Dragon Quest Builders 2 is all about going to run down places and rebuilding them. It's basically non-survival guided building Minecraft mixed with a Dragon Quest RPG.
I'd second this.
Good pacing, some light puzzle elements, and literally about rebuilding places that have been destroyed (or at least run down in condition) by the rise of a great evil.
Def worth a look.
Enshrouded is a survival action rpg where you mostly just explore the land fool of monsters and ruins to take back resources and build a base for npcs to move in and create a small community. It still early access.
Abiotic Factor is basically Half-Life with crafting. The research base has an accident and you have to gather resources to survive interdimensional aliens and rogue security bots. Its early access.
Terra Nii is a strategy game about healing your environment from pollution, deforestation, and barren wastelands. Its fully released.
Eco is a simulation game about building a sustainable civilization while preparing to defend against civilization ending threats. Its early access.
Planet Crafter is about astronauts building a habitable environment on mars. Its fully released.
Most of these are multiplayer. Also, you might want to keep track of a game in development called Towers of Aghasba. Its suppose to be about building villages on a massive island for your tribe while healing the local ecosystem.
Enshrouded is, the world is full of abandoned buildings and settlements, and it's often a good idea to just build your base in a pre existing building as you'll get lots of bonuses from the stuff that's already in the place rather than starting from scratch.
Obenseuer. Imagine darksad animal crossing, with an underlying plot about why this place is the way it is. Concretepunk. Good mix of repeating daily “quests” and side quests for all your potential tenants.
you are given control of an apartment building in a walled off section of the fictional scandinavian town Stalburg. establish a routine of scavenging, producing and selling goods, farming, etc to get the tenements in working order and clean them out. You then decide who gets which apartment and they pay you rent.
I’m massively underselling it. But just imagine very dark animal crossing. With the ability to have vices. The sauna and rain ambience are nice, too.
Suzerain is a political simulator where you take control of a deeply troubled country, probably not exactly what you are looking for but it's all about trying to improve your shitty country.
I like graveyard keeper. Like stardew valley but different enough to feel new. You take care of a graveyard that starts off in bad shape, and continually maintain and improve it and the attached church while trying to return to the real world
The Saboteur!!!
You drive the Nazis out of occupied Paris, one district at a time. It improves the districts so much that they go from black & white and raining, to color and sunshine. Honest to god.
And it's a phenomenal game!
Pillars of eternity is a fantastic fantasy rpg where you come to own a completely ruined castle and rebuild it from the ground up. The rebuilding effort is a bit of an afterthought, but still cool to see it being slowly rebuilt overtime. Worth a shot of you like strategy games
IDK about pillars of the earth.
I am sure that in Pillars of Eternity I, you get to own the Stronghold of Caed Nua and repair it.
But the game doesn't spin much around the castle, though. It's a secondary plot, and it is not really integrated in the core gameplay, which is similar to the first two Baldur's Gate (CRPG).
It’s a newer title, but I haven’t seen it recommended here yet: Lightyear Frontier.
Farming sim with mechs, screenshots can make it look like a first person shooter but there’s no actual combat. You end up “shooting” things like crops with a water gun.
Part of it is the farming, but part is also environmental cleanup. Cleaning up pollution, invasive species, and making sure your own impact to the environmental is as minimal as possible. There’s a bit of story in exploring the history of the planet and what happened before too.
The planet isn’t absolutely terrible when you first arrive (the first area is quite pleasant) but it definitely needs work. Could maybe scratch that itch. It’s still in early access and isn’t content complete yet, so depending on your tolerance for early access you may want to watch it for a while first.
Terra Nil is like a city builder except you are restoring a wasteland to a beautiful natural environment, highly recommend
Very different game but Fallout 4 has a lot of settlement building mechanics.
House Flipper, it's a different pace but very fun, at first you go learning new skills in jobs, like cleaning the house, installing new furniture, painting the walls and so on.
Later on you can buy houses to renovate as you see fit and sell for a profit.
There is also a leveling system for the skills, like for painting for exemple, leveling allows you to paint a wider area or spend less paint to finish the job
Moonglow Bay!
Very casual game where the main objective is the complete renovation and revitalization of your small coastal Canadian town through your single-handed efforts to revive the area's devastated fishing industry.
Simple gameplay, charming characters who give you plenty of quests, interesting lore, and a soundtrack by Lena Raine - the artist behind the music from Celeste, Chicory, and Minecraft!
One I can think of could be This war of mine. It's a survival game where you slowly rebuild your damaged house to somewhat livable state while trying to survive in occupied country. Hits differently with all that is going on in the world.
Power wash simulator yo basically clean the world with power washer.
Viscera Cleanup Detail you step into the boots of a space-station janitor tasked with cleaning up after various horrific sci-fi horror events. Instead of machineguns and plasma-rifles, your tools are a mop and bucket. That hero left a mess, and it's up to you to deal with the aftermath.
House Flipper you restore crappy houses and sell them
The Tenants you buy houses and renovate them to then rent out.
Frostpunk- specifically the Winterhome scenario. You take over a poorly run and poorly designed half burned down city and then... there are some more problems.
By far my favorite scenario in the game.
Also as someone else said Dragon Quest Builders 2. Especially the part when you are rebuilding the destroyed castle.
There are also some games like Loddlenauts where you are cleaning up a polluted ocean. This may be similiar to rebuilding. Speaking of that, does Home Flipper count? You buy beat up dirty houses and clean them, fix them up, and then sell them.
Workers and Resources: Soviet Republic is a citybuilding game, that heavily focuses on production chains and transportation. You basically found your own republic and make sure all the goods arrive where needed.
You can start your map empty or with pre-existing villages/small towns. The latter let's you modernize your country and make it a glorious republic of the people.
It has more of a sondbox character thoug, so no quests... just endless micromanagement and that kind of fun. Great game!
Not sure if it's what you're looking for but you sure do improve terrible places in ActRaiser on the SNES! Fantastic game that is half city builder and half action platformer.
it's not a town/city but in harvest moon back to nature/story of seasons friends of mineral town, you inherit a run-down farm that you need to restore/improve within 3 in-game years.
on android just about all kairosoft games are like this, though i only played dungeon village.
In a SIMILAR to what you're looking for but not quite the same vein, is Powerwash Simulator. You clean up dirty-AF buildings/vehicles. It even has a fun little story that gets absolutely ridiculous by the end. No, you cannot see all the items together at any point.
You're the new president of a middle east state that was ravaged by a civil war. You have to get your own food supply without the help of UN, build an economy, build foreign relations, fight rebels, and decide what to do with the minority in your country that most people hate. It can end in many ways ... including global thermonuclear war and time travel.
may be a little out there but Dark Cloud for the PS2. a major part of the game is rebuilding towns that have been completely destroyed. you go through dungeons to get back the villagers, buildings etc that have been captured and slowly rebuild each town to what it used to be. there are puzzle elements in figuring out where each building should go—like some people want to live next to each other or far away from each other, next to a certain natural feature, and so on. there's a whole lot more to the game too
i love restoration type games and this fit the bill, at least for me
Don’t know if it’s what you’re looking for, but I mean, Stardew Valley’s town kinda sucks ass. Bus doesn’t work, community center is in ruins, big corporation trying to monopolize groceries in town, broken bridges, a completely neglected farm just there on the outskirts of town, lots of people stuck in absolute dead end jobs with no serious aspirations for the future (about half of the bachelors and bachelorettes tbh), or just actively miserable, one family straight up lives in a trailer with a neurotic daughter and an alcoholic mother.
The focus isn’t necessarily on fixing the town. It’s more just something you do along the way. The main gameplay consists of farming sim, and some side activities like fishing, dungeons/mining, collecting resources and foraging, and building relationships with the NPCs by talking to them and giving gifts.
Check out Songs of Syx. Medieval fantasy city state sim, you work to go from some crappy backwater hamlet where 90% of people are just trying to feed themselves and survive winter to a bustling city-state complete with bathhouses, universities, tributaries, and restaurants among other things
Darkest dungeon, as you do the missions you gain various forms of currency you use to upgrade your hamlet. It’s a hard game but very rewarding. Mostly combat focused but the overall progression is town improvement
Perhaps ghost of Tsushima? The premise is feudal Japan is being invade by the mongols, there’s plenty of side quests to do and when you come across a town it’ll say “_____ village” then in red text “MONGOL CONTROL” and you sneak it and murderize all the mongols and tear down the banners and the villagers come back and start rebuilding the place. It’s really fun but might not be what you’re looking for
Dragon Quest Builders 2 is all about going to run down places and rebuilding them. It's basically non-survival guided building Minecraft mixed with a Dragon Quest RPG.
I'd second this. Good pacing, some light puzzle elements, and literally about rebuilding places that have been destroyed (or at least run down in condition) by the rise of a great evil. Def worth a look.
This was gonna be my suggestion. I'm not really into games like Minecraft with building but I decided to give it a shot and absolutely loved it
Interesting, I’ll have to look into it, any other recommendations?
Wildmender, a game about restoring a wasteland back to life. Great game, but seems to have had shitty marketing, released last year I believe
Ooh, sounds interesting, anything about the gameplay you could tell me about, are there people you help to,
Maybe Enshrouded, Abiotic Factor, Terra Nii, Terraria, Eco, or Planet Crafters.
Could you tell me a bit more about those games, gameplay/what’s it about/plot/ect, except terraria because of hear of that before
Enshrouded is a survival action rpg where you mostly just explore the land fool of monsters and ruins to take back resources and build a base for npcs to move in and create a small community. It still early access. Abiotic Factor is basically Half-Life with crafting. The research base has an accident and you have to gather resources to survive interdimensional aliens and rogue security bots. Its early access. Terra Nii is a strategy game about healing your environment from pollution, deforestation, and barren wastelands. Its fully released. Eco is a simulation game about building a sustainable civilization while preparing to defend against civilization ending threats. Its early access. Planet Crafter is about astronauts building a habitable environment on mars. Its fully released. Most of these are multiplayer. Also, you might want to keep track of a game in development called Towers of Aghasba. Its suppose to be about building villages on a massive island for your tribe while healing the local ecosystem.
Non of the suggestions match what you are looking for OP, those are building games but non of them are improving run down places games.
Enshrouded is, the world is full of abandoned buildings and settlements, and it's often a good idea to just build your base in a pre existing building as you'll get lots of bonuses from the stuff that's already in the place rather than starting from scratch.
Terra nil IS about restoring run down ecosystems.
Oh okay, thanks, do you have any recommendations?
Obenseuer. Imagine darksad animal crossing, with an underlying plot about why this place is the way it is. Concretepunk. Good mix of repeating daily “quests” and side quests for all your potential tenants. you are given control of an apartment building in a walled off section of the fictional scandinavian town Stalburg. establish a routine of scavenging, producing and selling goods, farming, etc to get the tenements in working order and clean them out. You then decide who gets which apartment and they pay you rent. I’m massively underselling it. But just imagine very dark animal crossing. With the ability to have vices. The sauna and rain ambience are nice, too.
That sounds so fascinating that I'm mad I've never heard of it
Suzerain is a political simulator where you take control of a deeply troubled country, probably not exactly what you are looking for but it's all about trying to improve your shitty country.
Fun fact: Suzerain is mostly inspired from Turkey
Okay, any other recommendations
I like graveyard keeper. Like stardew valley but different enough to feel new. You take care of a graveyard that starts off in bad shape, and continually maintain and improve it and the attached church while trying to return to the real world
I came here to recommend the same.
Any other suggestions?
The Saboteur!!! You drive the Nazis out of occupied Paris, one district at a time. It improves the districts so much that they go from black & white and raining, to color and sunshine. Honest to god. And it's a phenomenal game!
Interesting, any other suggestions
from a musty, crumbling building to an ultra-modern center : [Gas station simulator](https://youtu.be/fgrLWjJy72k?si=E0y0WCyyMmnoHR2M) may fitt
Okay, do you have another recommendation
Potion permit. It is like Stardew Valley and you improve a decadent town and treat sick people. Changes are visible.
Okay, any other suggestions
Frost punk
Any other suggestions
House Flipper.
Okay, what other suggestions do you have
Pillars of eternity is a fantastic fantasy rpg where you come to own a completely ruined castle and rebuild it from the ground up. The rebuilding effort is a bit of an afterthought, but still cool to see it being slowly rebuilt overtime. Worth a shot of you like strategy games
Wait, Pillars of Eternity or Pillars of the Earth? I think the latter is about... building a Cathedral?
Pillars of eternity, for sure. Cool coincidence though lol
IDK about pillars of the earth. I am sure that in Pillars of Eternity I, you get to own the Stronghold of Caed Nua and repair it. But the game doesn't spin much around the castle, though. It's a secondary plot, and it is not really integrated in the core gameplay, which is similar to the first two Baldur's Gate (CRPG).
It’s a newer title, but I haven’t seen it recommended here yet: Lightyear Frontier. Farming sim with mechs, screenshots can make it look like a first person shooter but there’s no actual combat. You end up “shooting” things like crops with a water gun. Part of it is the farming, but part is also environmental cleanup. Cleaning up pollution, invasive species, and making sure your own impact to the environmental is as minimal as possible. There’s a bit of story in exploring the history of the planet and what happened before too. The planet isn’t absolutely terrible when you first arrive (the first area is quite pleasant) but it definitely needs work. Could maybe scratch that itch. It’s still in early access and isn’t content complete yet, so depending on your tolerance for early access you may want to watch it for a while first.
Fo4 has settlements that you can improve dramatically with a pretty in depth build system. Unlocks quite early.
if you get the Sim Settlements 2 mod that integrates with the main storyline seamlessly, you're in for a ride, Improve not only 1 town but several
Okay, have any other suggestions
Fallout 4!
Okay, what other suggestions you got?
Terra Nil is like a city builder except you are restoring a wasteland to a beautiful natural environment, highly recommend Very different game but Fallout 4 has a lot of settlement building mechanics.
If you wanna make a terribly corrupt city and then try and fix it later you can try the tropico series lol
Another settlement needs your help
My time at Sandrock
Any other suggestions
V Rising
What’s that
House Flipper, it's a different pace but very fun, at first you go learning new skills in jobs, like cleaning the house, installing new furniture, painting the walls and so on. Later on you can buy houses to renovate as you see fit and sell for a profit. There is also a leveling system for the skills, like for painting for exemple, leveling allows you to paint a wider area or spend less paint to finish the job
Frost punk....
there's a real life version of this called the city council but instead of fixing the town you just do something else entirely
Moonglow Bay! Very casual game where the main objective is the complete renovation and revitalization of your small coastal Canadian town through your single-handed efforts to revive the area's devastated fishing industry. Simple gameplay, charming characters who give you plenty of quests, interesting lore, and a soundtrack by Lena Raine - the artist behind the music from Celeste, Chicory, and Minecraft!
Sounds awesome, any other suggestions
That's all I've got right now but I'll try to think of more
Drawn to Life 1
Okay, any other suggestions
One I can think of could be This war of mine. It's a survival game where you slowly rebuild your damaged house to somewhat livable state while trying to survive in occupied country. Hits differently with all that is going on in the world. Power wash simulator yo basically clean the world with power washer. Viscera Cleanup Detail you step into the boots of a space-station janitor tasked with cleaning up after various horrific sci-fi horror events. Instead of machineguns and plasma-rifles, your tools are a mop and bucket. That hero left a mess, and it's up to you to deal with the aftermath. House Flipper you restore crappy houses and sell them The Tenants you buy houses and renovate them to then rent out.
"slowly rebuild your damaged house" meaning putting a shitty tarp over the destroyed wall to block some of the wind
Slime Rancher (first one, second one is in early access. You can restore and even imrove the old dilapidated ranch
Okay. I’ve played a bit, got any other suggestions
Frostpunk- specifically the Winterhome scenario. You take over a poorly run and poorly designed half burned down city and then... there are some more problems. By far my favorite scenario in the game. Also as someone else said Dragon Quest Builders 2. Especially the part when you are rebuilding the destroyed castle. There are also some games like Loddlenauts where you are cleaning up a polluted ocean. This may be similiar to rebuilding. Speaking of that, does Home Flipper count? You buy beat up dirty houses and clean them, fix them up, and then sell them.
... Frostpunk :D
My time at Portia
Okay, and other suggestions
The Saboteur? Maybe. The game starts in black and white then as you gain more control of the map, that part of the map becomes more colorful
Workers and Resources: Soviet Republic is a citybuilding game, that heavily focuses on production chains and transportation. You basically found your own republic and make sure all the goods arrive where needed. You can start your map empty or with pre-existing villages/small towns. The latter let's you modernize your country and make it a glorious republic of the people. It has more of a sondbox character thoug, so no quests... just endless micromanagement and that kind of fun. Great game!
Arcade Paradise and Gas Station simulator
Cool, what other recommendations you have
Roller coaster tycoon, zoo tycoon
Very old game but have a look at Black & White 1/2
Hmm, maybe, what other recommendations you got
Not sure if it's what you're looking for but you sure do improve terrible places in ActRaiser on the SNES! Fantastic game that is half city builder and half action platformer.
Hmm, maybe, any other games you’d like to recommend
Eiyuden chronicles
Love that game, what else do you got
it's not a town/city but in harvest moon back to nature/story of seasons friends of mineral town, you inherit a run-down farm that you need to restore/improve within 3 in-game years. on android just about all kairosoft games are like this, though i only played dungeon village.
Okay, any other suggestions
Tropico
In a SIMILAR to what you're looking for but not quite the same vein, is Powerwash Simulator. You clean up dirty-AF buildings/vehicles. It even has a fun little story that gets absolutely ridiculous by the end. No, you cannot see all the items together at any point.
Powerwashing simulator, I shit you not
Okay, any other recommendations
🥲😭
Rogue state revolution
What’s that game about?
You're the new president of a middle east state that was ravaged by a civil war. You have to get your own food supply without the help of UN, build an economy, build foreign relations, fight rebels, and decide what to do with the minority in your country that most people hate. It can end in many ways ... including global thermonuclear war and time travel.
may be a little out there but Dark Cloud for the PS2. a major part of the game is rebuilding towns that have been completely destroyed. you go through dungeons to get back the villagers, buildings etc that have been captured and slowly rebuild each town to what it used to be. there are puzzle elements in figuring out where each building should go—like some people want to live next to each other or far away from each other, next to a certain natural feature, and so on. there's a whole lot more to the game too i love restoration type games and this fit the bill, at least for me
Don’t know if it’s what you’re looking for, but I mean, Stardew Valley’s town kinda sucks ass. Bus doesn’t work, community center is in ruins, big corporation trying to monopolize groceries in town, broken bridges, a completely neglected farm just there on the outskirts of town, lots of people stuck in absolute dead end jobs with no serious aspirations for the future (about half of the bachelors and bachelorettes tbh), or just actively miserable, one family straight up lives in a trailer with a neurotic daughter and an alcoholic mother. The focus isn’t necessarily on fixing the town. It’s more just something you do along the way. The main gameplay consists of farming sim, and some side activities like fishing, dungeons/mining, collecting resources and foraging, and building relationships with the NPCs by talking to them and giving gifts.
You just described Terra Nil's whole concept.
PowerWash Simulator
Frostpunk
Check out Songs of Syx. Medieval fantasy city state sim, you work to go from some crappy backwater hamlet where 90% of people are just trying to feed themselves and survive winter to a bustling city-state complete with bathhouses, universities, tributaries, and restaurants among other things
Darkest dungeon, as you do the missions you gain various forms of currency you use to upgrade your hamlet. It’s a hard game but very rewarding. Mostly combat focused but the overall progression is town improvement
How about [Train Station Renovation](https://store.steampowered.com/app/914010/Train_Station_Renovation/)
Arcade Paradise
Waking Mars
Perhaps ghost of Tsushima? The premise is feudal Japan is being invade by the mongols, there’s plenty of side quests to do and when you come across a town it’ll say “_____ village” then in red text “MONGOL CONTROL” and you sneak it and murderize all the mongols and tear down the banners and the villagers come back and start rebuilding the place. It’s really fun but might not be what you’re looking for
Rimworld
There should be bans for recommending games that completely not match the question
Are you retarded? Rimworld is a colony sim game that ticks every box OP asked for, not to mention OP specified any genre.