With the one-two punch of Tropico 6 and then Anno 1800 launching over the last three weeks, plenty have noted that the city-building genre is currently enjoying a spate of urban renewal. Indeed, it s hard to keep up with current releases: as well as these giant games about colonising tropical islands, recent months have seen a string of small-studio hits – Foundation, Islanders, Factory Town and Soviet Republic, to name just a few. Then of course there was Dawn of Man. This neolithic gem from a two-man studio came out of nowhere – like Fred Flintstone climbing, shitfaced, through his window after nine hours at the Ape & Megalith – and ended up briefly conquering Steam.
We re entering an exciting time for games about deciding where to put things, and this is just the start of it: there are dozens of build em ups on the way, and for those of us who ve spent the last twenty years wistfully remembering Caesar III, the horizon is alight with promise.