Whether you’re looking to fly planes, crash cars, or plow fields, there’s a simulation game out there for you. On top of this, there are some weird and wacky entries in the genre that might just be odd enough to pique your interest.

1Microsoft Flight Simulator 2024

Microsoft Flight Simulator 2024is a sequel to the 2020 game of the same name. The game promises to deliver only two highly realistic things, but it does them at an extraordinary level: planes and planet. The game features a complete rendition of our real world, and a highly realistic flight model to match. It’s one of the few games where you may technically visit your own house.

The game lets you pick from an expandable roster of handcrafted aircraft, allowing you to explore our planet, which was built using satellite imagery, photogrammetry, machine learning, and many handmade landmarks. The 2024 sequel improves on existing systems by adding more aircraft types, a whole career mode, more realistic environments, and much more.

2Euro Truck Simulator 2

Euro Truck Simulator 2remains one of Steam’s best-selling games more than twelve years after its initial launch. Step into the role of a trucker and drive licensed trucks in real locations, with tight schedules and laws to follow. Also, you may only drive for around ten hours at a time before having to make a stop to sleep.

Although it’s not alive service game, the devs almost treat it as such.ETS2has received over 90 DLC packs, some of which are full-size expansions that add entire new countries to explore. Much likeMicrosoft Flight Simulator, you’re able to visit your own house… if you live in Europe (thoughAmerican Truck Simulatoralso exists). I saw a video of my city in the latestWest Balkansupdate and couldn’t believe how well-made and detailed it was.

3Assetto Corsa EVO

Assetto Corsa EVOis an upcomingracing simulation. The franchise is held in high regard among racing and car enthusiasts, as it has highly realistic physics and mechanics. Plus, the original game isextremely moddable. This is the third entry in the franchise, but since Assetto Corsa Competizione largely focused on GT racing, you may think ofEVOas asoft rebootthat puts the emphasis back on street cars.

It’s the kind of game that’ll make you want toset up a racing sim system.Assetto Corsa EVOis scheduled to be released on June 09, 2025.

4BeamNG.drive

BeamNG.driveisn’t your typical racing sim likeAssetto Corsa. Rather, it’s a sandbox vehicle simulation with a focus on soft body physics. That means extremely realistic crashes where cars warp and become unrecognizable given enough force.

BeamNG.driveallows you to drive almost anything, from regular track racing and drifting to off-roading on snowy maps. You can think of it asGarry’s Mod,but with a focus on vehicles. Although the game doesn’t have licensed cars, it does have an active community andloads of mods.

5Cities: Skylines II

Cities: Skylines IIis a highly realistic city-building and resource management simulation game. Your job is to plan out, build, and manage a thriving metropolis filled with realistic traffic, pedestrians, weather systems, and more.

It’s worth pointing out thatCities: Skylines IIhad a rocky launch and still suffers from some technical and gameplay issues, so consider giving the original a try (it’s often discountedon Steam, making it the better deal).

6Landlord’s Super

If you want a true 1980s UK landlord simulator, you can’t get much closer thanLandlord’s Super. The gameplay largely centers on house building, managing finances, and dealing with tenants. While the game has a lot of technical issues that aren’t likely to be fixed anytime soon, it has a charm that only true indies possess and it’s one of the weirder simulators you can get your hands on.

7Farming Simulator 25

TheFarming Simulatorfranchise is among the most renowned in the world of simulations. It’s exactly what it sounds like—you play as a farmer and have to manage all aspects of a farming operation. You plant, grow, and harvest various crops, purchase and maintain machinery, raise livestock, and so on.

Farming Simulator 25is the latest entry that adds more content, a dynamic weather system, and more.

8PowerWash Simulator

PowerWash Simulatoris probably one of the strangest simulation games, at least at first glance. It’s a game where you use a pressure washer to clean pretty much everything (even a Mars rover). However, once you start playing it, you’ll realize how satisfying cleaning stuff with a pressure washer actually is.

Don’t believe me? The game has an overwhelmingly positive review score on Steam, with over 41,000 reviews.

9House Flipper 2

If you’ve always had a dream of making your fortunes buying and selling property, start a risk-free journey practicing withHouse Flipper 2. Think of it as a highly detailed house renovation simulator where the goal is to buy a house for cheap, fix it up, and sell it for maximum profit (then do it again).

10PC Building Simulator 2

I love PC hardware. Building PCs is something I’d love to do for a living, but since it’s not a viable career path, I’ll just do it inPC Building Simulator 2instead.

The game has over 1,200 components from real-life to choose from, and a bunch of extra tasks for you to do likebenchmarking,changing thermal paste on the GPU, and evenCPU delidding. The game provides excellent step-by-step guides that allow you to practice before you build or mod your own PC. Read ourfull review of PC Building Simulator 2for more information.