Rank 01About: Garry's Mod is a physics sandbox. There aren't any predefined aims or goals. We give you the tools and leave you to play.
- $9.99 (Price checked Oct 22)
- Deck Playable
- Indie
- 2006
Best Simulation games on Steam
- 50 games
- Simulation
- Mostly Positive+
- Updated Oct 22, 2026
Top 10
- Rank 01
Rank 02About: You've inherited your grandfather's old farm plot in Stardew Valley. Armed with hand-me-down tools and a few coins, you set out to begin your new life. Can you learn to live off the land and turn these overgrown fields into a thriving home?
- $14.99 (Price checked Oct 21)
- Deck Verified
- Indie
- 2016
Rank 03About: A dynamic soft-body physics vehicle simulator capable of doing just about anything.
- $24.99 (Price checked Oct 21)
- Deck Playable
- Simulation
- 2015
Rank 04About: From small-time dope pusher to kingpin - manufacture and distribute a range of drugs throughout the grungy city of Hyland Point. Expand your empire with properties, businesses, employees and more.
- $19.99 (Price checked Oct 21)
- Deck Playable
- Action
- 2025
Rank 05About: As the lone survivor of a passenger jet crash, you find yourself in a mysterious forest battling to stay alive against a society of cannibalistic mutants. Build, explore, survive in this terrifying first person survival horror simulator.
- $19.99 (Price checked Oct 21)
- Deck Playable
- Action
- 2018
Rank 06About: Shoot, stab, burn, poison, tear, vaporise, or crush ragdolls in a large open space.
- $9.99 (Price checked Oct 22)
- Deck Playable
- Action
- 2019
Rank 07About: Travel across Europe as king of the road, a trucker who delivers important cargo across impressive distances! With dozens of cities to explore, your endurance, skill and speed will all be pushed to their limits.
- $19.99 (Price checked Oct 22)
- Deck Verified
- Indie
- 2012
Rank 08About: Satisfactory is a first-person open-world factory building game with a dash of exploration and combat. Play alone or with friends, explore an alien planet, create multi-story factories, and enter conveyor belt heaven!
- $39.99 (Price checked Oct 21)
- Deck Verified
- Strategy
- 2024
Rank 09
Rank 10About: Factorio is a game about building and creating automated factories to produce items of increasing complexity, within an infinite 2D world. Use your imagination to design your factory, combine simple elements into ingenious structures, and finally protect it from the creatures who don't really like you.
- $35.00 (Price checked Oct 21)
- Deck Verified
- Strategy
- 2020
Ranked 11 to 50
Rank 11 
American Truck Simulator
About: Experience legendary American trucks and deliver various cargoes across sunny California, sandy Nevada, and the Grand Canyon State of Arizona. American Truck Simulator takes you on a journey through the breathtaking landscapes and widely recognized landmarks around the States.
Rank 12 
Totally Accurate Battle Simulator
About: Be the leader of wobblers from ancient lands, spooky places, and fantasy worlds. Watch them fight in simulations made with the wobbliest physics system ever created, make your own wobblers in the unit creator and send your army off to fight your friends in multiplayer.
Rank 13 
Don't Starve Together
About: Fight, Farm, Build and Explore Together in the standalone multiplayer expansion to the uncompromising wilderness survival game, Don't Starve.
Rank 14 
Kerbal Space Program
About: In Kerbal Space Program, take charge of the space program for the alien race known as the Kerbals. You have access to an array of parts to assemble fully-functional spacecraft that flies (or doesn’t) based on realistic aerodynamic and orbital physics.
Rank 15 
Teardown
About: Prepare the perfect heist in a fully destructible, simulated voxel world. Tear down walls with vehicles or use explosives to create your own shortcuts. Shape the environment to your advantage in the most creative ways you can imagine. Play solo or with up to 12 players in multiplayer.
Rank 16 
How to Fish
About: A 1-4 player physics based fishing simulator. While drinking and boating you suddenly crash into a small island. To work your way back home you have to learn How to Fish.
Rank 17 
Slime Rancher
About: Slime Rancher is the tale of Beatrix LeBeau, a plucky, young rancher who sets out for a life a thousand light years away from Earth on the ‘Far, Far Range’ where she tries her hand at making a living wrangling slimes.
Rank 18 
Cookie Clicker
About: An idle game about making cookies! Originally released in 2013 on the web, and actively developed since then. This is the official version for Steam.
Rank 19 
TCG Card Shop Simulator
About: Open your own local game store. Stock shelves with the latest booster packs, or crack them and collect the cards for yourself. Set your own prices, hire staff, host events, and expand your card shop.
Rank 20 
Blade and Sorcery
About: Blade & Sorcery is a built-for-VR medieval fantasy with full physics driven melee, ranged and magic combat. Become a powerful warrior, ranger or sorcerer and devastate your enemies.
Rank 21 
Oxygen Not Included
About: Oxygen Not Included is a space-colony simulation game. Deep inside an alien space rock your industrious crew will need to master science, overcome strange new lifeforms, and harness incredible space tech to survive, and possibly, thrive.
Rank 22 
DAVE THE DIVER
About: DAVE THE DIVER is a casual, singleplayer adventure RPG featuring deep-sea exploration and fishing during the day and sushi restaurant management at night. Join Dave and his quirky friends as they seek to uncover the secrets of the mysterious Blue Hole.
Rank 23 
Kenshi
About: A free-roaming squad based RPG. Focusing on open-ended sandbox gameplay features rather than a linear story. Be a trader, a thief, a rebel, a warlord, an adventurer, a farmer, a slave, or just food for the cannibals. Train your men up from puny victims to master warriors.
Rank 24 
Noita
About: Noita is a magical action roguelite set in a world where every pixel is physically simulated. Fight, explore, melt, burn, freeze and evaporate your way through the procedurally generated world using spells you've created yourself.
Rank 25 
FTL: Faster Than Light
About: This "spaceship simulation roguelike-like" allows you to take your ship and crew on an adventure through a randomly generated galaxy filled with glory and bitter defeat.
Rank 26 
CarX Drift Racing Online
About: CarX Drift Racing Online is your chance to immerse yourself in the real world of drifting. Get together with friends, tune your car and burn some tires!
Rank 27 
PowerWash Simulator
About: Release the Pressure with PowerWash Simulator! Wash away your worries with the soothing sounds of high-pressure water. Fire up your power washer and blast away every speck of dirt and grime you can find, all with the simple satisfaction of power-washing to a sparkling finish.
Rank 28 
Buckshot Roulette
About: Play Russian roulette with a 12-gauge shotgun. Four enter. One leaves. Roll the dice with your life. Good luck!
Rank 29 
Don't Starve
About: Don’t Starve is an uncompromising wilderness survival game full of science and magic. Enter a strange and unexplored world full of strange creatures, dangers, and surprises. Gather resources to craft items and structures that match your survival style.
Rank 30 
Tabletop Simulator
About: Tabletop Simulator is the only simulator where you can let your aggression out by flipping the table! There are no rules to follow: just you, a physics sandbox, and your friends. Make your own online board games or play the thousands of community created mods. Unlimited gaming possibilities!
Rank 31 
Human Fall Flat
About: Human Fall Flat is a hilarious, light-hearted platformer set in floating dreamscapes that can be played solo or with up to 8 players online. Free new levels keep its vibrant community rewarded.
Rank 32 
Your Only Move Is HUSTLE
About: Master your technique, execute flashy combos, and outsmart opponents across the world, frame-by-frame. Slow down the clock to fine-tune your fighting style in this innovative, turn-based combat simulator. Pulverize your friends and choreograph spectacular fight scenes. No training mode required.
Rank 33 
WorldBox - God Simulator
About: WorldBox is the ULTIMATE god simulator and sandbox game. A petri dish for your fantasy civilizations. Create your own world or destroy it using many powers. Watch civilizations grow, form kingdoms, colonize new lands, sail to far continents, wars to ignite, empires to fall and towns to burn!
Rank 34 
Barotrauma
About: Barotrauma is a 2D co-op submarine simulator – in space, with survival horror and RPG elements. Steer your submarine, complete missions, fight monsters, fix leaks, operate machinery, man the guns and craft items, and stay alert: danger in Barotrauma doesn’t announce itself!
Rank 35 
Brick Rigs
About: Build your own vehicles or download one of the more than 200,000 creations already uploaded to the Workshop and experience the dynamic driving and destruction physics of Brick Rigs!
Rank 36 
Abiotic Factor
About: Abiotic Factor is a survival crafting experience for 1-6 players set in the depths of an underground research facility. Caught between paranormal containment failure, a military crusade, and chaos from a dozen realms, the world’s greatest minds must survive against the universe’s biggest threats.
Rank 37 
Bongo Cat
About: Bongo cat needs your help. Bongo cat needz more hatz!!! Every time you press a key, Bongo cat will punch your taskbar. Type, click, play, work to collect more points. Which hats will you find?
Rank 38 
MiSide
About: Let's imagine that you have a game in which you care for a character. But could you imagine one day getting into that game yourself?
Rank 39 
Dyson Sphere Program
About: Build the most efficient intergalactic factory in space simulation strategy game Dyson Sphere Program! Harness the power of stars, collect resources, plan and design production lines and develop your interstellar factory from a small space workshop to a galaxy-wide industrial empire.
Rank 40 
Hot Dogs, Horseshoes & Hand Grenades
About: Do you like hot dogs? How about horseshoes? Hand grenades? (everyone likes hand grenades) Anyway, we've got all that, and guns. SO MANY GUNS. So if you like ordnance, meat, and far too many groan-worthy puns, this is the VR sandbox game for you.
Rank 41 
Besiege
About: Besiege is a physics building game about constructing medieval machines to annihilate armies, obliterate castles and overcome challenging obstacles. Conquer the campaign or skirmish with friends in Multiplayer!
Rank 42 
Timberborn
About: Humans are long gone. In a world struck by droughts and toxic waste, will your lumberpunk beavers do any better? A sandbox city-building game featuring ingenious animals, vertical architecture, water physics, and terraforming. Contains high amounts of wood.
Rank 43 
Slay the Princess — The Pristine Cut
About: You're here to slay the princess. Don't believe her lies.
Rank 44 
Fields of Mistria
About: Start your new life! Build the farm of your dreams as you discover a world brimming with possibilities. Magic, romance, and adventure all await you in this nostalgic farming / life sim RPG!
Rank 45 
HuniePop
About: HuniePop is a unique sim experience for PC, Mac and Linux. It's a gameplay first approach that's part dating sim, part puzzle game, with light RPG elements, a visual novel style of presentation, an abrasive western writing style and plenty of "plot".
Rank 46 
The Murder of Sonic the Hedgehog
About: Sonic the Hedgehog...was murdered!? Get to the bottom of the mystery in this brand-new adventure!
Rank 47 
Cruelty Squad
About: An immersive power fantasy simulator with tactical stealth elements set in a sewage infused garbage world
Rank 48 
Universe Sandbox
About: Create & destroy on an unimaginable scale with a realistic physics-based space simulator. Explore the beauty of our universe and the fragility of our planet. Use science to bend the laws of gravity, collide planets, boil away oceans, fire epic space lasers, and customize your universe.
Rank 49 
The Test
About: You will answer a series of questions that will reveal truths from deep within. These questions may make you uncomfortable, but with great knowledge comes great sacrifice. Can you make it all the way through The Test, and if you do, are you sure you want the answers you seek?
Rank 50 
Spiritfarer®: Farewell Edition
About: Spiritfarer® is a cozy management game about dying. As ferrymaster to the deceased, build a boat to explore the world, care for your spirit friends, and release them into the afterlife. The Spiritfarer Farewell Edition includes the heartwarming base game and three major content updates.
About this list
Browse 50+ Simulation games on Steam ranked daily by review consensus (2026). City-builders, management sims, vehicle sims, and life-sim games on Steam. Ranked by review score. Every pick has cleared a quality bar of Mostly Positive or better, based on Steam's public review counts with a minimum of 100 verdicts to rule out statistical noise — enough data to trust the signal, not so much that only blockbusters qualify. Ranking is by review score first, total review volume second, so an acclaimed 300-review title sits above a franchise entry at mediocre scores. Unlike Steam's storefront Simulation tab, which weights new releases, sponsored placements, and sales rank, imho.run ranks purely by review consensus — older beloved titles compete alongside this year's launches on equal footing. The list refreshes daily as new releases land and review counts settle; newly qualifying titles appear the morning after they cross the threshold. Simulation is really five sub-genres wearing one tag. Management and tycoon sims (city-builders, theme-park and business tycoons, colony and factory builders) reward planning and optimisation. Vehicle and machinery sims (truck, train, flight, farming, and driving) chase authenticity — real cockpits, real routes, real physics. Life and social sims (dating, parenting, small-town living) trade systems for character. Survival-management sims blend base-building with attrition, and sandbox sims hand you the toys with no win condition. This list spans all five, so the ranking surfaces the best-reviewed example of each rather than burying a beloved 400-review train sim under a big-budget city-builder.
Frequently asked
What's the best Simulation game on Steam right now?
The top of this list is whichever Simulation title has the strongest review score on Steam among games with enough reviews to trust the signal — at least 100 reviews at Mostly Positive or better. The order refreshes daily as new releases land and review counts settle, so the #1 slot moves with the catalogue rather than staying frozen on a franchise heavyweight.
Do these Simulation games run on Steam Deck?
Each tile shows the Steam Deck status when Valve has rated the game — Deck Verified means it runs out of the box with full controller support, Deck Playable means it works with some manual setup. To browse only Deck-friendly picks across every genre, the Steam Deck and Steam Deck Playable hubs filter to those titles.
How is this list different from Steam's "Simulation" tab?
Steam's storefront sorts Simulation by a mix of new releases, top sellers, and sponsored slots. This list ignores all of that — only review consensus and audience size decide ranking, so older quiet hits sit alongside this month's launches without paid placement pushing anything up the order.
How often is the Simulation list updated?
Once per day. New Simulation releases enter the candidate pool the day after they cross the review threshold; titles whose score drops below it fall off the same way. The catalogue imho.run reads from is refreshed daily by a scraper running over the public Steam Web and Store APIs.
What types of simulation games are on this list?
All of them: management and tycoon sims (city-builders, business and theme-park tycoons, colony/factory builders), vehicle and machinery sims (truck, train, flight, farming, driving), life and social sims, survival-management sims, and open-ended sandbox sims. The ranking mixes every sub-genre and lets review consensus decide the order, so a standout farming sim can outrank a mediocre city-builder.
What's the best management or tycoon sim on Steam?
The highest-rated management/tycoon titles on this list are whichever city-builders, colony sims, and business tycoons currently hold the strongest Steam review scores among games with at least 100 reviews. Because the order refreshes daily, the top management pick tracks live review consensus rather than franchise name recognition — filter your eye to the builder-style tiles to compare them directly.
Which simulation games are the most realistic?
Realism lives in the vehicle and machinery sims — flight, train, truck, and farming simulators built around authentic controls, real-world routes, and physics-driven handling. These sit alongside the lighter sandbox and life sims here; check each tile's review score and tags to tell a study-level simulator apart from a more arcade-leaning one.
Are there relaxing or beginner-friendly simulation games here?
Yes. Cozy life sims, farming sims, and low-pressure sandbox builders are well represented and tend to score highly on review consensus precisely because they're approachable. If you want the relaxed end of the genre rather than a hardcore study-sim, sort your attention to the life-sim and farming titles near the top of the list.
Want picks tuned to your own library? Sign in with Steam on the home page and imho.run will rank the catalog against everything you own.