Best Simulation Games on Steam
Games modeling systems, jobs, vehicles, worlds, processes, or real-world activities.
Browse all Simulation →
1Stardew Valley - You've inherited your grandfather's old farm plot in Stardew Valley. Armed with hand-me-down tools and a few coins, you set out to begin your new life. Can you learn to live off the land and turn these overgrown fields into a thriving home?
Feb 26, 2016
In this game, you can…
- marry someone with the exact salad you found in a trash can.
- build an 8-player farm together and even tweak the group profit split for a harder run.
- spam bombs in a monster-filled cavern to blast straight through floors for loot.
- run the mines in co-op, with one person fighting monsters while the other grabs ore and bolts.
- restore a run-down community center to reshape the whole town, or buy into a big corporation instead.
- ignore farming and still build a whole life by fishing, mining, foraging, cooking, and specializing into different work paths.
- befriend townspeople by learning their schedules, catching them at dawn, and steadily unlocking personal cutscenes and secrets.
- turn an overgrown inherited farm into a working homestead by clearing debris, planting crops, upgrading tools, and expanding your setup.
2Euro Truck Simulator 2 - Travel across Europe as king of the road, a trucker who delivers important cargo across impressive distances! With dozens of cities to explore, your endurance, skill and speed will all be pushed to their limits.
Oct 12, 2012
In this game, you can…
- practice alley-docking so much in-game that it carries over to real CDL-style trailer backing tests.
- join online convoys where a small bump can turn into a cross-country chase, or into a friendly honk-and-wave road trip with strangers.
- install major map mods and end up convoying through places like Iceland on custom roads with new physics and navigation.
- start with quick jobs, buy your first truck, take out loans, hire drivers, and grow into a multi-garage fleet that earns while you're out hauling.
- hammer down the highway with the speed limiter off, then sweat every speed camera and fine as you try to keep the delivery on time.
- reverse a full trailer into a tight loading bay and park it cleanly.
- cross a border and immediately deal with new road rules, new signage, and suddenly driving on the opposite side in the UK.
- haul everything from fuel and chemicals to oversized machinery and vehicles, then adjust how you drive to keep the cargo intact.
- tune in to live local radio stations as you drive and switch countries until the music and traffic rhythm sync up with the route.
3The Forest - As the lone survivor of a passenger jet crash, you find yourself in a mysterious forest battling to stay alive against a society of cannibalistic mutants. Build, explore, survive in this terrifying first person survival horror simulator.
Apr 30, 2018
In this game, you can…
- get knocked out, dragged through the forest, and wake up trapped in a cave you have to escape.
- watch cannibals scout your camp, retreat to call reinforcements, and come back as a coordinated raiding party.
- fight off a base siege where mutants smash your walls and one rips up a whole tree to use as a weapon.
- wake up after a plane crash and hunt for your kidnapped son by following clues through caves, boats, and survivor camps.
- build treehouses, cliff forts, and spiked walls, then have a falling tree smash your own structure to pieces.
- craft gear by gluing teeth to your axe, wearing bones as armor, and turning skulls and bodies into lamps and defenses.
- creep through pitch-black caves, squeeze through flooded passages, and surface missing gear with enemies still hunting you.
- turn the crash site into a long-term fortress, or build rafts and dock houses into a whole river-and-coast base network.
4Project Zomboid - Project Zomboid is the ultimate in zombie survival. Alone or in MP: you loot, build, craft, fight, farm and fish in a struggle to survive. A hardcore RPG skillset, a vast map, massively customisable sandbox and a cute tutorial raccoon await the unwary. So how will you die? All it takes is a bite..
Nov 8, 2013
In this game, you can…
- look down from a skyscraper roof at thousands of zombies swarming below, then get trapped inside and survive by rationing food.
- trade Sonic fan fiction for gasoline in multiplayer, then crash the car and die four minutes later.
- kill your bitten friend after he turns into a zombie, using a frying pan on the side of a highway.
- load a car with supplies, drive out for a VHS-store run, and find a pristine video store packed with tapes after clearing the street.
- press one wrong key, accidentally shout, and pull the whole neighborhood into your base like a siren.
- turn a lumber mill into a fortified co-op settlement with roof crops and water projects, then lose it to a kitchen fire and a converging horde.
- loot a gun store, get chased deeper into the city by a helicopter, fight from a rooftop until the door breaks, then jump off and keep going on a shattered leg.
- level skills by doing physical work like dismantling furniture and electronics, stripping car parts, and even practicing first aid by bandaging your own injuries.
5BeamNG.drive - A dynamic soft-body physics vehicle simulator capable of doing just about anything.
May 29, 2015
In this game, you can…
- change gravity settings and watch the same truck drive completely differently under moon or Jupiter gravity.
- join multiplayer races and chases, and keep driving even with half your truck bent under itself.
- wrap a car around itself by slamming it into a fence over and over.
- spawn traffic, rear-end someone, and get launched airborne for five seconds in the wreck.
- break your suspension cutting a rally corner, then limp the rest of the stage to the finish.
- build absurd custom vehicles, like a JATO rocket semi, then immediately stress-test them out in the world.
- take on deliveries, bus routes, police chases, and truck jobs where normal tasks turn dramatic because the physics won't fake it.
- hit traffic at highway speed, then crash into a jam in slow motion and watch the pileup deform in detail.
6Raft - Raft™ throws you and your friends into an epic oceanic adventure! Alone or together, players battle to survive a perilous voyage across a vast sea! Gather debris, scavenge reefs and build your own floating home, but be wary of the man-eating sharks!
Jun 20, 2022
In this game, you can…
- drop anchor at an island, jump off to loot it, and realize your raft can drift away if you didn't secure it first.
- use antennas and a receiver to follow radio coordinates to story locations packed with puzzles and notes explaining why the world flooded.
- play co-op where one person builds, another cooks, and you can carry unconscious teammates back to bed like it's normal.
- start on a 2x2 raft with a plastic hook.
- yank floating trash with a hook, then turn it into a purifier, grill, sail, bed, and research table as your raft becomes a real ship.
- reinforce your raft so a shark stops tearing off platforms, turning it from a threat into background noise.
- dive underwater to scavenge reefs for ore and rare materials, then surface to unlock higher-tier crafting.
- build nets that automatically catch drifting debris, so the ocean feeds you a constant stream of materials.
7Hearts of Iron IV - Victory is at your fingertips! Your ability to lead your nation is your supreme weapon, the strategy game Hearts of Iron IV lets you take command of any nation in World War II; the most engaging conflict in world history.
Jun 6, 2016
In this game, you can…
- stage a surprise airborne invasion that takes an enemy capital before your own sea landing even leaves port.
- start as tiny Bolivia and snowball from beating one neighbor into grinding down half a continent, then gearing up to fight Brazil.
- oust Stalin in a civil war, reunite China as a warlord, or put another Napoleon on France's throne in the same game.
- manually switch combat plans mid-battle multiple times to change how a fight plays out instead of just watching it resolve.
- drive a tank army straight through a country that has no anti-tank and rip the front so wide it looks like someone took a bite out of the map.
- race the clock in a WW1 mod: stabilize a collapsing front, rush 1918 fighters to wipe the enemy air force, then snake an armored car into Paris seconds before the USA joins.
- turn a small nation into an industrial powerhouse through years of buildup, then flip the switch into rapid conquest the moment you're ready.
8People Playground - Shoot, stab, burn, poison, tear, vaporise, or crush ragdolls in a large open space.
Jul 23, 2019
In this game, you can…
- tear maps open with explosives until wall panels fall away, revealing detailed pipes and wiring hidden behind the surface.
- strap rocket boosters to ragdolls, then escalate into spike-and-flamethrower traps and a machine that launches someone into space.
- swap a person's blood for other liquids, like acid or atomic-bomb ingredients, and watch their body chemically change and even glow green.
- kidnap three people, make them fight to the death, then set the last one free.
- wire generators, logic gates, and machines together into contraptions that mix electricity, fire, acid, bullets, syringes, and healing fields.
- spawn people with jetpacks and swords, then make them fight robots or other AI while you stage the whole arena.
- mess with the environment—temperature, rain, snow, lightning, ocean, lava, abyss—and use it to run controlled catastrophe experiments.
9Schedule I - From small-time dope pusher to kingpin - manufacture and distribute a range of drugs throughout the grungy city of Hyland Point. Expand your empire with properties, businesses, employees and more.
Mar 24, 2025
In this game, you can…
- mix drugs with other ingredients to create effects like super jump, speed boosts, or turning users into ticking time bombs.
- pickpocket the whole city by day, then go gambling at night as part of the same routine.
- buy a Golden Skateboard, break in through a shack window, knock a guy out, then pickpocket him to get your money back.
- build a drug empire from nothing, scaling into properties, employees, dealers, laundering, and automated production across Hyland Point.
- run the entire operation hands-on: water and trim plants, mix ingredients, bag and package product, test purity, then coordinate in-person handoffs.
- discover weird recipes and lace your product with absurd additives that radically change what it does to people.
- stack boxes and barrels to climb over fences and slip past police patrols during curfew.
- set up dealers to unload lower-quality batches while you keep experimenting with new mixes, keeping money flowing while you expand.
10Forza Horizon 4 - Dynamic seasons change everything at the world’s greatest automotive festival. Go it alone or team up with others to explore beautiful and historic Britain in a shared open world.
Mar 9, 2021
In this game, you can…
- watch the entire map flip seasons together each week, until winter freezes lakes solid and you can drive straight across them.
- drive the Halo Warthog in a crossover mission, then unlock a Cyberpunk car by winning a head-to-head challenge.
- drop into a car battle royale, hunt upgrades on the map, then win by beating other players in head-to-head races.
- race a train in a tiny 1959 Ford Anglia as a full set-piece event.
- slam a supercar through stone walls, trees, and fences at 250–350 kph without stopping.
- stumble onto hidden barn cars, haul them out as rusty wrecks, then restore them into pristine classics you can actually race.
- mess up a corner, rewind time, take the turn again, and keep the race alive instead of restarting.
