The Best Cities: Skylines Alternative Is Finally Here—and It’s Better Than Expected

In 2026, I fell hard for city builders. For the first half of the year, I spent more time with Cities: Skylines than any other game. Later, I began exploring games that blend city building with logistics, including Anno 117, before eventually finding my way to Transport Fever 3.

At first, I described Transport Fever 3 as being like Cities: Skylines: a familiar city builder with more emphasis on roads than zoning. After spending the past month with it, I understand just how different a logistics planner can be. I have also discovered that I am, apparently, a logistics obsessive.

In Cities: Skylines, you begin by laying a road and designating land for homes and businesses. As the city grows, the biggest logistical headaches tend to involve improving roads and managing traffic. For me, though, the challenge is as much about appearance as efficiency. I want roads that can handle a growing population without turning the city into a concrete nightmare. The game’s relatively forgiving management systems leave plenty of room to put those preferences ahead of perfect traffic flow.

Transport Fever 3 takes a different approach. You start with a small town and a fledgling transport company, then build routes that help passengers travel and industries grow. From there, you connect resource deposits to processing facilities in or near town, encouraging new businesses to develop.

That distinction won me over almost immediately. Industry in Cities: Skylines rarely demands much advance planning: once you can afford the necessary buildings, you can place them near a resource and connect them to the city by road. Resource deposits are often outside the main urban area, leaving plenty of space to lay a simple route and move on. You can even ignore industry altogether and build a paradise of shops instead.

In Transport Fever 3, helping the existing town grow means supporting its industries. A larger population needs more food, more jobs, and reliable ways to get to work—preferably without squeezing everyone into an unsuitable little coach.

As in Cities, you identify areas suited to homes and industry, but development follows the roads you build and the types you choose. A country road, for example, influences the housing that appears along it and can help create a neighborhood rather than a scattering of homes on a standard road. Country roads are not suitable for every journey, though, so residents still need access to goods and other forms of transport. Apply those decisions to every new residential and commercial area, then fit them into a network that works and looks good, and you begin to understand the game’s appeal.

There is plenty more to consider. The steepness of the terrain affects which roads freight vehicles can use and how much those roads cost to maintain. Trains can move passengers and cargo efficiently, but operating them requires production chains that place further demands on local infrastructure. Almost every transport upgrade solves one problem while creating another that needs careful planning.

Those systems are manageable while settlements remain small, and sandbox mode does not punish you for keeping them that way. You can build a collection of mid-sized towns linked by waterways and airports if that is what you enjoy. As long as your company stays solvent, you are succeeding. Once a town becomes a city with several districts, however, its challenges begin to overlap and grow more complicated.

As it turns out, that is exactly what I want. In Cities: Skylines, I often speed up the simulation and wait for a disaster to demand my attention. Eventually, expansion can become a familiar routine: build a district, zone it, connect the roads, provide power and water, and repeat. For a little variety, I might even reverse the zoning pattern.

I still love designing a sprawling city and watching my plans come together, but I miss the hands-on demands of its early stages. Transport Fever 3 keeps those demands coming. It is an ongoing puzzle that has captured my attention, and I am more than happy to keep solving it.

Source: Polygon