Simulation games aren't just the realm of thousand-dollar joystick setups and force feedback racing chairs; they can encompass anything, really, from cleaning stubborn dirt to designing the most efficient railway system. Simulation games are, however, always a labor of love, a true niche that is often as rewarding as they are fascinating.
The true beauty of simulation games is that you can go as deep into the experience as you like. You can create a bespoke setup to feel like you're truly driving an 18-wheeler around Europe, or you can simply make yourself a cup of coffee and play it like you would anything else. You can commit as much as you want to it, and if you're anything like us, you'll end up diving headfirst into every one.
Here are the best simulation games on PC:
1. Microsoft Flight Simulator
Microsoft Flight Simulator recreates every aspect of flying down to the last sublime detail: the hot air from the engines rippling over the wing as you begin your charge down the runway, and the streaks of rain across your windshield as you descend through the clouds. This spectacular attention to detail becomes more astonishing when you realize that every single square inch of our planet Earth is mapped out in MFS, ready for you to soar overhead.
The flying itself is also meticulously simulated, with detailed aerodynamic modeling, fully detailed cockpits and instrumentation, and real-time weather conditions - so you can experience the precise wind speed and direction outside your window as you narrowly avoid the fast-approaching ground.
Ben Maxwell said in his Microsoft Flight Simulator review from 2020 that this game achieves the impossible and is very much worth playing - it was a game built for the future, too, and since the future is now, there couldn't be a better time to climb into the cockpit.
2. Cities Skylines 2
On the face of it, the Cities: Skylines series may seem to be the no-frills version of something like a SimCity. It has a much higher level of fidelity over the more surface-level experience that is the Sim games, but with that also comes a much higher level of nuance. Constructing a city isn't quite enough in Cities: Skylines 2 - you have to immerse yourself in the day-to-day running of it, too.
The second game in the series ups the ante in terms of scale, allowing players with vision to create sprawling metropolises, with bombastic, beautiful planning being twinned with a true attention to detail. It's a tough ask, but it's definitely a worthy pursuit.
Ed Smith's Cities Skylines 2 review praises the increase in scope: "Considering what Cities Skylines 2 is trying to achieve - the depth and breadth of its simulation, and the extent of its mechanics - the game is impressively graceful." And while a few performance issues held him up at launch, these have mostly been squashed in the years since.
3. Kerbal Space Program
Despite its cutesy appearance, Kerbal Space Program is an incredibly detailed physics-based space game that lets you design and construct your own spacecraft before launching it into orbit. That's all before you attempt to do those impossibly complicated things, like docking with other vessels, or landing your wobbly construct on the moon.
Since the earliest version of KSP was released in 2011, its community sprang into action, creating the best Kerbal Space Program mods, written and video tutorials, a cornucopia of user-created spacecraft to try out for yourself, and a recreation of The Martian. Its popularity prompted NASA (yes, the NASA) to reach out to developer Squad and collaborate with the team to create new in-game content based on real missions.
Is it 100% realistic? Given that it's simulating one of the most complicated human endeavors ever undertaken and letting you have a go with your mouse and keyboard, there's an element of creative license. However, it's still about as close as the medium has produced. Every physical object abides by Newtonian dynamics, which is why that rocket you built to look like Gary Busey's face collapsed and burned itself to cinders the second you hit the thrusters.
4. Farming Simulator 25
When it comes to farming simulator games, look no further than Farming Simulator 25. The clue's in the name, frankly. Please excuse our facetiousness, but believe us when we say that if you're looking for the closest one-to-one recreation of truly living off the land, Giants Software's latest agricultural outing is for you.
Considering you'll most likely be losing many hours to tending your crops and livestock, it's great that this iteration of Farming Simulator gives us a graphical overhaul, even if it doesn't stretch to recreating the smell of the manure. With more vehicles and detail than ever before, Farming Simulator is the kind of management game that teaches you new skills as you get away from the big smoke.
It doesn't stop there, either; you can take your farming experience to the next level with our batch of the best Farming Simulator 25 mods, to drastically change what is already an excellent package.
5. Roadcraft
In videogames, building roads is often an intermediate step to something greater, whether that's marching an army down to an unruly city-state in Civilization or easing traffic jams in Cities: Skylines 2. It's rarely the main objective. Saber Interactive proves that there's a simulation game to be found here, and it's well worth your time.
As the owner of a disaster recovery company, you've got all the heavy machinery at your disposal to rebuild roads and restore local infrastructure across a variety of maps. Ed Smith's 9/10 Roadcraft review calls it "one of the best games of this year", striking the balance between realism and videogame to craft an experience that enlivens its mundane subject matter.
Roadcraft manages to effortlessly inject drama into what could be seen as something mundane. Rebuilding broken roads is the task at hand, sure, but what it means to the inhabitants of that area is what sets this apart from other, fairly similar experiences.
6. Football Manager 26
Anyone who is into professional sports has found themselves at one point or another thinking that they can do a better job. Maybe not physically (at least where we're concerned) but tactically. Football Manager has always been a series that lets you put your money where your mouth is, so to speak.
Take control of a team and attempt to lead them to glory, whether that be the dizzying heights of the Champions League, or maybe the more modest - but no less impressive - goal of escaping a dire relegation scrap in the lower leagues. Craft the best team you can, put a gameplan into action, and obviously make sure the books all add up.
Football Manager 26 brings a new matchday engine to the fore, adding a sense of visual drama into the mix as you watch that Brazilian wonderkid you took a punt on score a screamer in the 90th minute in full glorious 3D. If you would rather play on the go, check out our FM26 Steam Deck guide to see if you can manage on the move.
7. Railway Empire 2
Railway Empire 2 is a train sim with a difference - it's a historical one, focused on the early days of train travel across the United States, during the tumultuous years of the Wild West era. You have the whole of North America to build on and the goal of leading your company into the 20th century.
Railway Empire 2 isn't just a train game; it also simulates the management side of the job, too, making it a spiritual successor to the classic Railroad Tycoon series. The game's got dozens of accurately modeled trains from that era, and you can ride and control any of them. The real joy of the game is in handling the company, from laying down tracks and building stations to managing the workforce and researching new technologies.
Railway Empire 2 is a realistic management game, so don't expect to just plop these things down Theme Park-style - you have to consider switches, terrain, water, and many other factors if you're going to be successful. Like any simulation game, there's a lot of detail to take in at first, but once you get going, it's a lot of fun.
8. F1 25
If you're a fan of F1 games, you should already be aware of the official F1 series from Codemasters and the studio's annual entries. The pinnacle of Formula One simulation racers is as close to the experience as you're likely to get without actually being there, and the latest entry is the best yet.
The handling model in the F1 series is the best around, and this is the finest iteration to date - accurately and perfectly conveying the sense of driving one of these ridiculously fast beasts. Tiny changes in traction, feeling the back twitch out in the rain, and that unmistakable bobble as you hit full speed; it's all there, whether you're haring around the Côte d'Azur in modern or classic vehicles.
You don't just have to manage your (officially licensed) vehicles either; instead, you have to interact with the pit crew and gain their trust, which translates to better morale and more efficient car servicing on the track. Toby Durant's F1 25 review says that the latest entry delivers a "stronger driving experience and greater attention to detail than its predecessors."
9. Euro Truck Simulator 2
Euro Truck Simulator 2 is therapy. Cruising the dual carriageways of Northern Italy at just below the legal speed limit while a local radio station plays unintelligibly is pure nourishment for the soul. On the other hand, it's a supreme challenge. Defeated the Fume Knight in Dark Souls II, have you? Come back when you've parallel-parked a Scania R Highline carrying a yacht after a night's drive from Luxembourg to Budapest.
Perhaps the most compelling aspect of SCS Software's simulation is that it is ostensibly driving, but not quite as you know it. Forget everything racing games taught you about turning circles. Forget what they taught you about mirrors, too - no longer do they exist simply to illustrate the crash you caused with your reckless weaving. Now they're an essential component of your driving experience, crucial to turning any corner greater than 10 degrees without scraping thousands off your salary.
As with any sim worth its salt, Euro Truck Simulator 2 has a considerable haul of mods, crafted by the loving hands of its community. The base game offers thousands of kilometers of real estate and no shortage of vehicles, but there's a wealth of additional trucks, maps, liveries, and sound packs out there.
10. ARMA 3
ARMA 3 is the kind of shooter in which you spend more time looking at your map and compass than down the iron sights of your rifle, and gunfights play out over hundreds of meters, rather than the up-close-and-personal action of say, a Call of Duty. This is the thinking person's sniper game, in other words. When you see a tank, your first instinct is to pull out your radio, not an RPG launcher.
But from your first petrified footsteps through its enormous theaters of war, when you see the chopper in the sky above you and realize someone's flying, ARMA 3's hardcore appeal permeates. There's a reason so many of its Steam reviews come from players with thousands of hours of playtime.
Those reviewers will mention its myriad annoying bugs, and they'll also all agree that they don't ruin Bohemia's fantastically large-scale combat simulation game. There is a solo campaign, but it's in the multiplayer sandbox where the real long game lies. It's here, under the scrutiny of dozens of other players, that you'll try to pilot a helicopter for the first time and take to the skies with the finesse of a damp paper towel.
11. Silent Hunter: Wolves of the Pacific
Contrary to their depiction in film, submarines aren't sleek, agile instruments of death. They're vulnerable at sea level, and all but blind below it. They hunt for freighters in the incomprehensibly vast ocean for days at a time, and when they do engage in combat, it moves at a kind of perpetual bullet time.
Silent Hunter 4 is a ruthlessly realistic WWII game for only the most sun-averse naval commanders, complete with a control room full of unfriendly dials and crew members whose admiration for their superior prohibits them from emitting as much as a whimper when you guide your sub toward certain death. Mother Nature's just as deadly as your Axis opponents down here at the bottom of the Pacific Ocean.
Released way back in 2007, SH4 is almost eligible for a state pension at this point. Although later iterations have modernized its visuals, they haven't bested its atmosphere and tension, and its freeform career mode played from the Allied perspective in the Pacific theater of war is still the best submarine game experience around.
13. IL-2 Sturmovik: Cliffs of Dover Blitz
Cliffs of Dover wasn't anything like the supreme fight-and-flight extraordinaire it is today when it first rumbled apologetically down the runway in 2011, but a series of staggeringly high-quality patches from Norway-based collective Team Fusion now leave it worthy of its IL-2 Sturmovik moniker. Performance issues have been ironed out, and the original, notoriously dodgy AI has been fixed with more sensible routines.
There are new aircraft variants in the modern-day Cliffs of Dover, too, and the original planes enjoy a physics rework that improves ground handling (much more challenging than in 1C's base game, but much more realistic). Airborne maneuverability has been tweaked for realism and more engaging dogfights, too.
In short, it's an immeasurably better game than the one that appeared, sniffling and coughing, all those years ago, all thanks to Team Fusion. There are newer combat flight sims you can play, but as this is one of the most vital - and desperate - air operations ever, it's worthy of your time.
15. Powerwash Simulator 2
Less serious than some others on this list, but no less deserving of a place. Powerwash Simulator 2 takes the ultra-satisfying process of blasting dirt with a high-powered water gun and adds a loose narrative, as if we needed a reason to make things gleam.
The sequel improves on much of the original, but ultimately, it's a lot of the same - and that's absolutely fine. From train cars to mansions to a planetarium, Powerwash Simulator 2 provides so many environments, all varied and interesting in their own right.
Powerwash Simulator 2 is fully playable in co-op as well, so if you want to bring a couple of friends along for the most exciting cleaning experiences of your lives, you can. Entice them in with the promise of scrubbing graffiti off the walls of an indoor shopping mall, and we promise they'll be battering your door down for a chance to join in.
Upcoming simulation games
A lot of these simulation games are on a regular sequel track, and many see yearly releases. DLC is also a firm favorite of the genre, with racing games, for instance, seeing new cars being added to their already-huge rosters like clockwork. Speaking of which, Forza Horizon 6 is set to launch later this May, giving you the chance to race all around Japan. Check out our upcoming games guide for a list of the new releases coming to you soon.
We hope that throughout your pilot, driver, or power cleaner training, you've learned a thing or two and had just as much fun in the process. The one thing simulation games tend to lack is an intricately woven narrative, but you can head on over to our best PC games list if you want to get stuck into compelling stories.