All new city-building game Big Ambitions is the perfect storm of classic GTA, Cities Skylines, and House Flipper, all wrapped up into one early access experience that you won’t want to miss.
Drawing clear inspiration from Rockstar’s 2009 GTA: Chinatown Wars, players are thrust into the ever-changing, ever-expanding New York City with the goal of creating a sprawling entrepreneurial masterpiece.
“Go from nothing to the biggest entrepreneur in New York by opening small businesses or slowly building huge corporations any way you like,” reads the game’s official Steam description, and that sentiment is echoed in the early access trailer.
Guided around by an NYC local, you’re shown the narrator’s first ever gift shop, as well as his measly apartment. Then, we see his fast food diner that quickly blossomed into an “overnight success.” As his enterprise expanded, he recalls “sitting back and watching the cash roll in,” moving on to own huge parts of the city.
With the topdown camera and bright animations of GTA: Chinatown Wars and the complex money juggling of Cities: Skylines, Big Ambitions is the perfect mix of old meets new. There’s even a bit of House Flipper, too, as you can customise the interiors of your new office spaces to suit your wider vision.
As someone who spent her childhood wondering which Sims 4 mods would make my house look the prettiest, the blend of customisation and management certainly makes Big Ambitions more appealing to me than more intense management sims. Oh, and there’s a pink sports car, so there’s that.
Big Ambitions will drop on Steam in Early Access form on March 10. It’s the product of the developer team behind simulation game Startup Company, which launched in April, 2020, and retains a “very positive” review on Steam. You can wishlist it here, and check out the upcoming silver and gold DLC, which gives you access to a few different features – including new cars (maybe even the pink one!)
Until then, if you’re looking for something more GTA-esque to tide you over until the GTA 6 release date, we have a rundown of all the best sandbox games to keep you entertained.