RimWorld is fun and all, but sometimes you’re just not in the mood for your favorite 2-D war crimes simulator. However, you still want the satisfaction of managing peons and their petty desires.

We’ve all been there. Hopefully, I can guide you through some of the best games similar to RimWorld that stand up on their own merits.

10. Kingdoms and Castles

It kinda looks like Minecraft, only there's a chance for everyone to die from mass starvation... that or dragons

Kingdoms and Castles by Lion Shield Studios is a medieval city simulation where you build up your town from a modest village into a sprawling kingdom and defend it from threats like raiders and dragons.

Like in RimWorld, starvation and exposure are very real threats, and you need to build infrastructure to keep your villagers alive.

Feed, clothe, and conscript them to defend your keep from raiders, dragons, and rival kingdoms.

Your goal as a ruler is to ensure your kingdom thrives and prospers and eventually rules over all the AI kingdoms.

Build up your industries to produce mass amounts of resources to support your defenses and offensive expeditions.

Play This If You Like...

• A medieval setting if you’re tired of RimWorld’s sci-fi flavor.
• Blockey, voxel graphics, and a simple art style.
• If you like colony simulators that focus less on micromanaging individual units and more on your whole settlement on a macro scale.

9. Banished

Banished almost rhymes with 'famished', which is a nice way to say hungry, which is a gentler word for what your settlers actually are: starving

As the name implies, Banished puts you in control over a village in exile. Unlike many colony simulators, Banished heavily uses generational systems as your villagers are born, grow up, work, and eventually die of old age (if they’re lucky, and spoiler alert: most aren’t).  

You need to keep your villagers safe from the harsh environment and produce enough resources to keep them warm and alive. Villagers can also specialize in various professions like farming, smithing, or fishing.  

The overall goal of Banished is simply to survive; there are no enemies (aside from Mother Nature) to fight. Build your village and optimize it to the best of your ability.  

Play This If You Like...

• Historical games with at least some degree of realism, no killer robots or anti-grain warheads here.
• A more peaceful experience where players can focus on logistics and city planning without worrying if one of your farmers is about to catch a bullet in their brain.
• Watching generations live and raise families before dying, educating and preparing them for the future.

8. Foundation

Despite being named 'Foundation', I doubt many of the buildings are up to code

Foundation is yet another medieval city-builder but stands apart from the rest thanks to its “organic” build style; no pre-set grids here.

It’s got a lot of the usual fare you’d come to expect from this genre but still has depth.  

Like RimWorld, Foundation shares the majority of colony-simulator staples like building infrastructure, producing foodstuffs, and arming your villagers against outside threats – you get the gist.

Outside those mechanics, Foundation diverges by being much larger in scope instead of focusing on a dozen or so colonists at a time.  

The goal of Foundation is to spread your urban sprawl as much as possible, elevate your civilization for the betterment of your villagers, and construct monuments to commemorate your rule.  

Play This If You Like...

• Fantasy/historical-based colony-simulators to scratch your itch for swords and sandals.
• Games that do away with the monotonous, cookie-cutter feel plaguing many city-builders, making your cities feel more dynamic and natural.
• Unlocking new technologies for your villagers to improve their standing and chances of survival better.
• Modularity in building, allowing for free-form control when constructing your town.

7. Frostpunk

Frostpunk is the name, cryo-steampunk is the game

Frostpunk is a steampunk take on the genre set in a frozen world still driven by coal and industrial-age technology.

Described as a “society survival” game, Frostpunk focuses more on societal attitudes and culture than most simulators, as you have to balance your government’s ideology against a cruel, inhospitable hellscape.  

Frostpunk is more similar to RimWorld in terms of its atmosphere than the actual mechanics.

While they share some basic features, they also share the same overwhelming sense of desperation.

Also, like RimWorld, Frostpunk emphasizes the moral positions of your settlement and the colonists therein.  

The fundamental goal of Frostpunk is to not freeze to death, which is easier said than done.

In addition, you have to progress through the tech tree while at the same time condemning your settlement to a particular type of government and all the implications that come with it.

Included are also several game scenarios with their own end objectives.  

Play This If You Like...

• Brutal, oppressive atmospheres that fit the mood of an apocalyptic environmental disaster.
• Steampunk aesthetics: cogs, gears, funny-looking goggles, and British accents; it’s all here.
• Unique survival mechanics that test your logistical capacity and ability to adapt to a variety of disasters.

6. Rise to Ruins

The path to ruin is paved with corpses and cute pixel graphics

Rise to Ruins is a fantasy colony simulator fused with tower defense elements where you play as an almighty god presiding over your devout followers.

Watch as they build what they can before being invaded by a familiar roster of monsters such as zombies, skeletons, and slimes.  

Like RimWorld, Rise to Ruins can be brutal and unforgiving; failure is often the best teacher.

Your village will be attacked near-nightly as you use the day to grow food, build shelter, secure water, construct defenses, and everything else you’d expect from colony simulators.  

The goal of Rise to Ruins is to eventually settle, secure, and civilize all the different maps on the overworld. 

Biomes range from peaceful meadows to harsh deserts and volcanic wastes.

Procure resources to keep colonists happy, build more powerful defense towers, and use your village’s faith to call upon powers such as summoning golems and meteors.  

Play This If You Like...

• Magic, fantasy, swords, and spells – you probably do anyway; there’s a reason so many colony simulators share the same setting.
• Tower defense games where you funnel enemies into chokepoints using walls and traps.
• Large-scale management where controlling individual units is not a priority.
• True god-like abilities not limited by the laws of physics.
• “Race against the clock” gameplay as you are constantly under threat of corruption, a vile force that breeds monsters to attack you as it engulfs the land.
• No technology tree; every building is available from the get-go – giving you the freedom to explore options at your leisure.
• Punishing gameplay where failure is to be expected.

5. Songs of Syx

Have you ever started a race war? No? Have you ever wanted to?

Taglined as a “city-state” simulator, Songs of Syx shares much with many of the fantasy titles on this list regarding its setting and the type of medieval technology available. 

However, is much, much bigger in scope. The world you generate is vast and full of different races, wildlife, threats, and simulated kingdoms like yours.  

It is one of the few games on this list that matches RimWorld in its building style in addition to the staple colony-simulation mechanics.

Instead of having pre-built blueprints, you shape the foundations yourself and then fill the room with the proper facilities.  

It’s conquer or be conquered. And like many historical examples, a prudent ruler will use cunning, treachery, and good ole’ brute force to ensure their state’s survival.

Establish deep logistical chains to keep your citizens fed and furnished, build industry to produce arms to defend yourself, and then set out to stake a claim on the rest of the world.  

Play This If You Like...

• Dynamic, living worlds that are alive in the background without your input make all games different.
• Watching your pitiful colony explode into a full-fledged state with the ability to influence the world around them.
• Large-scale logistics where you have hundreds or even thousands of subjects to provide for, making it feel like an actual city in more than name only.
• Big battles that can include up to 40,000 individual units fighting and dying in the name of conquest.
• Expanding beyond your initial area and exploring (and exploiting) the surrounding lands, feeding your city’s lust for resources.
• Deep societal mechanics, especially between races, it’s up to you to keep them happy and ease the tensions lest violence erupt.

4. Odd Realm

Ironically, Odd Realm is probably the most 'vanilla' game on this list

Set in a fantasy world procedurally generated by the player, Odd Realm has the player control a band of colonists as they aim to build a livable village while avoiding death due to hunger, exposure, and, of course, violence.  

It’s similar to RimWorld in that you start with only a handful of settlers.

They will have to hunt, fight, grow, dig, and kill to acquire resources and provide comforts for their new home while building up a town and recruiting more colonists.  

The main goal of Odd Realm is to take your fledgling hamlet from its humble beginnings and (hopefully) turn it into a self-sufficient settlement.

Exploit the area’s resources and build up what you can to prepare for pirate raids, dungeon spelunking, and other less peaceful endeavors.  

Play This If You Like...

• Procedurally generated maps so that no two playthroughs are alike.
• Smaller-scale gameplay that doesn’t focus on huge populations for a more involved game experience.
• Magic and fantasy trappings like dungeons, powerful gods, and the usual equipment accompanying them.
• Free-form building that lets you build your workshops, farms, houses, etc., in any way you see fit, as long as they contain the proper furniture – all completely customizable.
• Lots of personalization options and props for decoration.

3. Going Medieval

It's a post-apocalyptic world with crossbows, if someone adds zombies then we've got a hit series on our hands

Going Medieval has you rise from the ashes of a virulent 14th-century plague that killed 95% and rebuild society from the ground up.

Manage your resources, protect your colonists from the lawlessness of the post-apocalypse, and build up your kingdom against all hope.  

Going Medieval is one of the few colony management games that, like RimWorld, emphasizes your settlers’ mental state and emotions.

It also shares a similar atmosphere of desperate survival, as yours is a settlement constantly under siege by the violent forces of man and nature.  

The goal of Going Medieval is to survive in a barbaric post-apocalyptic world where raiders, cultists, and all manner of desperate rogues conspire to raze your village to the ground.

There are no laws, and there is no order – high walls make a good substitute.  

Play This If You Like...

• Fully customizable 3-D building where you have the freedom to build multi-story keeps and sprawling villages.
• A medieval setting with swords, bows, spears, and the usual technological limitations.
• Simulated colony emotions and mental states and observing the social interactions among your peons.
• Defending against raids and prefer the challenge and drama of a violent “post-calamity” age.
• Progressing through technology trees and unlocking new buildings to better stand up against the odds.

2. Space Haven

Note: 'Haven' is only a relative term; asphyxiating in space is only slightly better than certain annihilation on Earth

Set in the future, just as the Earth is plunged into annihilation, groups of survivors flee to space to eke out existence among the stars.

Build and customize functioning spaceships and stations, mine derelicts and asteroids for resources, manage your survivors’ needs, and try not to run out of oxygen.  

Space Haven shares RimWorld’s capacity to generate unique stories by giving the player a plethora of roles to play.

It’s up to you if you want to be a nomadic interstellar despot, a plucky band of heroes, or something in between.

You’ll also have to manage your survivors’ emotions and keep them sane before they jettison themselves out of the airlock.  

The goal of Space Haven is to make your way across space, gather resources, upgrade your ship, and survive as best as possible. Explore the cosmos and exploit what it has to offer while dealing with other remnants of humanity and hostile alien life.  

Play This If You Like...

• A science fiction setting with lots of futuristic technology not found in medieval settings, like indoor plumbing.
• Immersing yourself in roleplay and finding different ways to survive in the vastness of space, be they ethical or not.
• Fully customizing spaceships, including hulls, furniture, and weapons, on a tile-by-tile basis – all with practicality in mind.
• Managing life-support and simulated gas systems to design your ship to keep oxygen plenty and carbon dioxide low; no one wants to die writhing in agony a million miles away from Earth.
• Unique characters, each with their own simulated skills, health, mental states, and the ability to form relationships with their fellow crew.
• Ship-to-ship combat is where your crew man the very weapons you built and do their best to keep the ship together while under fire.

1. Dwarf Fortress

All the same wanton violence and substance abuse as RimWorld, only now with way more beards

Dwarf Fortress is the deepest simulation game ever made, period.

A procedurally generated fever dream of life, death, alcohol dependency, wanton violence, and greed, Dwarf Fortress encompasses all the deep survival mechanics of the colony-simulator genre.

It combines them with beautifully realized universes, each full of unique histories, civilizations, religions, legions… the list goes on.  

RimWorld, just like every game on this list, has pulled some sort of inspiration from Dwarf Fortress – one could argue that goes for the genre as a whole going forward.

And like RimWorld, your colony will be full of neurotic murderers with substance abuse problems.

Feed them, clothe them, watch them get themselves killed in hilarious, often tragically preventable ways.  

Dwarf Fortress is the perfect exercise in futility; it’s only a matter of when, not if, your society crumbles to ash – the goal is simply to prevent that for as long as possible.

Exploit the world and its resources, carve out dwellings for your dwarves, and raise industries to produce military equipment to defend themselves against this mad world.

And always remember that losing is fun!  

Play This If You Like...

• Procedurally generated worlds chocked full of unique histories, political figures, influential factions, religions, deities, societal norms, civilizations, and diplomatic tensions – just to name a few features.
• Fantasy settings full of monstrous creatures like goblins, kobolds, trolls, weregeckos, alligator men, and the deadly carp.
• A living, breathing world populated with people (and other entities) who have ideals, personalities, abilities, relationships, hopes, aspirations, fears, outlooks on the world, and everything that makes a person (and non-persons) a person.
• A brutal, unforgiving world where death lurks around every corner, be it from a bronze colossus trampling your fisherdwarves or an angry dwarf going on a murderous rampage because they couldn’t get a drink.
• Beards! Lots and lots of beards!
• Building massive structures as testaments to your civilization’s superiority – leaving your mark on a world full of stories like yours.
• Creating a culture from (sometimes) basically nothing and using the might of dwarven industry to forge deadly traps and weapons to slaughter your enemies with.
• Games made with love; Dwarf Fortress is 20 years in the making and the textbook definition of “passion project” – go ahead and download it already.

You may also be interested in:

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• [Top 20] Upcoming City Building Games 2023 And Beyond