SimCity 4 is one of the most pleasant games I own—I can experience all the splendor of a modern metropolis with a fraction of the nuance, and for the first time in my life, feel what it's like to drive on American roads that don't piss me off. Up-and-coming "hyperrealistic" transit sim Subway Builder offers a terrifying proposition: that same satisfaction in real US cities, assuming I'm up to the challenge.
On its face, the fidelity on offer in Subway Simulator is shocking; you can find the pitch on the game's website. Real census data is used to populate cities like Chicago and Dallas with realistic commuters, and you're saddled with getting them to their jobs, homes, and so on with as little hassle as possible. Whether people even take the subway depends on a variety of factors, so it's up to you to ensure it's accessible and not prone to delays.
There's a page on Subway Builder's site that gets into specifics, saying "The US census records home and workplace locations. The game generates millions of commuters with homes from that and then uses a distance-based gravity model to assign them all workplaces … This decision is then made based on how long each commute method takes, how much it costs, and the value of their time (different commuters can have different incomes).
Even if you can make sense of the city's geography layout itself, you've got money to worry about. Subway systems are expensive, and the most ideal setup may not be within your budget. These are the sorts of nitty-gritty details city simulators tend to streamline and gloss over to keep the impression of transit management intact while keeping the game broad and varied. If you're a very particular kind of transit obsessive, though, Subway Builder seems tailor-made for you.
It's started to turn heads on social media, with a subreddit nearly 10,000 strong and players taking to X to share stories of their budding obsessions—all before the game even got a Steam page. There are currently 26 US cities to play around with, but the game's FAQ section promises there's more to come both in and outside of North America.
my entire floor at mit has just been one shot by this subway builder gameliteral days have already been lostbut check out my Boston map tho pic.twitter.com/stM5mrELw9October 16, 2025
If you're keen to jump in early, you can buy Subway Builder on its website.
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