The maker of this retro city builder wants to include events like bank robberies, police chases, and zombie outbreaks

A retro pixelated city builder in isometric view — (Image credit: Yesbox Studios)

When I first saw isometric city builder Metropolis 1998 back in January, it shot to the top of my wishlist because it lets you design and decorate every single building in your town. That's awesome. It's also oozing with pixelated charm thanks to the chunky retro graphics, making it feel like a nostalgic throwback but with modern features.

In exciting news for city builder fans, the demo for Metropolis 1998 was just updated to include five whole months of new features, so there's lots more to play with. What's got me especially interested is the development roadmap packed with features that are planned for the 1.0 launch, and some really interesting "aspirations" developer Yesbox Games hopes to include post-1.0.

Crime in the urban city builders I've played in the past usually happens offscreen. In Cities: Skylines, for example, I remember getting angry little crime icons over buildings or neighborhoods, with maybe a police car driving to the area with lights flashing until the icon goes away. But you never get to see anything go down. The "Post-1.0 Aspirations" of the Metropolis 1998 roadmap lists "visible crime" as a bullet point, letting you "watch a bank robbery" take place and see "police chases" where the coppers try to catch the crooks. That's a lot more interesting than just seeing an icon come and go.

The 1.0 launch of Metropolis 1998 will also feature traditional disasters along the lines of other urban city builders, like earthquakes, tornados, and floods. But there are a few disasters that sound a bit extra on the roadmap, like a pandemic (not a zombie pandemic, a 2020 pandemic), recessions and depressions, and monopolies "squashing competition in specific industries."

And one more aspirational feature I noticed: a "Sims-like mode" that will let you live in your own city. With bank robberies and zombie attacks, living in Metropolis 1998 sounds a bit dangerous. But it's such a gorgeous looking game, I definitely want to build and decorate a house for myself and move right in.

As for the updated demo, it includes new animations, more variation in vehicle color, basic terrain modification, "potato" graphics mode, new activities for your simulated little citizens (like taking lunch breaks at work), and more. Here are the patch notes for the new demo, which I really recommend you download and try.

Chris started playing PC games in the 1980s, started writing about them in the early 2000s, and (finally) started getting paid to write about them in the late 2000s. Following a few years as a regular freelancer, PC Gamer hired him in 2014, probably so he'd stop emailing them asking for more work. Chris has a love-hate relationship with survival games and an unhealthy fascination with the inner lives of NPCs. He's also a fan of offbeat simulation games, mods, and ignoring storylines in RPGs so he can make up his own.