We get it. There is a certain appeal to playing simulator games. After all, who hasn’t wished to experience being an airline pilot and driving their own plane? Or, what about the chance of a lifetime to own your own farm? The best thing about the best simulator games is that they let you live out all of your wildest fantasies and guilty pleasures, all without having to leave the comfort of your chair. This is arguably why simulator games remain just as popular today as they were years ago. Even though most are not as technically detailed as AAA shooters and RPGs, simulator games offer a level of immersion that’s unmatched. As a bonus, the best simulator games are available on a variety of platforms. These games are no longer just exclusive to the PC platform. You can also choose from driving a bus and even guiding your own ship through the Suez Canal. So, get ready to dive into our life of the best simulator games available today and find the simulation game for you.
Farming Simulator 19
No, we’re not joking. A game all about managing all the inner workings of your own farm has been considered one of the best simulator games on the market for the better part of the past decade, and there’s a good reason for that. Apparently, there are fewer things in life more stress-relieving than gardening and seeing all of your efforts come to literal fruition. The literal act of reaping what you just sowed has kept gamers of all ages satisfied for years and its most recent multi-platform iteration, Farming Simulator 19, is its best yet. Or, at least, until Farming Simulator 22 comes later this 2021. What makes Farming Simulator so unique as a franchise is it really gets you into the nitty and gritty of things. You’re not just planting and harvesting for the sake of it. You have to make sure that your farm is profitable and that all of your equipment is working while your livestock is all well fed. The best part is that you don’t even have to get dirt on your hands and do all of the backbreaking work.
Kerbal Space Program
You know that you’re making a good game when the people who are in charge of doing it in real life start to reach out to you. Case in point, Kerbal Space Program. Since Kerbal Space Program first launched way back in 2011, it’s established itself as one of the best simulator games. The fact that NASA and SpaceX CEO Elon Musk reached out to them only serves to validate what gamers have known all along. In this physics-based space simulator game, you can design and construct your own spacecraft that can do everything from launch into orbit and dock into other vessels you’ve created or blow up the very moment that it launches. But, just like every good game, it’s not whether or not you stick the landing or do what you’ve accomplished that matters in Kerbal Space Program, it’s the journey towards getting where you want to go. Backed by an entire community with never-ending creativity, Kerbal Space Program is a black hole of a simulator game that will suck up hours of your life. Now, is it realistic? Well, because it’s still a game, the developers have taken it upon themselves to apply some of their creative freedom. However, as far as simulator games as go, it’s as close as you can get to the real thing. Newtonian dynamics govern everything in Kerbal Space Program with its orbital mechanic models having been praised by people who have the education and experience to know what they are talking about.
Microsoft Flight Simulator
Microsoft Flight Simulator could very well be the best simulator game in the world. At this point, it’s not just a game. It’s a full-on recreation of what it takes to fly some of the fastest planes in the world to places such as the Middle East and Asia, among other places, as every nook and corner of the entire planet has been mapped out in the game. With fully detailed instrumentation, cockpits, as well as aerodynamic modeling, and real-time weather conditions affecting the flight, Microsoft Flight Simulator is right up there with Kerbal Space Program where getting your plane to fly and go up in the sky is part of the journey.
F1 2020
If you’re an F1 racing fan, the best simulator game for you is the official F1 series of games by Codemasters, which was recently acquired by Electronic Arts. The F1 games are a lifelike simulation of Formula One racing that just keeps on improving with every entry. The latest iteration that’s out, F1 2020, replicates the sense of driving of some of the fastest cars in the world with such precision that you’ll feel every tiny change in traction and that unmistakable mix of adrenaline with a hint of dread as your car hits full speed. You’ll even have to manage your own pit crew, make friends with them, and make sure the entire operation is running like a well-oiled machine. With F1 2021 promising to be even better, this simulator game series is here to stay.
Gran Turismo Sport
The problem when you’re aiming to make realism central to your racing sim experience is that it can make the game inaccessible for beginners. Somehow, Polyphony Digital managed to accomplish the near-impossible with Gran Turismo Sport, combining the realistic driving physics the series has come to be known for with online matchmaking and the chance for even a complete beginner to pick it up and have fun without investing hours of their time trying to learn the game. Because it can be enjoyed by all skill levels on any controller, Gran Turismo Sport is arguably the only sim-racing title that caters to everyone without feeling like it was dumbed down on purpose. It’s just a shame that this beautiful racing simulator is only available on the PlayStation 4.
Car Mechanic Simulator 2018
So far, we’ve talked about owning farms, riding planes, and driving cars, but what if you were a grease monkey at heart and preferred to tinker around with what’s under the hood? Well, that’s where Car Mechanic Simulator 2018 comes in. The third game in the lesser-known Car Mechanic Simulator franchise, Car Mechanic Simulator 2018 tasks you with running your own auto repair shop. But, as is customary with a simulator game, you’re going to start from next-to-nothing. From there, you’ll work towards building your own automotive empire with every wheel you swap out and every engine you rebuild. The thing that stands out the most about Car Mechanic Simulator 2018 is that it’s not afraid to “bore” players with the details. You’re not just going to slap together stuff and hope they will work. You’ll actually get to learn what makes a car tick or so to speak. As a bonus, Car Mechanic Simulator 2018, even has you work on the occasional shitbox or project car and turn it into a thing of beauty.
Cities: Skylines
When it first launched, Cities: Skylines was nothing more than a SimCity alternative. Most players only flocked to Cities because Electronic Arts messed up by requiring players to have an active internet connection at all times. However, it didn’t take too long for everyone to realize that Cities: Skylines was just a much better game. Similar to SimCity, the core gameplay of Cities: Skylines revolves around building a city around a two-by-two kilometer area and just going ham from there. What made Cities: Skylines different was that you essentially had to expand your budding metropolis using finite resources. On top of this, Paradox Interactive support the game with multiple DLC and added content over the years. This allowed players to build everything from concert venues to casinos and everything else that would be part of a typical city.
The Sims 4
It’s impossible to make a list of the best simulator games on the market without including The Sims 4. The latest and longest-running iteration of Maxis’ popular life simulation series, The Sims 4 has been around since 2014 and it’s still going through. In fact, there’s an update coming up for Summer 2021, which will add even more ways for you to take control of your single sim. What makes The Sims game so unique is that it lets you take control of a single person or a family, which, at first, might not sound as interesting. However, as you guide your sim towards building their first home, making friends, getting married, landing a stable career, and so on, you’ll come to learn that building a life is just as interesting as orchestrating your own city. With that said, The Sims 4 isn’t for those who want a hardcore simulator title. It’s a casual game, but one built with all of these intricate and tiny details in mind to make it feel alive as much as possible. With plenty of vanilla content available and a massive modding community that will help you create whatever it is you want in The Sims 4, this is the sort of game that you could easily sink hundreds of hours into and still not get bored with it.
Euro Truck Simulator 2
One of the biggest issues people seem to have with the Euro Truck Simulator games is that it’s not aspirational enough. In other simulator games, you’re in control of someone that you’d want to become. Most people think that this isn’t the case for the Euro Truck Simulator games. But, that’s where they’re wrong. After all, who wouldn’t want to drive a truck for a living? It’s a severely underrated and stable career with great benefits. You can pretty much ride the job (pun intended) until you retire. With that said, getting a chance to drive a truck is much easier said than done, so for those who’d like to try out the next best thing, Euro Truck Simulator 2 is happy to oblige. Anyone who’s ever taken the scenic route during long road trips can attest to the therapeutic effect of spending hours on long stretches of road. However, for those who’d like the occasional challenge, Euro Truck Simulator 2 isn’t without its difficulties. Anyone who’s ever struggled to parallel park in real life will find that it’s just as difficult if not next to impossible to do it when you’re driving a truck that weighs multiple tons and is carrying a load that’s as heavy as it is. One thing that fans of Euro Truck Simulator 2 seem to love about this simulator game is that it’s all about driving. Forget about attempting to race. It’s as close as you can get to make a career off of driving trucks as you worry about all the minute details that could cost you thousands of dollars off of your paycheck. Then, once you get bored of Europe, there’s also American Truck Simulator if you want to experience what it’s like driving these behemoths on the other side of the globe.
PC Building Simulator
Forget about having no business being one of the best simulator games around. PC Building Simulator shouldn’t be a good game. The basic premise, one that which where all you have to do is to build computers, is absurd. However, Claudiu Kiss’s pet project has evolved to become so much more than just a novelty game. For one, it actually has a main story mode. In it, your role is that of someone who repairs computers for a living. Every morning, you take requests from clients who will ask you to do routine repairs and upgrades. Then, after ordering the parts, you open up their desktops, proceed with their request, get paid, and that’s it. But while tinkering around with other people’s PCs in career mode is fun, PC Building Simulator is at its best in Free Build. Just as the name suggests, the Free Build mode in PC Building Simulator lets you build your dream PC set-up, complete with licensed components from known manufacturers like Cooler Master, EVGA, MSI, AMD, Intel, Gigabyte, and so much more. Whether you’re a hobbyist looking to scratch that pc building itch for cheap or a novice who wants to learn the basics of building your own computer, PC Building Simulator is a good buy.
