SimCity™ 4 Deluxe Edition

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.

What's it like to go back to a game you last played 2 decades ago? Completely awesome, at least in the case of Sim City 4.

I re-bought it on Steam a few years back but only just got round to playing it, and this perfectly balanced and paced uber-City Builder was even better than I remember it. Get caught in its hooks and you might end up investing a couple hundred hours and ignoring friends and fam for weeks (like I did)

With one single, easy to find mod (there are millions of others if that's your thing) you can play this baby in widescreen HD and it still looks great plus your modern rig will not grind to a halt after a couple of hours play like it did at the turn of the millennia :)

I honestly wonder why it's so hard to beat this all-time best builder after all this time?

its simcity 4, you get exactly what you pay for. its good.

I love this game its an amazing game still to this day!

THIS GAME IS SO FUN YOU GET TO MAKE CITYS, LIKE WHO DOESN’T LIKE THAT?

SimCity 4 is arguably one of, if not the best city builder games out there. It is unmatched in quite a few ways.

In terms of graphics,, it's timeless. i'm amazed how well the visuals have held up over the years. I think the realism mixed with a distinct art-style is what does it. The not quite isometric camera angle and 3D assets go a long way as well.

Game-play and simulation is what really make SimCity 4 stand out though. You're not just zoning a bunch of RCI and watching all the money roll in. You actually have to be careful and manage your funds or else things will go south quickly. Yet at the same time, it's extremely rewarding to see your city succeed .

You're also provided with a plethora of ways to keep track of what's going on in your city. Not only do you have advisors and graphs; but you also can also turn on a bunch of different overlays to look for pollution, traffic, crime, etc. One of my favourite features though is the query tool. With this you can check how and where residents commute on top of other things.

With Residential and Commercial; not only can you choose 3 different density levels, but you can quite easily control the wealth too. There's also 4 different types of industrial (Farms, Dirty, Manufacturing, and High-Tech) with 2 density levels for all except farms.

I could go on and on about how great this SimCity 4 is but there's just so much. that's not to say it doesn't have flaws though. Vanilla traffic path finding is pretty bad, there are some game breaking bugs, and it just does not like modern computers very much. Fortunately most of this can be fixed with mods and some tinkering.

In the end i'd highly recommend this SimCity 4 to anyone who enjoys city building games.

Very realistic gameplay, just don't go bankrupt!

Game will not launch properly. Reinstalled, still doesn't launch.

Still an amazing classic after all these years. Excellent game-play, excellent soundtrack. It's perfect.

I really enjoyed this game when I was in College/fresh out of college, just wish I could still use my CD copy. Was always really satisfying to get a stabilized city going, just always wished the game was more intuitive with how to build up High Tech industry and keep dirty away, and things like that. Still enjoying coming back to it and rebuilding my region with better topography than the last go

Getting back into this game after 15+ years. One of the best city builders ever made.

I downloaded the game and it will not open. WTF. I have a computer that is only a couple years old. Help

I know now why i have not played this game for so long now. IT KEEPS CRASHING AND YOU LOOSE ALL YOUR PROGRESS

I find myself sitting for what feels like 30 minutes attempting to construct the city of my dreams. Only to look at the clock on my desktop and realize I have been playing for 5 hours straight.. Needless to say, some of the best wasted time of my life.