Awesome Engineering Games
A curated list of some of the best engineering games on PC. All titles are rated Very Positive or higher on Steam, unless they're newer games waiting for enough reviews.
Games are divided into broad categories based on the type(s) of engineering they're most related to, such as civil engineering & city-building, transportation & route-building, computer science & electrical engineering, etc. See the Table of Contents for a full breakdown of categories.
Feel free to suggest new games or update existing titles! For now, please create a new Issue (or Pull Request if you know how). Easier submissions and better instructions are coming soon.
Ratings & Tags Explained
- ❤️ = "Overwhelmingly Positive" overall reviews on Steam, meaning >= 95% of 500+ reviewers liked it.
- 👍 = Curator's Choice: Personal recommendations by the maintainers(s) of this list. This is a TOTALLY SUBJECTIVE "best of" for each category.
- ☁️ = Playable on GeForce Now. You can stream this game from the cloud without PC gaming hardware (no GPU required). Works in your browser and most OSes.
- 🛠️ = Playable but still in Early Access
- 👥 = Multiplayer co-op
- 🥊 = Multiplayer competitive / PvP
- 🎮 = Has full or partial controller support
- 🆓 = Free to play (possibly with in-app purchases)
- 🌱 = Newer game (less than ~1 year old and/or < ~100 reviews). These are included to give them exposure and early reviews. They stay on the list if they reach Very Positive.
All games (except the newer ones) have at least "Very Positive" overall reviews on Steam, meaning >= 80% of 50+ reviewers liked it.
Table of Contents
- Newly-released games
- Factory Management & Automation
- Vehicle Building
- City Builders & Civil Engineering
- Transportation & Route Management
- Survival & Settlement Builders, Colony Sims
- Open-World Survival Sandboxes
- Bridge-Building
- Rube Goldberg Machines
- Hacking, Computer Science, Logic & Automation
- Job Simulators & Unique Themes
- Narrative Storytelling Games
- Everything else
- Contributors & Credits
This Table of Contents was auto-generated by DocToc via toc-generator
Newly-released games
These are newer engineering games that were recently released on Steam and don't have enough reviews yet. They're included here to give them exposure and a chance to accrue reviews, up to about 100 reviews or about a year or so after release, whichever comes first. They'll stay on the list if they reach Very Positive in that time.
- August 8, 2023: Lambda Spellcrafting Academy in Hacking, Computer Science, Logic & Automation
Factory Management & Automation
These games emphasize the building of assembly lines that consume input resources in order to produce output goods, often with multiple chains of inputs to intermediary outputs.
Factory Building
This subcategory has games that involve building an actual factory, usually by manually mining resources first and then slowly adding automation.
Year | Title | Tags ? | Curator's Thoughts | Steam Description |
---|---|---|---|---|
2023 | Techtonica | 🛠️👥🎮 | Satisfactory underground with more emphasis on story | Techtonica is a first-person factory automation game set beneath the surface of an alien planet. Work alone or in co-op to build factories, gather resources, research new technologies, mold the destructible terrain, establish a base of operations, and uncover long-forgotten secrets. |
2023 | Desynced: Autonomous Colony Simulator | 🛠️☁️👥🥊🎮 | Desynced is a sci-fi strategy game with fully customizable units and behaviors. Gather, build, research, and explore the unknown. Alone or with friends, unveil the mystery of an AI on the edge of self-awareness and uncover the hidden truth in this blend of strategy, automation, and exploration. | |
2021 | Learning Factory | 🛠️ | Build and manage production systems to craft and sell goods to cats and finally achieve Catopia where all the systems are operating at peak efficiency. Machine Learning for sales, multi-layered generated maps, thoughtful complex gameplay, and a relaxing atmosphere are included. | |
2021 | Factory Town | 🎮 | Build, automate, and optimize a giant factory on 3D terrain using conveyor belts, trains, chutes, pipes, and airships. Sell your goods to nearby villages to expand their borders, increase happiness, and unlock even better technology! | |
2021 | Dyson Sphere Program | 🛠️❤️👍☁️ | Curator's Choice (arcataroger): Factorio in space, but with much better 3D graphics and the ability to expand across planets and solar systems. | 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. |
2020 | Satisfactory | 🛠️❤️☁️👥 | 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! | |
2019 | Space Engineers | ☁️👥🥊🎮 | Space Engineers is a sandbox game about engineering, construction, exploration and survival in space and on planets. Players build space ships, space stations, planetary outposts of various sizes and uses, pilot ships and travel through space to explore planets and gather resources to survive. | |
2019 | Mindustry | ❤️👥🥊 | An open-ended factory management game with RTS and tower defense elements. | |
2016 | Factorio | ❤️👍☁️👥🎮 | Curator's Choice (arcataroger): The game that popularized the genre after Minecraft mods pioneered it. Base game is incredibly deep, with lots to optimize. Mods add even more. | 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. |
Puzzle & Casual
These games distill the genre down to its core, stripping away the manual resource management and focusing on routing & automation.
Year | Title | Tags ? | Curator's Thoughts | Steam Description |
---|---|---|---|---|
2020 | shapez | ❤️👍 | Curator's Choice (arcataroger): A minimalist Factorio with an emphasis on conveyor belts. Free in-browser demo available at https://shapez.io/ | shapez is a game about building factories to automate the creation and processing of increasingly complex shapes across an infinitely expanding map. |
2019 | MOLEK-SYNTEZ | Use the MOLEK-SYNTEZ to create small molecules with various pharmacological effects from the comfort of your small Romanian apartment. | ||
2017 | Opus Magnum | ❤️👍☁️ | Curator's Choice (arcataroger): Another minimalist take on the genre, distilling it down into symbols and automated pickers, sorters, and movers on rails. | Opus Magnum is the latest open-ended puzzle game from Zachtronics, the creators of SpaceChem, Infinifactory, and SHENZHEN I/O. Design and build machines that assemble potions, poisons, and more using the alchemical engineer’s most advanced tool: the transmutation engine! |
2015 | Infinifactory | ❤️☁️ | Infinifactory is a sandbox puzzle game by Zachtronics, the creators of SpaceChem and Infiniminer. Build factories that assemble products for your alien overlords, and try not to die in the process. | |
2011 | SpaceChem | ❤️ | Zachtronics is back with an ambitious new design-based puzzle game. Take on the role of a Reactor Engineer working for SpaceChem, the leading chemical synthesizer for frontier colonies. Construct elaborate factories to transform raw materials into valuable chemical products! |
Vehicle Building
These games let you create your own vehicle (whether a car, ship, aircraft, or otherwise) from parts and then simulate its driving behaviors. Some have combat, while others are peaceful.
Year | Title | Tags ? | Curator's Thoughts | Steam Description |
---|---|---|---|---|
2023 | The Last Starship | he Last Starship is a space ship construction game, currently in Alpha. Pick a ship hull, kit her out with engines, life-support, sensors and railguns and start your galactic adventure. Expect free updates every 6 weeks as we flesh out our vision for the game. | ||
2023 | Mars First Logistics | 🛠️❤️👥🎮 | Build physically simulated rovers and transport awkwardly shaped cargo across the surface of Mars. Earn funds, unlock new parts, and use your ingenuity to help the martians establish a new home. Playable solo or in online co-op! | |
2023 | Juno: New Origins | 🎮 | Bring to life anything you can imagine from rockets and airplanes to cars and more. Automate them with a visual programming language. Explore 3D planets and make your own. Share your creations online. Complete contracts, conquer milestones, and unlock technology in the newly added Career Mode. | |
2023 | Brick Rigs | ☁️🥊🎮 | 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! | |
2022 | NEBULOUS: Fleet Command | 🛠️👥🥊 | Take command of your hand-tailored fleet of space warships and use realistic radar, electronic warfare, advanced movement controls in 3D space, and precision targeting to outmaneuver and outwit your opponents in a simulation-heavy tactical space game like no other. | |
2022 | RoboCo | 👍🛠️ | Curator's Choice (gene-h): It has one of the best mechanism simulators I've seen in a game with all sorts of gears, differentials, slider joints, springs etc. I've found it handy for virtually prototyping, you can mock up and test machine concepts much faster than CAD software. | RoboCo is a sandbox game about designing and building robots to serve the needs of squishy, hapless humans in the world of tomorrow! |
2021 | HighFleet | Building sideways 2D armed ships in a dusty, future/soviet theme | Battle for survival in the skies of a mysterious future Earth in this unique action-strategy game mixing arcade combat, exploration, management and diplomacy. As giant flying ships wage spectacular aerial warfare, a prophecy tells of one who will save the world – could it be you? | |
2021 | Sprocket | 🛠️ | Carefully balance mobility, firepower and armour in a dedicated tank designer. Then uncarefully put them to the test in a series of combat scenarios progressing through the ages of the tank. Here, your limit is what you can fit inside your hull and turret while still being able to move forwards. | |
2021 | Main Assembly | ☁️👥🥊🎮 | You’re the designer, engineer and architect if you can imagine it you can create it! Construct robots of any shape or size from eight-legged spider bots to eerie UFO contraptions. | |
2020 | Stormworks: Build and Rescue | ☁️👥🥊🎮 | Join a world where you design, create and pilot your own air sea rescue service. Release your inner hero as you battle fierce storms out at sea to rescue those in need. | |
2020 | From the Depths | 👥🥊🎮 |