SimCity™ 4 Deluxe Edition

Great city simulator, incredible that it stills holds its own after couple of decades!

This game hasn't aged well in certain aspects but has aged gracefully overall. Be warned that is virtually unplayable right "out of the box", but mods to fix it are cheap and abundant. It's still a reference for the city builder genre and I've played it for over 20 years and still learn new things about it. The entry level for SimCity 4 is extremely easy - anyone can get a city that functions, but the depths of gameplay are what makes people keep coming to it.

BUGS YOU NEED TO KNOW ABOUT:
-Traffic is bugged, get the Network Addon Mod - I can't stress this enough. It fixes the issues with traffic and expands mass transit/infrastructure options (bullet trains, pedestrian roads, trams, ground light rail, elevated roads and rails, underpasses, realistic highways, etc...)
-The opera house reward building has a hidden "capacity" stat based on how many people go to watch the opera. If it gets full the opera starts to drain the education level of the entire city (somehow if the opera is sold out people gradually become morons). This is only going to be a problem for very large and wealthy cities and you can just not build the opera house but there's a mod to fix the bug too.
-High-tech industry (I-HT) has a bug where it won't actually employ $$$ Sims due to how the job stats are calculated in-game. There's also a mod to fix that, but ultimately your only realistic late-game options to provide jobs for $$$ Sims in a large cities will be CO$$$ (luxury offices).
-The seaports are bugged and won't actually help industry as much as they should. There are several mods to fix this (industry thrives depending on how much stuff it can "export" outside the city. This can be done just by trucks but those trucks clog up roads. Freight trains clog up railways but leave roads relatively free).
-A lot of large lots like the country club, airports, county fair, army base, etc... have a bug due to how crime is calculated where the game thinks they're crime hubs. Technically there isn't any more crime there but the security advisor will keep annoying you about building police stations in the vicinity, but even if you surround the building with max-funded deluxe police stations the crime won't go down. It's mostly an annoyance but there's mods to fix that too.
-The carpool commute ordinance is bugged and doesn't do anything (I don't know if there's a mod about it though).

Really good game in 2025 tbh but crashes a lot

Simtropolis can help anyone make this game beyond what you expected.

Played this as a kid and enjoyed it, playing it now as an adult and LOVING IT. Watching your city grow incredibly rewarding. I should run for mayor.

It's much gooderer than other city builders.
The newer Skylines games are stuck in DirectX 11 so they will always run like trash stuck on a single core for rendering, when anything decent is built.
So I will stick with this one.
I can build awesome highways with the NAM mod; and with the CAM mod, you can build cities with over FIVE MILLION people in it on a large tile. Nothing lets you have a realistic highway quite like this - the ones in Skylines look like a child drew them and the 2nd Skylines has better look to the highways than the 1st, BUT the performance is terrible.
Seriously. This is awesome. I have a 28-tile by 70-tile region (or something like that) of all large tiles. It's the definition of limitless. Nothing since has even come remotely close. You could spend two years building in this region 24/7 and not fill up that region - and even if you did there's always another region, and another, and another, and another. You don't get that on newer Skylines games!
The closest thing I have found to something that allows you to build big without performance going to trash is HighRise City, but that's much more bound by resources in the ground than just property values and civic services. So do check that out if it's interesting to you and you want something modern.
Skip Skylines, this is the city builder you want.
Look in the discussions forum to get this running on a modern PC in widescreen without too much crashing, including with hardware acceleration for proper performance.
It needs just a few minutes of perplexing your brain to get this going, and you'll be off to modding heaven.
Runs on a 20 year old computer, any cheap laptop, any office computer, and probably ones you found in the trash 10~15 years ago. I'm not kidding. You really don't even need 1gb of RAM.

extremely poor gameplay would not recommend at all even at the discounted rate

GOAT. No other city builder has been better than sc4. Time doesnt affect this game. Infinite hours of gameplay. Totally recommended

Goated, Legendary early 2000's era city builder. Still holds up for its time. Very good graphics for what it was back then

This game does not work anymore, tried everything, still won't work or crashes constantly.
If you want to play this game, go back in time.

Timeless classic. If you want to know what it was like in the 90s play this game. It will take you back to better times...

I've played this game a lot before Steam existed. It was the first game I owned in Steam, but I have not played it for about 10 years. 22 years after this game was made, it is still the best city builder by far. I recently tried Cities Skylines and it's not even close for me personally. In SimCity 4, There's something nostalgic about the graphics, and the functionality of everything is so much more satisfying than playing other city builders. Highly recommend, even in 2025!

I've played the Sims series for 20 years now and never touched Simcity until now. I missed out on so much. It's such a simple city builder yet so fun. If you want something that might not be as involved but still comes with it's own challenge, check this out! A few bugs here and there, but that's expected with EA. Just save often in big cities.

This game will not work without outside plugins. If you are willing to look past this barrier to entry, you will be rewarded with one of, if not the best city sims out there. Madness when you consider it's been over 20 years.

It's more than nostalgia that keeps me playing. This game has a dedicated community and has a lot of love poured into it.

Check out the Performance and graphics list- Index of all critical mods to install posted by Ulisse Wolf over on Simtropolis.com to get this game playing.

Old school fun game that turns development into opportunity.

Absolute crash fest. Can't refund it...so far. I will persist.

...Oh, yes one of the greatest games of all time. But just not through Steam.

Classic, adaptable via mods, looks good at any zoom level, the best.

Easy and intuitive UI. Terramorphing is useful and fun. Game is simple but can be played deeply, like chess.

Played and enjoyed this game many years ago. It's hasn't aged well & does not carry over well to modern machines.
Disappointing considering the price. Can't honestly recommend!

Timeless classic. Been playing this on and off for over a decade.

It's more fun then fun

If you're unemployed, underemployed, and nostalgic.. Stands up. I'd probably have played more outside.

Beware, doesn't run properly

Had this game from way back, then saw this on Steam. Instant purchase cause of nostalgia. You'll feel freedom and creativity. You'll embrace the flow of time, and the essence of a town bustling into a city. In my opinion, this is by far the best city builder game to date with many challenges (but fair/reasonable). Depending how you look at it, it can consider this a "survivor" game.

Love this game, makes me feel like a puppet master and now I understand more about the real estate market.

After 40 hours of playtime, I can confidently say this is one of the best city builder games I've ever played. The huge maps and the ability to customize the landscape before building your city is fantastic. There's something incredibly satisfying about laying down roads, zoning for residential, commercial, and industrial (RCI) areas, and then watching your city come to life. It honestly feels like planting seeds and watching them grow.

I also love the feature that lets you drive (or even fly) around your city — it really gives you a sense of what it’d be like to live in the world you've built. There are even vehicle missions you can do to earn money, boost your mayor rating, and unlock new buildings early, which is a fun bonus.

You can place famous landmarks like the Hollywood sign or the White House, making it possible to recreate real-world cities like L.A. or Washington, D.C. The graphics are solid, especially for its time, and the attention to detail is impressive — like seeing teenagers TPing a house or prisoners working near the jail under police supervision. Little touches like that make the city feel alive.

Unfortunately, the game isn't optimized for modern systems and will crash to desktop without fixes. Thankfully, the Simtropolis community has patches and tweaks to get it running smoothly on the latest versions of Windows.

There’s so much more I could say about this game. If you’re into city builders and don’t mind older graphics, I highly recommend giving it a try. And if the price feels a bit steep for a 2003 title, just keep an eye out for a sale.

it’s well worth it.

It was the best. It IS the best and it is likely to remain the best ever.

Not only you can build one city, but you can built entire damn region entirely as you like it.

It's a really good game, I missed it so I bought it and downloaded it. It's broken. The game crashes after an hour. I was working on a city and I lost it all. Needless to say I won't be playing it again, I don't like losing 1 hour progress.

raising the tax to 20% for lower income household is too much fun

a fantastic journey into a simpler time

Rich people were complaining about commute times, so I struck the city with a meteor.

Anyway, 10/10 game.

Solid game that has held up all these years. Still love it!

I'm not a crazy fan but every now and then i came back to this game, taking my time playing it while listening to the good soundtrack, it's the type of game that perfect for all type of player.

Despite being an old game, a lot of the mechanic is still very modern and you won't have to look into a guide to know how to play it because the structure of the game is clear.

Really recommend if you into casual, simulator or building game

addicting game except for those advisors

Great city builder game, age old classic!

a classic. as good as the day it came out i think

The game itself is very interesting, gameplay is fun when you are using mod, like NAM and CAM. Recommend to play

This takes me back twenty years. Used to love playing this game.

This game is awesome. Building cities over maps I made by hand is so satisfying. There are some issues with occasional crashes on newer systems, but it hasn't happened enough for me to not recommend a purchase. I easily put another 500 hours when i had the disc more than fifteen years ago. It's a little dated, but I honestly find cities skylines too finicky and frustrating, and the newer simcity sucked. This game struck a good balance, and is highly recommended

If Cities: Skylines is too much of a sandbox for you and you're missing consequences and more focus on simulation and managemennt this is the best you can do, even after all these years.
Bonus perk: amazing music!

It's a creative, interesting, and fairly realistic simulation of urban development.

Great game but you need some essential mods like NAM and 4gb patch to make the game functional.

When they'll Release Simcity 2013 game and cities of tomorrow expansion?

Works well and just as great as ever. Also the Simcity plug-in gives you all the cheat codes with an easy to use UI.

Still the best city simulation game overall, even in 2025.

Great city builder/management game which has aged very well over the years. Can be difficult for new players. Takes some time to learn as the game is very intricate in the way that it operates. If you have patience and like detail, enjoy simulation games, look no further as this game is a gem!

In game pop-ups impede playability.

The game is old school and its nostalgic to play, but it keeps crashing on me. Is my PC too fast for this?? Extremely frustrating. What is the point in playing if I have to restart my city every time I sit down to play? Zero stars.

Used to love this game as a kid.
Came back to it more than a decade later.
It's still incredibly addicting.
10/10

the aesthetics are good but the game itself is way to simple in regards to building things, its also really annoying have to click on this tiny button to be able to change a building funding.

i will note i barely played this so others may find it more interesting then i did if they play it longer.