Tycoon games have an undeniable charm to them. Only in tycoon games can gamers bring out their inner businessman and bring their fantastical sandbox business dreams to life. There's a theme for every kind of gamer. Whether you want to be maximizing the efficiency of buses or the prices of hot dog stands in theme parks, there is a game up your alley.
Tycoon games are a staple of the gaming industry. So today, it is time to chart some of the best modern (and classic) tycoon games needing another visit. What makes a successful tycoon game? Their ability to get gamers to (capital?) venture deep into its mechanics. These games have a complex underlayer of economics and are engaging to the big-business master players and the casual gamer leaving players begging for "another hour to make a couple more dollars"
10 CLASSIC: Sim City 4 Is The Best Of The Landmark Series
With little doubt, Sim City 4 is one of the all-time greats of city tycoon games. What makes the game shine is its close attention to detail through various levels of city planning focus. Before players know it, they will find an expansive network of interconnected cities filling their screen.
Whether gamers wish to make a dystopian nightmare, a sprawling metropolitan, or even a small farm town all is possible in this classic of a game. Furthermore, who doesn't love destroying the city with aliens?
9 MODERN: Cities: Skylines Picked Up The SimCity Torch And Ran With It
Cities: Skylines succeeds in the same ways Sim City 4 does. With ever-expansive attention to detail and complex interworkings, your gorgeously rendered city will certainly be a sight to see.
The developers over at Colossal Order had plenty of time to refine their street planning and traffic in Cities at Motion 1 and 2. When they finally set their eyes on Cities: Skylines, they managed to find the sweet spot of all things a good city game needs. The game still regularly sees content updates and new DLC's meaning there'll always be something to do in your city.
8 CLASSIC: Rollercoaster Tycoon Caters To Many Different Play Styles & Skill Levels
Once the leader and pioneer in tycoon gaming, the Rollercoaster Tycoon series is held in great regard in the gaming community. For many, it was their first introduction to the time-consuming wonders of gaming and all the games can still be found on most modern consoles.
What makes the series so engaging is its flexibility to gamers. Whether gamers want to enter career mode and embrace its complex challenges or simply want to make coasters that crash into park guests, there is certainly something for everyone on its tracks.
7 MODERN: Planet Coaster Brings Theme Park Building Sims Into The Present (& Future)
If there is one game that can give Rollercoaster Tycoon a run for its money, it is Planet Coaster. Frontier Developments' Planet Coaster does everything its gaming predecessors did right and brings gorgeous and vibrant graphics and customization into the formula. With an intuitive building system and a large variety of rides and coasters, gamers will find themselves building theme parks hence thought impossible to previously create.
Furthermore, the game boasts a nice economic system leaving the manager in everyone toiling for hours about the best prices for Super Mega Throw Up-Coaster 2.
6 CLASSIC: Dungeon Keeper Gold Lets Players Be The Villain In A Dungeon Crawler
A more fantastical tycoon game, Dungeon Keeper makes gamers the villain of their very own dungeon crawler RPG. No longer are gamers the Dragonborn raiding dungeons. Rather, players are the ones keeping them out.
Dungeon Keeper gives fans control from a micro and macro level, allowing players to build in their complex interlocking dungeon or even get involved in some ground-level fighting of heroes. Whatever is more akin to their playstyle, Dungeon Keeper has more than enough content to keep gamers coming back even after over twenty years.
5 MODERN: Tropico 6 Is The Pinnacle Of The Long-Running Dictatorship Sim Franchise
Another devilishly evil game, Tropico 6 gives gamers the opportunity to be the dictator they always dreamed about being. On your island, its the job of players as El Presidente to benevolently (or not) maintain political relations, economic stability, and social change to keep themselves in power at all costs.
After six games in the main series (not including all the side ones), Tropico 6 is the most complete in its complexity and stunning graphics. As long as gamers don't let the power go to their heads, they will find a lot of joy out of this dictatorship tycoon.
4 CLASSIC: Zoo Tycoon 2 Remains The Gold Standard For Animal Park Sims
The Zoo Tycoon series has all the hallmarks of the Rollercoaster Tycoon games (and even a Planet Coaster spin-off to boot). However, instead of rollercoasters and vomit, gamers will find themselves managing adorable animals and their feces.
It's an exciting alternative for those not as into theme parks and would rather spend hours watching animals wander around (and sometimes escape) their park. That being said, Zoo Tycoon boasts a large management system and a dedicated community creating more mods and content for the game.
3 MODERN: Prison Architect Lets Players Decide What Kind Of Warden They Want To Be
Why lock animals up when you can lock people up instead? Prison Architect is undeniably one of the best indie games to have come out in the past decade. In it, you are tasked to be the warden of a high-security prison. In other words, you will have to have careful planning to build a prison that manages all the prisoner's needs, maintains security, and brings a decent profit in.
This is much easier said than done when would-be wardens have patrons begging to escape at any opportunity. However, with careful planning, gamers might be able to create a prison paradise nicer than their own homes, or an inescapable prison nightmare.
2 CLASSIC: Theme Hospital Brings A Darkly Funny Twist To Building Management Sims
The hospital is never a fun experience for anyone. Who wants to wait hours to see a doctor only for them to possibly tell you bad news? Yet, in Theme Hospital, there is more than enough hilarity and joy to encounter within its white (and occasionally bloody) halls.
The game succeeds not only because of its deep hospital management but also its wickedly dark sense of humor. If cheesy '90s pop-culture references and twisted humor are your thing, Theme Hospital is more than worth checking out as well as the other games in the Theme series.
1 MODERN: Two Point Hospital Takes Everything That Worked About Theme Hospital & Fixes Most Of What Didn't
Take all that works about Theme Hospital and bring it through the miracle of modern medicine (and 3D graphics) and you get Two Point Hospital. This game won't have you curing normal diseases, but rather, helping patients getting over everything from light-headedness to cubism.
Don't get too distracted laughing however as a complex system of doctors, patients, and staff with varying personalities await you. Create the most beautiful hospital or the scariest mental asylum of your dreams. To make a profit healing people, it will take careful decision-making of almost...surgical precision.