Games like Banished
If Banished is your kind of game, the closest matches are Foundation, Prison Architect and Kingdoms and Castles — picked from the ranked list below. Reviewers single out its minimalist design feels timeless, mods extend longevity and contemplative. Each pick is ranked by what players of this game also play, shared genres and tags, and review-mined similarity — not a generic popularity list.
Get personalized picks →Banished is a strategy and simulation game released in 2014 by Shining Rock Software LLC, available for $19.99. The city-builder focuses on colony management with mechanics including resource management, population growth, seasonal cycles, storage systems, trade economy, and mod support. Players describe it as contemplative, cozy, peaceful, and relaxing. Reviewers highlight hooks such as its minimalist design that feels timeless, how mods extend the game's longevity, the absence of combat, and the organic feeling of watching villagers live and work. The game holds a 90 percent positive review score from over 25,000 Steam reviews and is playable on Steam Deck.
About Banished: In this city-building strategy game, you control a group of exiled travelers who decide to restart their lives in a new land. They have only the clothes on their backs and a cart filled with supplies from their homeland. The townspeople of Banished are your primary resource.
Players who liked Banished also play
Steam players who put hours into Banished also tend to own these titles — a signal called collaborative filtering. imho.run cross-references millions of library ownership patterns to surface games whose real audiences overlap, regardless of whether their genre tags match.
Foundation
WHY THIS
Shares a cozy mood with Banished.
Top pick for Banished fans by collaborative filtering across millions of Steam libraries. Shares Strategy and Indie with Banished.
Foundation is a grid-less, laidback medieval city-building game with a focus on organic development, monument construction and resource management.
Prison Architect
WHY THIS
Shares resource management with Banished.
Second-strongest match for Banished fans by collaborative filtering across millions of Steam libraries. Shares Strategy and Indie with Banished.
Only the world’s most ruthless Warden can contain the world’s most ruthless inmates. Design and develop your personalized penitentiary in Prison Architect.
Kingdoms and Castles
WHY THIS
Shares resource management and a cozy mood with Banished.
Third-strongest match for Banished fans by collaborative filtering across millions of Steam libraries. Shares Strategy and Indie with Banished.
Kingdoms and Castles is a city-building simulation game about growing a kingdom from a tiny hamlet to a sprawling city and imposing castle. Make trade agreements, alliance, and war with neighboring AI controlled kingdoms. Each villager and resource is individually simulated.
Life is Feudal: Forest Village
WHY THIS
Shares mod support and a relaxing mood with Banished.
Ranked #4 for Banished fans by collaborative filtering across millions of Steam libraries. Shares Strategy and Indie with Banished.
LiF:Forest Village is a city builder with survival aspects in a realistic harsh medieval world. Shape, build and expand your settlement, grow various food to prevent your villagers from avitaminosis and starvation. Possess them for additional micromanagement or simply to wander around.
RimWorld
WHY THIS
Shares mod support with Banished.
Ranked #5 for Banished fans by collaborative filtering across millions of Steam libraries. Shares Strategy and Indie with Banished.
A sci-fi colony sim driven by an intelligent AI storyteller. Generates stories by simulating psychology, ecology, gunplay, melee combat, climate, biomes, diplomacy, interpersonal relationships, art, medicine, trade, and more.
Endzone - A World Apart
WHY THIS
Shares resource management with Banished.
Ranked #6 for Banished fans by collaborative filtering across millions of Steam libraries. Shares Strategy and Indie with Banished.
Endzone is a post-apocalyptic survival city builder, where you start a new civilization with a group of people after an ecological disaster. Build them a new home and ensure their survival in a shattered world, threatened by constant radiation, toxic rain, sandstorms and droughts.
Cities: Skylines
WHY THIS
Shares mod support, resource management and a relaxing mood with Banished.
Ranked #7 for Banished fans by collaborative filtering across millions of Steam libraries. Shares Strategy and Simulation with Banished.
Cities: Skylines is a modern take on the classic city simulation. The game introduces new game play elements to realize the thrill and hardships of creating and maintaining a real city whilst expanding on some well-established tropes of the city building experience.
Frostpunk
WHY THIS
Shares resource management with Banished.
Ranked #8 for Banished fans by collaborative filtering across millions of Steam libraries. Shares Strategy and Simulation with Banished.
Frostpunk is the first society survival game. As the ruler of the last city on Earth, it is your duty to manage both its citizens and infrastructure. What decisions will you make to ensure your society's survival? What will you do when pushed to breaking point? Who will you become in the process?
Reviewers mention these as similar to Banished
Surfaced from review text: when other players write 'if you liked X, try Y', we catch the name and resolve it back to a Steam game.
RimWorld
WHY THIS
Shares mod support with Banished.
Reviewers of Banished cross-mention this title as a similar play. Shares Strategy and Indie with Banished.
A sci-fi colony sim driven by an intelligent AI storyteller. Generates stories by simulating psychology, ecology, gunplay, melee combat, climate, biomes, diplomacy, interpersonal relationships, art, medicine, trade, and more.
Frostpunk
WHY THIS
Shares resource management with Banished.
Reviewers of Banished cross-mention this title as a similar play. Shares Strategy and Simulation with Banished.
Frostpunk is the first society survival game. As the ruler of the last city on Earth, it is your duty to manage both its citizens and infrastructure. What decisions will you make to ensure your society's survival? What will you do when pushed to breaking point? Who will you become in the process?
Foundation
WHY THIS
Shares a cozy mood with Banished.
Reviewers of Banished cross-mention this title as a similar play. Shares Strategy and Indie with Banished.
Foundation is a grid-less, laidback medieval city-building game with a focus on organic development, monument construction and resource management.
Ostriv
WHY THIS
Shares a peaceful mood with Banished.
Reviewers of Banished cross-mention this title as a similar play. Shares Strategy and Indie with Banished.
Ostriv is a city-building game that puts you in a role of a governor of an 18th century Ukrainian town to challenge your creative skills and management abilities.
Endzone - A World Apart
WHY THIS
Shares resource management with Banished.
Reviewers of Banished cross-mention this title as a similar play. Shares Strategy and Indie with Banished.
Endzone is a post-apocalyptic survival city builder, where you start a new civilization with a group of people after an ecological disaster. Build them a new home and ensure their survival in a shattered world, threatened by constant radiation, toxic rain, sandstorms and droughts.
Surviving Mars
WHY THIS
Shares a relaxing mood with Banished.
Reviewers of Banished cross-mention this title as a similar play. Shares Strategy and Simulation with Banished.
There will be challenges to overcome. Execute your strategy and improve your colony’s chances of survival while unlocking the mysteries of this alien world. Are you ready? Mars is waiting for you.
Dawn of Man
WHY THIS
Shares population growth, resource management and a contemplative mood with Banished.
Reviewers of Banished cross-mention this title as a similar play. Shares Strategy and Indie with Banished.
Command a settlement of ancient humans, guide them through the ages in their struggle for survival. Hunt, gather, craft tools, fight, research new techs and face the challenges the environment will throw at you.
Life is Feudal: Forest Village
WHY THIS
Shares mod support and a relaxing mood with Banished.
Reviewers of Banished cross-mention this title as a similar play. Shares Strategy and Indie with Banished.
LiF:Forest Village is a city builder with survival aspects in a realistic harsh medieval world. Shape, build and expand your settlement, grow various food to prevent your villagers from avitaminosis and starvation. Possess them for additional micromanagement or simply to wander around.
Cheaper alternatives
Games in the same vein priced at least 40% below Banished at current Steam store prices.
Garry's Mod
WHY THIS
Priced ~75% under Banished on Steam right now. Shares Indie and Simulation with Banished.
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.
Lethal Company
WHY THIS
Priced ~50% under Banished on Steam right now. Shares Indie with Banished.
A co-op horror about scavenging at abandoned moons to sell scrap to the Company.
People Playground
WHY THIS
Priced ~50% under Banished on Steam right now. Shares Indie and Simulation with Banished.
Shoot, stab, burn, poison, tear, vaporise, or crush ragdolls in a large open space.
Vampire Survivors
WHY THIS
Priced ~75% under Banished on Steam right now. Shares Indie with Banished.
Mow down thousands of night creatures and survive until dawn! Vampire Survivors is a gothic horror casual game with rogue-lite elements, where your choices can allow you to quickly snowball against the hundreds of monsters that get thrown at you. Be the bullet hell!
PEAK
WHY THIS
Priced ~60% under Banished on Steam right now. Shares Indie with Banished.
PEAK is a co-op climbing game where the slightest mistake can spell your doom. Either solo or as a group of lost nature scouts, your only hope of rescue from a mysterious island is to scale the mountain at its center. Do you have what it takes to reach the PEAK?
Sid Meier's Civilization® V
WHY THIS
Priced ~63% under Banished on Steam right now. Shares Strategy with Banished.
Create, discover, and download new player-created maps, scenarios, interfaces, and more!
Free alternatives
Free-to-play games that recommended players of this title also tend to enjoy.
Ultimate Custom Night
WHY THIS
Free-to-play pick from the same recommendation pool — no purchase to try it. Shares Indie with Banished.
Welcome to the ultimate FNAF mashup, featuring 50 selectable characters and custom difficulties!
Bongo Cat
WHY THIS
Free-to-play pick from the same recommendation pool — no purchase to try it. Shares Indie and Simulation with Banished.
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?
Virtual Cottage
WHY THIS
Free-to-play pick from the same recommendation pool — no purchase to try it. Shares Indie and Simulation with Banished.
Virtual Cottage gives you a comfy place to rest and be productive without any distractions. Open the game, set yourself a goal and enjoy the atmosphere.
Steam Engine Simulator
WHY THIS
Free-to-play pick from the same recommendation pool — no purchase to try it. Shares Simulation with Banished.
The Steam Engine Simulator shown on AngeTheGreat's YouTube channel.
Iron Snout
WHY THIS
Free-to-play pick from the same recommendation pool — no purchase to try it. Shares Indie with Banished.
Iron Snout is a fast, colorful and brutal fighting game in which you will be helping a piglet fight for its life against hordes of wolves.
Magic Archery
WHY THIS
Free-to-play pick from the same recommendation pool — no purchase to try it. Shares Indie and Simulation with Banished.
Train a commoner to become the greatest archer in this short incremental game! Increase your stats, gather wealth from quests, buy upgrades, and infuse your arrows with magic.
The Lab
WHY THIS
Free-to-play pick from the same recommendation pool — no purchase to try it.
Welcome to The Lab, a compilation of Valve’s room-scale VR experiments set in a pocket universe within Aperture Science. Fix a robot, defend a castle, adopt a mechanical dog, and more. Still not sold? It’s free!
Floating Point
WHY THIS
Free-to-play pick from the same recommendation pool — no purchase to try it. Shares Indie with Banished.
Floating Point is a peaceful, free game about using a grappling hook to swing yourself gracefully through randomly generated spaces. The only objective is to collect points, and the only thing that increases your points is swinging swiftly, smoothly and elegantly without hitting anything.
Narrow it down
Head-to-head comparisons
Frequently asked about Banished
- Does Banished run on Steam Deck?
- Banished is rated Playable on Steam Deck — it runs, but expect some manual adjustments (control remapping, text size, or graphics settings) for the best experience.
- How much does Banished cost?
- Banished is listed on Steam at 19.99 USD (current store price; Steam sales may reduce this temporarily).
- What games are most similar to Banished?
- Based on Steam play patterns and shared genres/tags, the games most often recommended alongside Banished are Foundation, Prison Architect, Kingdoms and Castles.
- Who developed Banished?
- Banished was developed by Shining Rock Software LLC.
imho.run ranks Steam game alternatives using a mix of collaborative filtering (ALS / iALS / EASE / LightGCN), content scoring over genres, categories, Steam tags, developers, and publishers, plus AI-extracted vibes mined from review text. The page above is generated in seed mode anchored on Banished.
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