13 Games That Let You Build A Castle (2024)

There are plenty of games that let players stretch their creative wings, giving them the tools to create buildings, contraptions, and even entire levels. Creative games like Minecraft, level creators such as Halo's Forge mode, and the construction simulation of games like RimWorld allow players to construct buildings, which has proven to be a strong core gameplay loop.

Although players can build castles in games like Minecraft, these more creative-focused games often lack gameplay loops that center on castle-building. While many of these games contain strong mechanics for building castles in a way that affects the gameplay, some are more focused on creative freedom.

Updated June 7, 2024 by Harry Ted Sprinks:Castle-building games are a relatively underserved market in the world of PC gaming, even though they're relatively popular. The successful release of Stronghold: Definitive Edition shows that there's still a need for good castle-building experiences, so much so that people will still happily purchase a game that's over twenty years old.

While games like Stronghold and the upcoming indie title, Cataclismo, focus almost entirely on building castles, creative sandboxes such as Minecraft also allow players the freedom to build impressive castles.

1 Castle Story

A Voxel-Based Castle Builder

• Platform(s): PC
• Released: 2017
• Developer(s): Sauropod Studio
• Genre: Strategy

This voxel-based castle builder has players building and defending castles while managing their denizens. Castle Story combines its castle building with strategic gameplay, tasking players with micro-managing their small colony of workers.

Although Castle Story may not have lived up to its potential, its castle-building mechanics remain competent, revolving heavily around interactions with the user interface. While this system can be tedious at times, it allows for a great deal of freedom.

2 Castle Flipper

A First-Person Building Game With A Great Sense Of Scale

• Platform(s): PC
• Released: 2021
• Developer(s): Pyramid Games
• Genre: Building

As its title may suggest, Castle Flipper plays very similarly to games like House Flipper, but with a medieval theme. While castles aren't the only thing players will be building and repairing, Castle Flipper allows players to build large, impressive castles.

The first-person perspective and large 3D environments make Castle Flipper particularly immersive and give the buildings a great sense of scale. While Castle Flipper may be a little rough around the edges, it gives players a great deal of freedom to build impressive fortresses.

3 Castle Constructor

Build Castles Out Of Modular Pieces

• Platform(s): PC
• Released: 2024
• Developer(s): Sisyphean Games
• Genre: Tower Defense

This 3D indie tower defense game has players building castles out of modular pieces and defending them from a variety of enemies and medieval siege weapons. The modular system makes building castles easy, allowing players to focus on the best strategy without fighting against the user interface.

Castle Constructor features several campaign levels for players to progress through, learning new technology along the way. While this is the main way to play, Castle Constructor also features an endless mode and a creative sandbox, giving it a great deal of replay value.

4 Age Of Empires 2: Definitive Edition

An RTS With An Emphasis On Base-Building

This classic real-time strategy game has aged tremendously well, thanks in part to its 2019 definitive edition, which helped bring the game to modern audiences. Like many real-time strategy games, Age Of Empires 2 features base-building. However, AoE 2 arguably features more depth in this department than the average RTS.

Age Of Empires 2 focuses on many things other than building castles. However, the game's variety of factions to control and buildings to construct give players a lot of freedom when it comes to base-building.

5 Valheim

A Survival-Crafting Game About Building Viking Strongholds

​​​This tough-as-nails multiplayer survival game takes on a Viking theme and focuses its gameplay on exploration, combat, and building. Although still in Early Access at the time of writing, Valheim is one of the highest-rated survival games on Steam.

Valheim's building tools are incredibly intuitive and merge with the survival gameplay perfectly, allowing players to get creative as they explore and gain access to more resources. The potential for complex and large-scale castles in the world of Valheim can be seen in the community. YouTube alone is heavily populated with complex and large-scale castles built by dedicated players. Although Valheim is one of the most well-received castle-building games, its focus on exploration and combat makes its gameplay less centered around castle-building than others.

6 Becastled

Building And Defending From Fantasy Sieges

This base defense game is all about building and defending a castle from waves of enemies in a fantasy setting. The game features increasingly difficult sieges to defend from, resource management, and light RTS elements that help to add a layer of depth to the game.

Becastled features a cartoon visual style and a large focus on castle-building. At the time of writing, Becastled is still in Early Access on Steam, but the developers are still active, with their last update released in January 2024.

7 V Rising

A Survival Game About Building Gothic Castles

This open-world top-down survival game puts players in the role of a vampire attempting to take down a variety of increasingly challenging bosses in fluid, fast-paced combat. Outside of combat, players gather resources and slowly construct a Gothic castle to call home.

V Rising began as an Early Access title and has since lived up to its full potential with its recent 1.0 release. Though V Rising features plenty of combat, the game's customization options when it comes to building a base allow players to easily construct menacing, looming Gothic castles.

8 Diplomacy Is Not An Option

Defend Against Hordes Of Physics-Simulated Enemies

Diplomacy Is Not An Option tasks players with building and defending a sprawling castle from waves of enemies. Diplomacy Is Not An Option is arguably one of the best castle-building base defense games thanks to its well-crafted minimalist art style and truly massive hordes of physics-simulated enemies, as well as its intuitive building mechanics.

Diplomacy Is Not An Option allows players to build defenses and even armies to control via light RTS mechanics, as well as an entire spell system that can provide powerful advantages to the player in their most dire moments. Diplomacy Is Not An Option constantly throws huge amounts of enemies at the player's castle, making it less focused on creativity and much more focused on strategic construction.

9 Foundation

A Gridless Medieval City-Builder

This city-builder has a focus on resource management and features a grid-less construction system that allows players a great degree of freedom when building. Although Foundation is still in Early Access, it's already a promising game that still receives regular updates.

Because of Foundation's laid-back nature, players are given more freedom to focus on the city-building aspects of the game, rather than worrying about constant threats looming over their growing city. That's not to say that players won't encounter adversity in Foundation, but growing a medieval city and watching as castles begin to take form is both a relaxing and satisfying experience that's worth trying out.

10 Going Medieval

A Medieval Colony-Sim

This colony-sim plays very similarly to RimWorld but takes place in a medieval setting. The game gives players easy-to-use tools to build a variety of strongholds for their villagers as they defend from raids and attempt to keep their population happy.

Going Medieval is very much a colony-sim, but includes heavy elements of base defense as well. Players will spend much of their time worrying about keeping their villagers safe and figuring out the best defense, making Going Medieval more strategic than it is creative.

11 Kingdoms And Castles

A City-Builder About Building And Defending Castles

This medieval-fantasy city-builder tasks players with building and defending a castled town from Viking raids and dragon attacks, each posing their unique threats. Kingdoms And Castles features a cartoon visual style and an intuitive grid-based building system that allows players to build battlements and towers to help defend their villagers.

Kingdoms And Castles is first and foremost a city-builder, so players won't just be building the castle itself, but defenses, too. In Kingdoms And Castles, some defenses are affected by the height of the battlement they're placed on, making castle building in the game a strategic process.

12 Minecraft

A Game Of Creative Freedom

Minecraft is, at its heart, a survival-crafting game with a focus on mining and building. However, the sheer number of tools and materials that Minecraft offers both in and out of its designated Creative Mode allows players an unprecedented amount of freedom.

This freedom allows players to essentially build whatever they can imagine, so long as it can be made out of blocks. Over the years of Minecraft's development, players have honed their skills and mastered the game's tools to such a degree that they're able to build extremely impressive structures. However, even for the average player, building a simple stone castle is still perfectly possible, albeit not the game's focus.

13 Stronghold

A Classic Castle-Builder

This retro RTS game was released back in 2001 and defines itself as a "castle simulator," allowing players to design and build sprawling castle complexes. It could be argued that building strongholds and defending them from large armies has never managed to live up to the standards Stronghold set all those years ago.

Although Stronghold features a full campaign with some great missions to complete, its economic campaign allows players to relax as they design and build castles in a combat-free environment. The game features a revered HD version on the Steam storefront, and a definitive edition was released on November 7, 2023.

Special Mention: Cataclismo

• Platform(s): PC
• Released: 2024
• Developer(s): Digital Sun
• Genre: Base Defense

Cataclismo is a combination of real-time strategy, tower defense, and base-building. The game tasks players with building castles piece by piece using a modular system inspired by LEGO. Cataclismo features a somber world and an art style to match, providing an eerie atmosphere as players defend their growing castle from waves of enemies.

This promising base defense game is set to feature a full single-player campaign, an endless survival mode, and even a creative mode. Cataclismo currently has a demo available on Steam and is set for release on July 16, 2024.