupid, but they’re also fast, strong and most importantly, incredibly infectious. If even one gets into one building, it will likely lead to a daisy chain of infections that will destroy your whole colony.
Though the game originated as a survival mode where you’re tasked with keeping the increasing undead waves at bay for a certain amount of time, it also got a campaign mode that goes deeper into the lore of the game.
After an ecological disaster ravages the Earth, the slate is wiped clean and only the remnants of humanity who hid in shelters called Endzones are left. 150 years later, you and your band of settlers surface to try and live in what’s left of the world.
Endzone has some of the most complicated and comprehensive weather systems in any game, with each cell of the map having its own atmospheric conditions. The aesthetic of the game can only be described as ‘Junkpunk’. Everything is made from scraps of the old world, even when your technology develops to the point that you start making steam-powered tech.
Most City Builders task you with creating a legacy and then maintaining that legacy throughout the ages. However in the rain-soaked post-apocalypseAgainst the Storm, no matter how perfectly designed your city is, it will always be washed away by the torrential rain.
This roguelike city builder challenges you with starting a colony and making it both productive and happy, all while managing moment-to-moment crises and weather that cycles through seasons of rain. You’re also under the baleful eye of a Queen that doesn’t brook failure, forcing you to manage her draining patience.
At the end, your endeavors go on to fuel the Smoldering Citadel, the last permanent settlement in the world and the holder of your roguelike meta-upgrades. Can you find the cause of this endless rain and stand against the storm?
