While I will play almost anything, it’s the colony sim genre I call home. It’s my comfort genre, where I can relax and unwind by toiling away, building another underground mountain base in RimWorld, where I can make costly mistakes that lead to the demise of an entire community. Without further ado, these are the top seven colony sim games on the Steam Summer Sale that I recommend wholeheartedly!
Dwarf Fortress
- Title: Dwarf Fortress
- Developer: Bay 12 Games
- Sale Price: $25.49
- Steam
As perhaps one of the most complex colony sim games on the market today and continues to impress with regular content updates, Dwarf Fortress is what all others in the genre aspire to become. It offers depth, challenge, and untold stories.
Dwarf Fortress simulates an entire fantasy world, not just your small zone. As you progress deeper underground, growing your colony of dwarves, the world around you shifts and changes—occasionally for the worse. It’s alive! At times, the world will come to your doorstep, with necromancers, goblins, dragons, and all manner of beasts knocking on your front door. Sometimes, they want to dance and drink in your tavern. Other times, however, they want your gold.
RimWorld
- Title: RimWorld
- Developer: Ludeon Studios
- Sale Price: $27.99
- Steam
For the longest time, RimWorld didn’t go on sale. It was full price, and if you wanted to experience one of the most highly recommended colony sim games available, you had to pay. Well, I did on day one of Early Access. Years later, I have nearly 1,000 hours in the game, which is a testament to its replayability and unique, emergent gameplay.
In RimWorld, you control a small group of survivors who crash land on an unknown planet with little in the way of resources—food, medicine, weapons, etc. You must carve out an existence in an utterly hostile environment. The flora and fauna want to eat you, the raiders want to eat you, and fleshy gods are living underneath the ground below your feet. It’s unlike anything I’ve ever played.
They Are Billions
- Title: They Are Billions
- Developer: Numantian Games
- Sale Price: $20.99
- Steam
They Are Billions is a unique mixture of real-time strategy, colony sim, and survival game. You, as the last bastion of humanity, must build up a small settlement full of squishy human survivors as many thousands upon thousands of zombies encroach upon your safe zone. The undead plague spreads if they attack, and your survivors become zombies. It’s infectious—and I mean the gameplay, not the zombie virus.
If you don’t mind challenging gameplay, then the roguelike nature of They Are Billions will see you repeatedly running maps in the hopes of scoring a win. As you learn the game’s mechanics and strategy, you’ll push further out, clearing more of the map and expanding your borders. It’s so incredibly satisfying!
Related: 8 Games You Can Spend 100 Hours Playing
Oxygen Not Included
- Title: Oxygen Not Included
- Developer: Klei Entertainment
- Sale Price: $8.49
- Steam
At under $10, Oxygen Not Included is an absolute steal. It’s a colony sim and management game in which science plays a significant role in everyday life. You can’t just discover water and let your people drink. You must run pipes to said water, clean it, and ensure you have bathrooms available when your colonists drink too much. It’s complex in the most satisfying ways, especially once you figure out the mechanics.
That complexity often scares people away, however. I’ll tell you right now: the game picks up steam relatively quickly—if it’s your type of game. If not, you’ll bounce off its core gameplay hard. Oxygen Not Included tasks you with managing stress, thermodynamics, complex gas and liquid simulations, power grids, mood disorders, and so much more!
Space Haven
- Title: Space Haven
- Developer: Bugbyte
- Sale Price: $9.19
- Steam
Space Haven isn’t a game for everyone. It’s a bit crude, but it’s definitely still a work in progress, and as for the graphics, you’ll either love them or hate them. There’s very little in-between. But if you can look past its aesthetic style, the colony sim and space exploration game offers a ton of replayability as you explore the universe and encounter various events, like hostile pirates and AI.
If you’re the type of player who enjoys designing and building a custom base, Space Haven offers many possibilities. You’ll have total freedom to create a spaceship or space station with various hulls, doors, and interior components. Of course, you must supply your ship or station with oxygen, ideal temperature ranges, and power. It’s a balancing act that’s satisfying to the very end!
Cult of the Lamb
- Title: Cult of the Lamb
- Developer: Massive Monster
- Sale Price: $14.99
- Steam
If you spend time reading The Guide Hall, you know I’m an unapologetic fan of Cult of the Lamb. It’s one of the most entertaining, replayable, and aesthetically pleasing games in recent years. I return to my colony weekly on Steam Deck, and for this sale price, you’ll wind up with an untold number of hours after the first week. It’s worth every penny!
In Cult of the Lamb, you take on the role of a possessed lamb building a flock of woodland and more obscure animal creatures. They’ll worship you, listen to your every command, and sacrifice themselves to give you power. While not building your base, you’ll venture into various randomized dungeons with randomized equipment and powers to defeat enemies and bosses. It’s downright addicting!
Timberborn
- Title: Timberborn
- Developer: Mechanistry
- Sale Price: $19.99
- Steam
Admittedly, of the many colony sim games on this list, Timberborn is the one I have the fewest hours invested. It’s not because it’s a bad game, not whatsoever. In fact, it’s quite the opposite. It’s such an excitingly unique take on the colony sim genre, with fleshed-out water and drought mechanics, that I’d like to find the time to invest in a serious playthrough.
But for under $20, you can’t go wrong with picking up Timberborn on the Steam Summer Sale. It’s a well-regarded strategy and colony sim game that revolves around a settlement of beavers during the post-apocalypse. You’ll control the flow of water, your settlement’s expansion, and even terraforming!
The Guide Hall typically suffers from choice paralysis regarding the top colony sim games on the Steam Summer Sale. But we didn’t hesitate to recommend these seven games!