WHAT TO PLAY
Simulations
296 games in the catalog
A simulator is a game that promises neither a story nor quick reflexes but a model of something real: an aircraft, a submarine, a lorry, a city or a farm. You learn its rules, and the game only starts to pay off once you understand them. That is why two camps sit under one label: technical machines with an instrument panel and a manual as thick as a textbook, and games about systems, where instead of flying you manage a budget, a field or a football club.
The roots are twofold. One line leads to flight trainers and to the first home flight simulators of the late 1970s and early 1980s; the other to text games on university mainframes, where in the late 1960s you worked out how much grain to sow and how many people it would feed. What both had in common was that the player was aiming not for a high score but for mastering the thing itself.
The genre lasted because every new technology gave it another piece of reality: polygons, 3D cards, analogue controllers, touchscreens, virtual reality. And because it always gathered a community that built add-ons, aircraft, maps and trucks, and kept playing years after release.
Today (2015 onwards)
56 games in the catalogAfter 2015 simulators gained virtual reality: Oculus Rift and HTC Vive headsets (2016) put a cockpit, a kitchen and a workplace around the player, as in Job Simulator, and games such as Elite Dangerous or Star Wars: Squadrons (2020) found a natural home on them. Microsoft Flight Simulator (2020) built its world from satellite imagery and data streamed from servers, so you fly over the real planet. The other branch goes the opposite way, towards relaxed games of farming and everyday life, such as Stardew Valley (2016) and Animal Crossing: New Horizons (2020). The colony in RimWorld, meanwhile, became a generator of stories in which the rules of the simulation make the plot.
PC Satisfactory
A first-person factory builder where you stand right in the middle of your own machines.
PC Sea Power: Naval Combat in the Missile Age
A rare simulator of the guided-missile and radar era; commanding an entire naval battle group at once.
Series Disney Dreamlight Valley
A farming life-sim starring Disney and Pixar characters; building up the valley and friendships with Mickey.
PS4 NHL 24
Poslední hokej od EA na PS4, bez novinek nové generace.
PC UBOAT
Silent Hunter enriched with crew management; a top-down cutaway of the submarine like in a management sim.
PC Arma Reforger
A Czech showcase for the new Enfusion engine returns to the island of Everon from Operation Flashpoint.
Quest Bonelab
A physics sandbox from the creators of Boneworks; swapping bodies changes how you fight and move.
PS5 Cult of the Lamb
A combination of dungeon crawler and life-sim; a sacrificed lamb founds its own dark cult.
XONE PowerWash Simulator
Washing away grime with a pressure washer, of all things, became an unexpectedly relaxing and addictive game.
RimWorld Console Edition
Správa kolonie z PC předělaná tak, aby se ovládala gamepadem.
Series Two Point Campus
A university simulation from the creators of Two Point Hospital; majors range from wizardry to espionage.
PS5 Deathloop
A hitman stuck in one endless day; the game favors planning over shooting.
The HD generation (2005–2014)
58 games in the catalogBetween 2005 and 2014 simulators found their niches. Digital distribution, above all Steam, let small studios live off a narrow audience. Euro Truck Simulator 2 (SCS Software, 2012) sold in the millions on little more than driving a lorry across Europe, while DCS World (2013) kept military flight simulation going for enthusiasts who buy their own sticks and pedals. On handhelds and consoles the touchscreen of the Nintendo DS and the motion controls of the Wii brought new forms, such as Nintendogs and Endless Ocean. Mobile and browser games about running a small business also appeared in this period, Game Dev Story among them.
3DS Fantasy Life
A life-sim RPG from Level-5 with twelve jobs you can switch between at any time.
PC IL-2 Sturmovik: Battle of Stalingrad
A new generation of the famous series; a modern engine and dynamic weather over Stalingrad.
3DS Tomodachi Life
An unusual life simulation with Mii characters; the player just watches their absurd stories unfold.
PC Arma 3
A military simulation focused on realism; ballistics, fatigue, and radio chatter instead of action.
PC DCS World
A free platform with purchasable modules; the Su-27, F/A-18, and historic aircraft alike.
XONE Forza Motorsport 5
A launch title for the Xbox One; laser-scanned tracks and photorealistic car lighting.
PS3 Gran Turismo 6
Over twelve hundred cars and the GT Academy project linking the game to real-world racing.
Mobil My Talking Tom
A virtual cat that repeats whatever you say. The founder of the Talking Tom franchise.
PS4 NBA 2K14
Startovní basketbal nové generace s LeBronem na obalu.
PC Papers, Please
Bureaucratic border control turns into a tense moral drama about money and family.
3DS Rune Factory 4
A farming sim in the spirit of Harvest Moon combined with action RPG and dungeon battles.
3DS Animal Crossing: New Leaf
You become mayor by mistake after getting off the train; a relaxing sim that absorbed millions of players.
The arrival of 3D (1995–2004)
78 games in the catalogAfter 1995 simulators moved into fully three-dimensional graphics, and 3D accelerators (3dfx Voodoo, 1996) made textured terrain and detailed cockpits possible. On the PC the genre went deep, with combat simulations such as Falcon 4.0 (1998), whose dynamic campaign keeps the war running without the player, and the Jane's series of tactical sims. On consoles the analogue stick arrived with Pilotwings 64, and at the other end of the scale Steel Battalion (2002) shipped with a controller of dozens of buttons and pedals. Life simulations took hold as well: SimCity 2000 on the PlayStation, The Sims (2000) and Animal Crossing, which showed that even an ordinary day could be the subject of a simulation.
PS2 Armored Core: Nexus
A celebration of the series' first decade; reworked missions from the original game and Master of Arena.
GCN Harvest Moon: A Wonderful Life
The most distinctive entry in the farming series and the first to bring it to a full 3D console.
Xbox The Urbz: Sims in the City
The Sims moved to the big city; building a reputation among the comic-book personalities of the City.
PC Deus Ex: Invisible War
Sequel to the cult cyberpunk classic; freedom to mix action, stealth, and hacking remained.
PC EVE Online
A single shared universe with no separate servers; the character learns skills even while offline.
PC IL-2 Sturmovik: Forgotten Battles
Expanded the first game with more fronts and aircraft; the foundation for the whole expansion series.
PC Lock On: Modern Air Combat
The predecessor of DCS World; detailed avionics simulation for the Su-27 and A-10 of its time.
Xbox The Sims Bustin' Out
A standalone console Sims with a full-fledged story about breaking away from family.
Xbox Airforce Delta Storm
A launch-title flight simulator with over thirty licensed aircraft, from wartime planes to supersonic jets.
GCN Animal Crossing
A calm life simulation without a fixed goal, arriving in the West for the first time after debuting on the Nintendo 64.
PS2 Armored Core 3
A new world for the series – mercenary Raven builds a career in the underground city of Layered City.
PC Star Trek: Bridge Commander
You command a ship from the captain's chair; its combat physics model was among the best in the genre.
8- and 16-bit (1986–1994)
75 games in the catalogFrom 1986 to 1994 the weight shifted to PCs with a hard disk and a joystick. With titles such as F-15 Strike Eagle II and the submarine series Silent Service, MicroProse showed that a simulation could be complicated and still sell; players read manuals and planned the attack before taking off. Filled polygons replaced wireframes, and the Sound Blaster added proper sound. Alongside came SimCity (1989), which showed that the model did not have to be a machine: a city was enough. Consoles went another way. Pilotwings (1990) on the Super Nintendo used the system's background rotation and scaling (Mode 7) and turned the simulator into a skill test for everyone.
DOS Aces of the Deep
The pinnacle of DOS submarine simulators; you command a U-boat against Allied convoys.
SNES Aerobiz Supersonic
An economic simulation of an airline company; routes, planes, and the fight for dominance over the skies.
DOS F-14 Fleet Defender
A simulation of the carrier-based F-14 Tomcat; defending aircraft carriers and working the radar at long range.
Jaguar Iron Soldier
A prized Jaguar exclusive; you level a base to the ground piloting a mech.
DOS SSN-21 Seawolf
One of the most detailed submarine simulators on DOS, close to professional training simulations.
SNES Star Trek: Starfleet Academy – Starship Bridge Simulator
An unusual starship command simulator; instead of jumping, you sit in the captain's chair.
DOS Star Wars: TIE Fighter
It flipped the perspective to the Empire's side; a fragile fighter without shields changes the whole play style.
Amiga Theme Park
Bullfrog's management classic by Peter Molyneux; you build a park and watch the visitors.
SNES Uncharted Waters: New Horizons
A strategy game from the age of great discoveries with multiple captains and a freedom the genre didn't offer back then.
DOS Wing Commander III: Heart of the Tiger
Space simulation with live-action full-motion video cutscenes; Mark Hamill as pilot Blair.
DOS Aces Over Europe
The successor to Red Baron from Dynamix, moving aerial combat to World War II Europe.
Jaguar Cybermorph
The pack-in title, the first experience for thousands of Jaguar owners; a showcase for 3D polygons.
The beginnings (until 1985)
26 games in the catalogUntil the mid-1980s a simulator was mostly a question of memory. Flight simulators on 8-bit machines showed simple instruments and a wireframe or crudely filled 3D world, space games such as Star Raiders (1979) modelled a cockpit with a radar and a sector map, and management games such as Football Manager (1982) did without graphics almost entirely, because a table and text were enough. The turning point was Elite (1984 on the BBC Micro, a year later on other computers), which combined vector 3D graphics with trade, combat and free movement through a galaxy. Two subgenres came out of this period on which the genre kept building: the combat flight simulator and the game of management and economics.
ZX Dam Busters
A simulation of the famous Dam Busters operation; bouncing bombs destroying dams in the Ruhr.
ZX Elite
An entire galaxy of trading, piracy, and combat squeezed into a few kilobytes; a groundbreaking space sim.
A800 F-15 Strike Eagle
MicroProse flight sim; depth on 8-bit that surprises.
DOS Gato
Early World War II Pacific submarine simulator; sonar, diving and torpedo attacks.
A800 Kennedy Approach
An air traffic control simulator at New York's Kennedy Airport; coordinating landings under pressure.
A800 Mercenary
An open world rendered in vector graphics; a feeling of the future on an 8-bit machine.
5200 Rescue on Fractalus!
A technical marvel of 1984: fractally generated terrain that looked three-dimensional for the first time.
C64 Silent Service
The legendary submarine simulator from MicroProse and Sid Meier; it defined the entire genre.
ZX Spitfire 40
A flight simulation of the Battle of Britain; aerial combat tactics with limited ammunition and fuel.
ZX Combat Lynx
A combat helicopter simulator with a radar map above and a cockpit view below.
ZX Fighter Pilot
One of the first serious flight simulators on 8-bit systems; an honest simulation of flight.
ZX Skool Daze
A cheeky school sandbox game; the goal is to break into the headmaster's office and steal your own report card.