10 Incredible Games Like RimWorld

When it comes to taking in gaming today, one of the most commonly enjoyed genres is that of management. While many people used to play games as a form of high-energy escapism, with mostly shooters and action games on offer, today management games are very much in-vogue. There is something satisfying about trying to manage a city, a village, a colony, or anything else that you choose. That’s why we’ve seen a steady increase in the number of quality management games released in recent years.

Often light on graphical depth, management games tend to thrive best in a sprite-based nature. Why? Because it tends to allow for the best level of processing (the really important thing in a management game) to occur. It means that the game can have more complex AI, provide more features, and generally do more without losing performance. The arch-master of this particular kind of 2D management game, for many, is RimWorld.

In RimWorld, you start off crashed on a planet with next to nothing to work with. You have a group of randomly generated (or created) individuals who need to try and survive on the planet. You will need to make trade with foreign groups, and you’ll need to deal with everything from awful weather to being invaded by pirates, wild animals, and various other horrors. This is a big reason why so many people find it hard to play RimWorld; the management is constant!

Therefore, to help you get something like RimWorld but perhaps not as in-depth, we’ve put together a useful list of 10 games like RimWorld. Each of these games has their own charms and features, but all of them offer a good opportunity for you to find a game that is going to remind you of RimWorld for the right reasons.

10 Games Similar to RimWorld:

1. First Feudal

2. Surviving Mars

3. Prison Architect

4. Frostpunk

5. They Are Billions

6. Dwarf Fortress

7. King Under The Mountain

8. Civitatem

9. Oxygen Not Included

10. Starmancer

Definitely likely to attract a positive audience of RimWorld fans, First Feudal is all about creating your own RPG-style village. It’s deeply similar in terms of look and layout to the RimWorld that we all know and love, and it has plenty of exciting and engaging things to do in it. It’s about resource collection, peasant management, and army control. You’ll be basically developing a village whilst ensuring that you and your men are strong enough to handle the constant bandit raids coming your way.

It’s really as fun as it sounds, and you will be always juggling some kind of need or problem at home. That’s going to be very fun, but it’s also a massive challenge. Are you ready to be the Lord of your own little feudal village? Then try this out.

Surviving Mars – made by the experts behind the popular Tropico series – is a very enjoyable little game. It’s got plenty of enjoyable features, with the whole aim being that you are in charge of setting up the first colony on the planet Mars. It’s very tough, and just like RimWorld you don’t ever really get much time to just sit back and take in all of the good work that you have done until now. Mars is a hard place to live, and this means that you need to be ready to make tough decisions if you wish to make it here.

It’s fun, but it’s also a massive challenge; if you like a challenge, you’ll have fun here.

Similar in style and in design to RimWorld, Prison Architect is sure to be a fan-favourite for many people. It’s loaded with plenty of cool things to do, and the aim is to essentially build a high quality prison that will keep all of your inmates inside. You need to plan out the prison properly, and you need to build it so that there’s the right level of safety, security, and efficiency.

After you’ve built it, you can even run about in your own prison as an inmate – can you escape the prison that you have built? Prison Architect is easily among the most beloved management games of the recent era, and is definitely up there with the best 10 games like RimWorld.

Do you like your games to come with a gut-wrenching feeling of ‘Am I doing the right thing…’? Then you will love Frostpunk. Easily one of the best games made in recent years, it’s a colony management sim set in a world where basically the entire world is frozen, and temperatures are unbearable. You take on the role of a colony manager who is trying to handle the impact of this Ice Age beginning, creating conditions that can always be described as contentious.

For much of a Forstpunk save, you are trying to justify taking from one location to give to another. It’s about brutal, ethically divisive resource management. Who knew being in charge could make you so callous?

Probably one of the best games to play if you like high intensity management, They Are Billions is one of the most popular strategy releases in a long, long time. In this game, you are tasked with handling a world that has become wiped out thanks to a horrendous virus. It’s created a planet-full of monsters that you need to try and survive against, with only a handful of survivors left over.

Your job? To build a colony that can keep them all safe and avoid you all having to deal with a fight against the hordes. When the fights come, and they do come, you’ll be prepared for some truly amazing scenes!

If you have played RimWorld, you’ve likely at least heard of Dwarf Fortress. Adorable but dated, the Steam edition of the game makes it much more likely that you will be able to play it. It’s not out just yet, but it will be in the near future. Dwarf Fortress is presently playable in the adorably dated form that it has taken, though, so if you can put up with its almost ASCII like design then there is much fun to be had in DF.

It’s a very satisfying game, if among the hardest management sims ever made.

Similar to RimWorld and Dwarf Fortress in many ways, King Under The Mountain is well worth trying out for fans of the games listed above. It’s presently going through a big development process, and is likely to provide you with a classic mix between its two most obvious inspirations in RW and DF.

The detail looks beautiful, as does the overall quality of the features. It’s essentially going to be like RimWorld with a fantasy style design included. You’ll even be able o play as Orcs, which is always a nice touch in an era where we seem to always have to be either Dwarves or Humans.

Presently in early access, the adorable Civitatem is sure to grab the attention of many a games fan for numerous reasons. It looks fun, it has plenty of charisma about it, and it should easily be one of the most simple to play management games out of this lot. It’s got a lot of focus on seasonal play, which is very cool. You’ll also get a human avatar who is part of the town, so you can actually feel as if you are part of the enterprise instead of some guy/gal who lives in the clouds.

It’s quite generic looking, we have to be honest. However, it does have some cool ideas that should make it quite fun, and it should definitely scratch a RimWorld-inspired itch.

Ever wanted to run a mining operation that could be brutal and horrific? With Oxygen Not Included, now you can! Set on a clone-filled asteroid base, you have so much potential and opportunity to do things how you wish here.

This awesome game gives you all of the opportunities that you need to either run the first ever benevolent mining operation, or run the mining operation that you read about in history novels. It’s all about creating a very enjoyable experience that is going to really push your limits in terms of what you can achieve. You’ll have to get used to dealing with everything from temperature to water quality, making it a science-filled, exciting prospect.

Presently making solid progress in Early Access, Starmancer looks like it could be among the best space-based colony sim games going. You’ll be in charge of a spaceship, and you’ll essentially need to build and add to the ship as you go, taking in more people and dealing with pirates, invasions, illnesses, and everything else that we are used to handling when it comes to colony sims.

Starmancer looks absolutely adorable, with a very creative and engaging looking design and a really intriguing interface. More is sure to come from the game in the future, but from what we’ve seen and played in the limited demos available so far, it definitely has the feel of a quality RimWorld contender in time!

If you know of any other games like RimWorld that haven't been included on the list that you think are worth adding then please let us know in the comments section below and we will be sure to check them out and see if they are worth adding to the list.