Town to City Review – Beautiful Blend of Creativity and Strategy

Town to City Review

I wonder what it would be like to live in a little Mediterranean seaside town, where the shops are all quaint, the people are happy and the nights are filled with soft, romantic light. I’ll never know. But I can pretend, thanks to Town to City. It’s a chill city builder, just out of early access. Everything I said about Town to City in September 2025 still applies now that the final game has been released. This is really more of an update and recap.

The Voxel Way

Town to City checks a lot of familiar city-builder boxes, but has a clear identity of its own, too. For example, its aethetics. The game has a unique, voxel graphics art design that lends itself to making beautiful-looking cities. Zoomed out, they look like tabletop dioramas. The palette is rich and saturated, vibrant with the colors of the Mediterranean. If you’re looking to build a burned-out shell of a post-apocalyptic hellscape, look elsewhere. It might not be possible to build anything but an inviting, beautiful town. The game’s dynamic day and night cycle and delicate musical underscore add to the romantic, old-world vibes.

The full release version includes a few additions to the selection of maps, and terraforming tools that lets players reshape the world, even under existing structures. It’s a little disappointing that there’s still no map editor. However, players can take a starting map and terraform it into something a little bit unique.

I Like Flowers, You Like Trees

Most city builders have a grid-type foundation, making it easy to lay down power and sewer lines, roads and other amenities. Town to City has a 19th century feel and allows players to place buildings and paint roads anywhere, no grid required. This results in some beautifully natural, organic designs. That’s not to imply that anything goes.

Especially in the campaign, growing a town into a city still breaks down into enticing people to live there, keeping them happy and fulfilling an increasingly complex series of demands. People have aesthetic needs — for example, some want trees on their property, others flowers — and access to shops and goods. Each type of merchant, resident or family has specific requirements. Eventually, people want entertainment, leisure activities and cultural opportunities. The population changes as new classes like Working Class, Artisans, and Bourgeoisie transform the town.

The full release of Town to City also includes new features like trade routes between towns, dedicated farmland and tourism, allowing you to map out scenic points of interest for visitors.

Freestyle

As city builders go, Town to City is a bit less exacting in its demands, and there are quite a number of sliders and options to further reduce potential stress. The campaign does a good job of introducing mechanics at a reasonable pace. All city builders have a puzzle-like component, but Town to City allows for a range of solutions.

I’ll admit that once I play some of the campaign and learn the basics, I tend to pivot to the sandbox mode (if it’s available) where I can freely tinker and build. I think that this is where Town to City really shines, because there are so many toys to play with, decorative options to explore and a gridless landscape that rewards creativity. You still have to build specific neighborhoods with access to specific services. But you can unlock everything, which makes satisfying those needs far easier. Turn off the economy, and things get easier still. In other words, Town to City can satisfy just about every fan of the genre. I think the only sticking point might be the voxel graphics, which are incredibly appealing if you can enjoy a degree of stylized abstraction.

Although the campaign can be challenging, Town to City is not as exacting as other games in the sim genre. A distinctive art style, gridless building, and a relaxed, calming pace are central to the experience. Even in early access, Town to City felt polished, and now that the full version is here, fans of both city builders and chill games should find something to enjoy.

***PC code provided by the publisher for review***