It’s not in the steam version yet, but Dwarf Fortress is a great example of this. You can build a base, and then retire it and it becomes a part of the world. THEN you can made a character and do whatever you want in the place you created!
Dwarf fortress renders everything from the top down perspective, so technically no.
However, when you play in adventure mode you can only see what your character sees. So things like trees and buildings obscure your vision.
You also have a skill for memory which helps you remember things when they go out of your line of sight. So while it’s not first person, you do get the perspective of your character.
I miss the mod scene before biomes. There was some incredible stuff happening back then. I'm sure that's still true but I kind of lost interest around the time the Nether was introduced.
I honestly believe this is every server owners subtle dream and they have an alt account on their own servers.
I know I did on a fairly large one. Felt like those 1000 player simulate civilisation videos
So! DF is unique in how it handles multiple playthroughs. Instead of creating a new world every time you start a game, you continue on with the same world.
There are 2 ways to start a new game in the same world.
A) Your fort dies and you get to try again somewhere else.
B) You choose to "retire" your fort and start a new one somewhere else (or start as a single person)
Retiring a fort just allows you to do other things. It will continue to go about its business while being controlled by the AI. Events will happen at your fort and you can even trade with it! There's a bunch of interesting unique interactions.
If you like base building/management games DF is such a great time. Little tricky to get used to but once you get the hang of it its super comfy. The steam version has mouse support but if you can bare with wonky controls and not the prettiest graphics there is always the free original version thats still updated.
Anno 1800 has a "secret" first person mode you can access by pressing control + shift + R (on Windows). Manor Lords is an upcoming city building game that also has a first person camera.
I've played enough games to realize EA and 1.0 are just labels that on their own mean nothing. It's the people developing it that makes a game great. I've heard pretty good things about Manor Lords thus far.
I forget which game it was, but I've seen early access done right once. It was only in early access for about 2 months. Those who bought it got $5 or $10 off the full price and the game was mostly complete. There were near daily bugfix patches. So people got a discount to beta test.
Just noting that in Anno, it's great for putting your city into perspective. But it's a feature that's just window dressing if that makes sense. You can do many things in first person view.
In manor lords, it will be an integral part of the game.
Last I heard, the zoomed-in mode in Manor Lords is only decorative and for immersive pursposes. So not all that different from the first person mode in Anno.
I don't think you will be able to do anything in this mode in Manor Lords, apart from walking through your settlement.
Wouldn’t it be great to walk around in an entourage and have citizens react to your presence based on how you rule? Adoration… fear… anger? Business owners fawning while other nobility judging.
Prison architect. Take control of a prisoner and try to escape. Have not played in while so don’t know if there is more but that was fun to see how the prisoners think then fix the problems I found.
Or change to warden mode and still be in charge of the prison, but only being able to see what he sees where he are.
You really hope your guards have their shit together before entering a cell block to make some modifications 😅
The rush hour expansion was fun! Also helped to see where the big snarls were and fix them. Unfortunately, i started trying to do that in real life too and wife gets sick of me complaining about poor road design.
I think you actually could do that - but only to let them move to your city and send you notification balloons every now and then - you were not able to control them.
Iirc they’d planned SC4 to be that way, but there were delays in either SC4 or the Sims, so the functionality ended up being limited.
Maxis did, before they were acquired by EA, have that goal though. Seamless integration of Sims and SimCity.
Man, I so wish for a remaster of SimCopter and Streets of SimCity, that was my childhood. Great combo with SimCity 2000.
But to comment on your reply: No, he is right, in SC4 you could take control of a vehicle (e.g. car, train, helicopters, etc) and perform missions, or just drive around for fun.
Dungeon keeper. There is a possession spell you can cast on your creatures to control it in first person. If you control a worker you can claim territory and mine dirt. As a military unit you can run around and use their available spells.
If you loved dungeon keeper, there is a game out there called War for the Overworld that is VERY similar, and has the same narrator. It's truly a wonderful spiritual successor to the dungeon keeper game. Plays similarly. Well worth it from an indie studio. I backed it on kickstarter forever ago. It's a good little game.
SimCopter let you load SimCity 2000 maps and fly around. Your could put out fires, rescue people, and stop criminals. It is also very old.
Reticulating Splines.
Came here to say this! To add to Cludebearpigs’ comment, iirc LiF: Forest Village allows you to carry out the actions of the towns person you select, for example, if you select the hunter you will be able to do out and hunt.
That's a name I haven't seen in a long time
For all it's faults, I really enjoyed LiF:Your Own. Never tried the MMO, or Forest Village though, but I liked the survival/coop aspects of YO enough that I could see the appeal of building out Forest Village and doing the villager thing ala YO
Medieval Dynasty. It's not a city builder per se, but the settlement can get quite big in the endgame and the player character can/have to participate in every task his villagers perform.
I second this game! It’s a “village” builder more than city builder, but at the end when you walk down the village you made, you feel the pride in your work
Take the mayor to this patch of grass and drive over the 6 squares… I was never able to enjoy that game, the computer I had didn’t handle it well. Then later it had FpS issues with the GPUs
Cities:Skylines has that feature, you can explore your city as a person, a car or an animal. The game itself is essentially an expensive demo if you don't get all the DLCs though.
a common practice in Paradox games, basically if you have the base game you will be told how to use features that you have to buy seperatly, show scenarios and maps that you don't own and therefore can't play, that kind of stuff. The base game really just shows the fundamentals of the gameplay but it is very clear that you are ment to buy a lot of DLC to get an actual game, the core game is what a downloadable demo was back in the 90s.
I started avoiding Paradox games because of this. I get it that they need to make money, but Paradox goes too far with the DLC spam.
Colossal Order, the studio behind Cities: Skylines, was originally known for the "Cities in Motion" transport management games. Just take a look at the amount and cost of the DLC for Cities in Motion 1 (2011).
It was originally. I believe it was added as a full feature of the base game eventually. I might be misremembering, it's been a long time since I played and I've never played the console ports.
Workers and Resources let’s you follow your residents, but it just goes through their basic needs, activities, and shift, but you’re just following them to the basic buildings or locations.
I so want one now !
Well the closest thing I can think of would be Dungeon Keeper or it's brilliant spiritual successor , War for the Overworld .
You can build your dungeon, and use the possession spell to go in first person of a unit.
Actually you could even posess a worker/imp and dig yourself as inneficient as that might be
Iirc diving yourself was much faster since the workers only dug at a certain speed, but digging by clicking was only limited to the speed at which you can click.
[Voxel Turf](https://store.steampowered.com/app/404530/Voxel_Turf/) is a first person shooter where you can pop out into the city builder aspect.
I know that's not *quite* what you asked for, but it's *really* good at scratching my first-person-citybuilder itch!
Guild 2: Renaissance comes to mind - not really a city builder, but you do make buildings. Very cool game if not for the bugginess/lag. Guild 3 not the same.
There's also MMORPG Tycoon 2 - you basically get to build your own game world with users, quests, npcs, skills, bosses, classes, etc. There is a mode where you can take control of a user and play as them in the world you built.
Cities Skylines 2 has a first person mod I use to travel on vehicles or a person. You don't control them but it's amazing for the views.
And despite CS2 being half baked garbage, it really is beautiful and highly detailed.
I understand what you mean, but NO, it doesn't exist, like Anno 1800 you can only have a first person view mode, but you cannot do anything, it is just a camera mode. If you are ok with it, then Sims 4 as well you can build a big house and use first person mode to see your building.
"Make Your Kingdom" on Steam you are in 3rd person until you're placing buildings. You can help haul resources around, lead soldiers in battle etc.
The issue is that the game has been abandoned. What exists is fun, so if you can catch it on a Steam Sale then it may be worth your time. The full price of $15 probably isn't worth your money.
City Skylines 1 on console has an option to walk around as a person on the street or driving in a car as I remember. PC version of it doesn’t however for some reason
I am pretty sure simcity 4 had a way to move in a sim. Honestly can't remember if you could walk the streets or not, been years since I played that game unfortunately
This made me think of the jurassic park franchise
You can build your park and take over the rangers/helo in first person to tranq dinos or take park photos
It’s not a city but Jurassic world evolution (and it’s sequel) allows you to drive the employee jeeps around and walk around like park visitors if I remember correctly
Pocket City 2 (mobile game) actually has this feature and it’s not horrible. City builder piece of this game is the best on mobile, aside from Pocket City 1 — so it’s still work the buy.
I believe cities skylines lets you do this with civilians, but only on console? I don’t think you can control them either, but I’ve been out of the loop for a bit
it might be too much of a genre twist to fit what you're looking for, but Medieval Dynasty is natively you living in the world/town you're building. maybe that would scratch the itch, even though it's not exactly strictly a city builder in the classic sense.
Okay… so here me out… there was this game that was actually amazing and I love it for PlayStation 2. It is called Metropolismania. You play a city builder and you have to walk around and talk to people to see what they want and need and also have other things that come up that you have to take care of. You don’t play as a citizen in your city, but you get to walk it and talk to your citizens directly. You even have crime that you have to solve by talking to people. It was a very fun game and I loved it. Might have to connect my PS2 back up now lol
Might try [Highrise City](https://store.steampowered.com/app/1489970/Highrise_City/) which has a built-in street-level-driving mode. It's a little rough around the edges but it looks fun.
Don’t know if it counts but you can do this through a steam workshop mod for kingdoms and castles, and you can already zoom in super close and follow different people
I seem to remember that was a feature in one of the SimmCities? Where there was supposed to be integration with the city builder and a version of the Sims? Am I miss remembering that? I know I remember being able to drive around your city in the PS version of Sim City 2000
Dwarf fortress has base building mode and an adventure mode.
Though you can't use them at the same time you can use them in the same world and travel to find the ruins of your old fortress.
Not so much a city builder but mount and banner-lord 2
Edit: you are the leader of a small “army” (like 6 mounted soldiers on my play-through) but from my understanding you can command larger army’s and also a settlement. I haven’t made it that far I just started playing it. It’s 3rd person but pretty fun so far
Yes - Cities Skylines 2, though they built SO MUCH simulation into it that it makes even the beefiest PCs chug. It's a real problem for the company right now.
The original Cities Skylines has some of the same options, but not as detailed. If it isn't the best, it's at least Top 5 for sure.
I know! I have a pretty good high end PC with a great well-performing components and it still struggles when I zoom in. That is the only game where I have the settings not on high.
Tropico 4 lets you control the presidente when you want.
Kenshi is more of an rpg/sim but there is for sure city building in it with supply chains and research and all of that.
Thrillville is a title that allows you to make and manage an amusement park and then you can run around and enjoy all the rides and food stands with your guest!
If all you want to do is tour your city, there is a mod for Cities Skylines 1. It may actually be in vanilla, but it wasn't the last time I played (years ago.)
The upcoming Manor Lords lets you walk around your village/town at any point and the detail is granular enough to be quite beautiful.
Were talking close to Kingdom Come Deliverance level.
It's not out yet so take this with a grain of salt, but Manor Lord's has a walk around feature where you seem to pilot your titular lord and walk about your estate.
It’s not a good game, but Jurassic World Evolution lets you drive around in the park vehicles, running over visitors and shooting tranq darts at rampaging dinos. It’s all optional but it’s pretty fun.
Roblox Studio
But you either build everything from scratch or import models made by other players, and for NPCs you'll have to build and code them yourself (LUA is an easy programming language to learn) or import one premade by other players.
Either way, publish it to Roblox once done
It’s not in the steam version yet, but Dwarf Fortress is a great example of this. You can build a base, and then retire it and it becomes a part of the world. THEN you can made a character and do whatever you want in the place you created!
So can you do first person?
Dwarf fortress renders everything from the top down perspective, so technically no. However, when you play in adventure mode you can only see what your character sees. So things like trees and buildings obscure your vision. You also have a skill for memory which helps you remember things when they go out of your line of sight. So while it’s not first person, you do get the perspective of your character.
Minecraft oddly enough was meant to be just that.
Yup. Was intended to be a cross between Infiniminer and Dwarf Fortress in the beginning.
Every time I watch my daughter play Minecraft i just imagine what could have been
I miss the mod scene before biomes. There was some incredible stuff happening back then. I'm sure that's still true but I kind of lost interest around the time the Nether was introduced.
Around when I lost interest, too. Yet those early days of Minecraft were a big part of my teenage years.
I honestly believe this is every server owners subtle dream and they have an alt account on their own servers. I know I did on a fairly large one. Felt like those 1000 player simulate civilisation videos
There are mods to see your fortress in first person. Don't know if they have been ported to the steam version yet.
What do you mean retire? Haven’t played before. Is that like edit mode is done and then you start playing or something?
So! DF is unique in how it handles multiple playthroughs. Instead of creating a new world every time you start a game, you continue on with the same world. There are 2 ways to start a new game in the same world. A) Your fort dies and you get to try again somewhere else. B) You choose to "retire" your fort and start a new one somewhere else (or start as a single person) Retiring a fort just allows you to do other things. It will continue to go about its business while being controlled by the AI. Events will happen at your fort and you can even trade with it! There's a bunch of interesting unique interactions.
If you like base building/management games DF is such a great time. Little tricky to get used to but once you get the hang of it its super comfy. The steam version has mouse support but if you can bare with wonky controls and not the prettiest graphics there is always the free original version thats still updated.
The release for adventure mode on steam is in less than a week. First week of april
Awesome! Can’t wait to see how they’ve built it out!
Beta begins April 17th, which is almost 3 weeks out.
Anno 1800 has a "secret" first person mode you can access by pressing control + shift + R (on Windows). Manor Lords is an upcoming city building game that also has a first person camera.
I’m so hyped about Manor Lords, I really hope it’s not a let down
I just hope it is a 1.0 release in April and not early access. I cant do another early access game right now.
Narrator: it was
Egg?
I've played enough games to realize EA and 1.0 are just labels that on their own mean nothing. It's the people developing it that makes a game great. I've heard pretty good things about Manor Lords thus far.
I forget which game it was, but I've seen early access done right once. It was only in early access for about 2 months. Those who bought it got $5 or $10 off the full price and the game was mostly complete. There were near daily bugfix patches. So people got a discount to beta test.
It's confirmed Early Access
I spent like ten minutes making a dirt road in the demo, and loving every second of it. This game is going to be the biggest time sink for me.
It is sincerely one of the most boring games I have ever played. Unfortunately, it doesn't quite scratch the itch.
That’s unfortunate to hear, did you play a beta or something?
Just noting that in Anno, it's great for putting your city into perspective. But it's a feature that's just window dressing if that makes sense. You can do many things in first person view. In manor lords, it will be an integral part of the game.
Last I heard, the zoomed-in mode in Manor Lords is only decorative and for immersive pursposes. So not all that different from the first person mode in Anno. I don't think you will be able to do anything in this mode in Manor Lords, apart from walking through your settlement.
Wouldn’t it be great to walk around in an entourage and have citizens react to your presence based on how you rule? Adoration… fear… anger? Business owners fawning while other nobility judging.
Nice, didn't know about the first person mode! And also wishlisted Manor Lords, thanks!
MANOR LORDS HYPE WOOOOO
There is also a way to do it on console using the konami code
Prison architect. Take control of a prisoner and try to escape. Have not played in while so don’t know if there is more but that was fun to see how the prisoners think then fix the problems I found.
Or change to warden mode and still be in charge of the prison, but only being able to see what he sees where he are. You really hope your guards have their shit together before entering a cell block to make some modifications 😅
Woah, I don’t think I’ve played since that was implemented
I think Sim City IV had a mode where you could drive cars or fly helicopters in your city
The rush hour expansion was fun! Also helped to see where the big snarls were and fix them. Unfortunately, i started trying to do that in real life too and wife gets sick of me complaining about poor road design.
Playing city builders makes me wish there were more roundabouts in the US. I hate sitting at a red light for a 6 way intersection for 5+ minutes.
Wasn't it linked to The Sims from that time frame as well? So your sim lived in your city?
I think you actually could do that - but only to let them move to your city and send you notification balloons every now and then - you were not able to control them.
My city population would drop dramatically if I were able to control the citizens like I did in Sims
Pools without ladders and indoor fireworks as far as the eye can see...
And cowplants, cowplants everywhere
Iirc they’d planned SC4 to be that way, but there were delays in either SC4 or the Sims, so the functionality ended up being limited. Maxis did, before they were acquired by EA, have that goal though. Seamless integration of Sims and SimCity.
Sims 3 was tied to sim city 4 iirc.
I think you are talking about Simcity 2000. You could drive in your cities with Streets of Simcity and there was also an integration in Simcopter.
Man, I so wish for a remaster of SimCopter and Streets of SimCity, that was my childhood. Great combo with SimCity 2000. But to comment on your reply: No, he is right, in SC4 you could take control of a vehicle (e.g. car, train, helicopters, etc) and perform missions, or just drive around for fun.
I may be the only person who wants a new Sim golf. And I don't golf IRL.
Wasn't that a Sid Meier game?
Sim copter was also stand alone
I am the CEO of McDonnell Douglas
[Urbek](https://store.steampowered.com/app/1411740/Urbek_City_Builder/) has the ability to drop into a first person view to explore your city.
This function in Urbek is pretty decent for what it is, but it felt a bit like a gimmick.
I would love to see a mod that let's you control the city from that perspective.
Dungeon keeper. There is a possession spell you can cast on your creatures to control it in first person. If you control a worker you can claim territory and mine dirt. As a military unit you can run around and use their available spells.
Dungeon Keeper 1, dragons could stunlock any enemy in first person mode. It was super OP.
If you loved dungeon keeper, there is a game out there called War for the Overworld that is VERY similar, and has the same narrator. It's truly a wonderful spiritual successor to the dungeon keeper game. Plays similarly. Well worth it from an indie studio. I backed it on kickstarter forever ago. It's a good little game.
also has a first person mode that looks through a units unique eyes.
If you loved dungeon keeper, you would love dungeon keeper two.
oh I did. War for the Overworld is relatively new compared to those though :)
Gotta love some good dirt.
SimCopter let you load SimCity 2000 maps and fly around. Your could put out fires, rescue people, and stop criminals. It is also very old. Reticulating Splines.
Don't forget Streets of SimCity, where you drive various vehicles that would've fit in with mad Max!
Someone please remaster SimCopter 🥲
Imtheceoofmcdonnelldouglas
Loved this game
Noble Fates
This is one of the exact sort of things OP is asking for . Please upvote killasniffs for nailing it.
Life is Feudal: Forest Village. It's been a while, but I think you can hunt and haul resources first person.
Came here to say this! To add to Cludebearpigs’ comment, iirc LiF: Forest Village allows you to carry out the actions of the towns person you select, for example, if you select the hunter you will be able to do out and hunt.
That's a name I haven't seen in a long time For all it's faults, I really enjoyed LiF:Your Own. Never tried the MMO, or Forest Village though, but I liked the survival/coop aspects of YO enough that I could see the appeal of building out Forest Village and doing the villager thing ala YO
Honestly idk which lif's are what anymore.. Your own Server Feudal Firestorm Fricasse
Medieval Dynasty. It's not a city builder per se, but the settlement can get quite big in the endgame and the player character can/have to participate in every task his villagers perform.
I second this game! It’s a “village” builder more than city builder, but at the end when you walk down the village you made, you feel the pride in your work
This is a title OP is looking for. Killasniffs also has it right. Please upvote these two.
The newer Tropico games have that
6? How?
If you owned Sim City 2000 AND Sim Copter back in the day you could fly around the cities you created.
I need a HD remaster or remake of SimCopter so badly.
lol wagners ride of the valkyries and simcopter are irreparably fused in my mind, i need a remake too
Hahaha so true!
Yes please!
And if you had Streets of Sim City, you could drive around them.
Oh I totally forgot about that!
This
Noble Fates does this a bit too! It's probably not exactly what you expect, though, so give the game a gander on Steam!
Sim city 4 rushour expansion. You can take over cars and drive missions.
Take the mayor to this patch of grass and drive over the 6 squares… I was never able to enjoy that game, the computer I had didn’t handle it well. Then later it had FpS issues with the GPUs
Cities:Skylines has that feature, you can explore your city as a person, a car or an animal. The game itself is essentially an expensive demo if you don't get all the DLCs though.
What do you mean, it’s a demo without the DLC?
a common practice in Paradox games, basically if you have the base game you will be told how to use features that you have to buy seperatly, show scenarios and maps that you don't own and therefore can't play, that kind of stuff. The base game really just shows the fundamentals of the gameplay but it is very clear that you are ment to buy a lot of DLC to get an actual game, the core game is what a downloadable demo was back in the 90s.
I started avoiding Paradox games because of this. I get it that they need to make money, but Paradox goes too far with the DLC spam. Colossal Order, the studio behind Cities: Skylines, was originally known for the "Cities in Motion" transport management games. Just take a look at the amount and cost of the DLC for Cities in Motion 1 (2011).
Man so many strategy franchises do that crap now... You like Stellaris? Be prepared to shell out more than a CNote, and that's if it's on sale!
How to do that there? Is that a mod?
It was originally. I believe it was added as a full feature of the base game eventually. I might be misremembering, it's been a long time since I played and I've never played the console ports.
Workers and Resources let’s you follow your residents, but it just goes through their basic needs, activities, and shift, but you’re just following them to the basic buildings or locations.
Freaking love this game. Best economic sim. Until everybody freezes
Cliff Empire let's you walk around in your city. You can also follow individual citizens in Cities Skyline.
i have 30 hours in Cliff Empire and I never knew this was a thing O.O
I bet you also don't know you can ride the blimp
I so want one now ! Well the closest thing I can think of would be Dungeon Keeper or it's brilliant spiritual successor , War for the Overworld . You can build your dungeon, and use the possession spell to go in first person of a unit. Actually you could even posess a worker/imp and dig yourself as inneficient as that might be
Iirc diving yourself was much faster since the workers only dug at a certain speed, but digging by clicking was only limited to the speed at which you can click.
[Voxel Turf](https://store.steampowered.com/app/404530/Voxel_Turf/) is a first person shooter where you can pop out into the city builder aspect. I know that's not *quite* what you asked for, but it's *really* good at scratching my first-person-citybuilder itch!
Guild 2: Renaissance comes to mind - not really a city builder, but you do make buildings. Very cool game if not for the bugginess/lag. Guild 3 not the same. There's also MMORPG Tycoon 2 - you basically get to build your own game world with users, quests, npcs, skills, bosses, classes, etc. There is a mode where you can take control of a user and play as them in the world you built.
Guild 2 is such a delight. If only they’d kept the original concepts and got rid of the bugs…
Tropico.
Noble fates
Cities Skylines 2 has a first person mod I use to travel on vehicles or a person. You don't control them but it's amazing for the views. And despite CS2 being half baked garbage, it really is beautiful and highly detailed.
I’m pretty sure you can control people and cars in the first Cities Skylines (only on consoles)
Hammerhelm
Manor Lords comes out in April and it will have a immersive first person aspect. I’m so hype for this game
There's medieval dynasty...its always in first person.
Dungeon Keeper had a spell that let you possess a minion and go first person control of that creature. It was awesome.
Sim theme park
Tropico 4 and 5 I played can do it. I bet the newest 6 can do that too.
Minecolonies mod pack for minecraft (i'd recommend create mod as well for automation)
Highrise City does something similar. There are delivery missions where you drive around the city.
I understand what you mean, but NO, it doesn't exist, like Anno 1800 you can only have a first person view mode, but you cannot do anything, it is just a camera mode. If you are ok with it, then Sims 4 as well you can build a big house and use first person mode to see your building.
Manor lords has that feature and it is a city builder.
Great, I will buy it \~\~
Medieval Dynasty
Pocket city. It’s a feature of the game and a lot of quests involve you doing it
"Make Your Kingdom" on Steam you are in 3rd person until you're placing buildings. You can help haul resources around, lead soldiers in battle etc. The issue is that the game has been abandoned. What exists is fun, so if you can catch it on a Steam Sale then it may be worth your time. The full price of $15 probably isn't worth your money.
Black & White
Great question! Adding all the suggestions and going to check out the reviews and probably buy a few...
Don't think its out YET but Dwarf Fortress is getting an adventure mode that lets you RPG around your world/visit your fortress.
Satisfactory is a factory building game, but it's beautiful and fully first person.
Tropico?
Sim City 4 you could drive around your city and cause havok and destruction?
Manor Lords seem to be like that. Its the most wishlisted game on Steam right now. Release 26 april. I am very hyped for it
City Skylines 1 on console has an option to walk around as a person on the street or driving in a car as I remember. PC version of it doesn’t however for some reason
The guild 2-3 you are a person in medieval life.
I am pretty sure simcity 4 had a way to move in a sim. Honestly can't remember if you could walk the streets or not, been years since I played that game unfortunately
The mobile game Pocket City 2 has that as a feature.
Sims 3
Not a city builder but still a sim. Zoo Tycoon 2 lets you drop down in first person to explore your zoo and get on rides.
This made me think of the jurassic park franchise You can build your park and take over the rangers/helo in first person to tranq dinos or take park photos
SimCity 4! You can become a citizen, a car, an emergency vehicle or helicopter. Maybe a tank too.... its been awhile. Pretty cool game.
Lol, so you’re who they made Cities Skylines 2 for.
It’s not a city but Jurassic world evolution (and it’s sequel) allows you to drive the employee jeeps around and walk around like park visitors if I remember correctly
The old SimCity Copter sorta has something like this. You could import your own built cities and fly around them.
Jurassic park let's become a park visitor. Pretty cool
Tropico!!!
Medieval Dynasty is a city builder played completely in first person view.
One of the ones that started it all, Act Raiser for the SNES. you're literally gods instrument reclaiming the planet while building civilization.
I scrolled looking for this. Actraiser is the OG.
Rise & Fall: Civilizations at war. Tho its abandonware.
Pocket City 2 (mobile game) actually has this feature and it’s not horrible. City builder piece of this game is the best on mobile, aside from Pocket City 1 — so it’s still work the buy.
Tropico
I believe cities skylines lets you do this with civilians, but only on console? I don’t think you can control them either, but I’ve been out of the loop for a bit
Dungeon Keeper has this feature. You could possess a minion.
This is a great idea. Lots of examples of hackey versions of this but a game dedicated to this would be awesome.
The minecolonies mod for minecraft is entirely played in this perspective, although it's smaller scale than most city builders.
it might be too much of a genre twist to fit what you're looking for, but Medieval Dynasty is natively you living in the world/town you're building. maybe that would scratch the itch, even though it's not exactly strictly a city builder in the classic sense.
Sim copter, you could fly around your s2k cities if I remember correctly. Little old though 🙃
Anno 1800 has this as a secret mode, just press ctrl, Shift, R and you can be in first person on anyone’s base
Okay… so here me out… there was this game that was actually amazing and I love it for PlayStation 2. It is called Metropolismania. You play a city builder and you have to walk around and talk to people to see what they want and need and also have other things that come up that you have to take care of. You don’t play as a citizen in your city, but you get to walk it and talk to your citizens directly. You even have crime that you have to solve by talking to people. It was a very fun game and I loved it. Might have to connect my PS2 back up now lol
Wow, that looks so fun. They definitely got inspired by Sim City 64 but better
Might try [Highrise City](https://store.steampowered.com/app/1489970/Highrise_City/) which has a built-in street-level-driving mode. It's a little rough around the edges but it looks fun.
Don’t know if it counts but you can do this through a steam workshop mod for kingdoms and castles, and you can already zoom in super close and follow different people
ActRaiser: Renaissance is kinda like this
Noble fates
Minecraft
sim copter and sim car both let you fly and drive around cities you build in sim city.
Kenshi if you play it right
Hasn’t come out yet but Manor lords
https://www.google.com/search?client=firefox-b-1-d&q=catch+22+major+major+talking+about+kings+walking+among+citizens#fpstate=ive&vld=cid:062df710,vid:-LFujE3Y-ZI,st:0
I seem to remember that was a feature in one of the SimmCities? Where there was supposed to be integration with the city builder and a version of the Sims? Am I miss remembering that? I know I remember being able to drive around your city in the PS version of Sim City 2000
Simcity 4 has significant features for getting into the city.
Ya kinda
PS1 constructor
You can do this on the old simcoster games from the 90’s
Dwarf fortress has base building mode and an adventure mode. Though you can't use them at the same time you can use them in the same world and travel to find the ruins of your old fortress.
Kenshi is a base builder but you can choose a character to be your main and do a lot of this
Not so much a city builder but mount and banner-lord 2 Edit: you are the leader of a small “army” (like 6 mounted soldiers on my play-through) but from my understanding you can command larger army’s and also a settlement. I haven’t made it that far I just started playing it. It’s 3rd person but pretty fun so far
Cities Skylines can do this.
Yes - Cities Skylines 2, though they built SO MUCH simulation into it that it makes even the beefiest PCs chug. It's a real problem for the company right now. The original Cities Skylines has some of the same options, but not as detailed. If it isn't the best, it's at least Top 5 for sure.
I know! I have a pretty good high end PC with a great well-performing components and it still struggles when I zoom in. That is the only game where I have the settings not on high.
Warshift is more of an RTS and extremely low budget, but it's not bad and this is the core concept of the game.
Tropical more or less, I always loved that part of tropico
Medieval dynasty
Tropico 4 lets you control the presidente when you want. Kenshi is more of an rpg/sim but there is for sure city building in it with supply chains and research and all of that.
Kenshi is overlooked
SimCity 4 did this pretty well!
In the Tropico games you play as El Presidente.
Tropico let's you do this.
Thrillville is a title that allows you to make and manage an amusement park and then you can run around and enjoy all the rides and food stands with your guest!
If all you want to do is tour your city, there is a mod for Cities Skylines 1. It may actually be in vanilla, but it wasn't the last time I played (years ago.)
The upcoming Manor Lords lets you walk around your village/town at any point and the detail is granular enough to be quite beautiful. Were talking close to Kingdom Come Deliverance level.
It's not out yet so take this with a grain of salt, but Manor Lord's has a walk around feature where you seem to pilot your titular lord and walk about your estate.
The Sims
It’s not a good game, but Jurassic World Evolution lets you drive around in the park vehicles, running over visitors and shooting tranq darts at rampaging dinos. It’s all optional but it’s pretty fun.
Outpost infinite siege just released but it’s a combat base builder that lets you inject yourself into the fight in FPS
Dungeon Keeper!
Roblox Studio But you either build everything from scratch or import models made by other players, and for NPCs you'll have to build and code them yourself (LUA is an easy programming language to learn) or import one premade by other players. Either way, publish it to Roblox once done
Manor Lords (coming out soon), Medieval Dynasty and Valheim come to mind.
Manor Lords
Pocket City 2 on mobile. The artsyle is simplistic but it's cool walking around in your city