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What are the best simulation games on Xbox One?

8

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Considered

11

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Recs.

May 30, 2018

Last
Updated

8 Games Considered

Best simulation games on Xbox One	Price	Genre	Platforms
-- Stardew Valley	$14.99	Farming Simulation, Role-Playing	Windows, OS X, Linux, PS 4, Xbox One, Nintendo Switch, PS Vita, Android
-- Kerbal Space Program	$39.99	-	-
-- Prison Architect	$29.99	Simulation	Windows, Mac, Linux, PS4, Xbox 360/One, Android
-- Elite: Dangerous	$29.99	Space trading and combat game	-
-- Project CARS 2	$59.99	Racing Simulator	Windows, PlayStation 4, Xbox One

Stardew Valley

Top Pro

Great freedom in designing your farm

When creating your own farm you aren't just limited to plowing fields for planting crops. You can also dig wells, put down fences, and even build various structures such as barns or stables. This allows you to build a farm that firmly matches your goals and sense of aesthetics. See More

Top Con

Can get really repetitive

Living on a farm is a lot of work, so you'll have to repeat the same tasks quite often. This includes tilling land, planting seeds, chopping trees, and many other farm related activities. While it's normally pretty fun and relaxing, it can get incredibly tedious during long play sessions, especially if you're just trying to progress. See More

Specs

Genre:Farming Simulation, Role-Playing

Co-Op:Online and Local, up to 4 players

Top Pro

Very fulfilling to play

Stardew Valley is a very simple game where you're free to do anything and everything at your own pace. This includes building your farm, planting and harvesting crops, and exploring the world among many other things. It will feel enjoyable no matter how fast or slow you do it. This coupled with the colorful/pleasing art style and the great soundtrack makes it an extremely pleasing experience. See More

Top Pro

Great soundtrack

When you work on your farm, go fishing, explore or just walk around the town you'll be accompanied by a really nice soundtrack. It's sometimes upbeat, sometimes soothing, and sometimes even melancholic, with every track matching each location and season perfectly. There's also a wide variety of instruments used, including a piano, accordion, banjo, synths, and many others. This allows you to listen to the soundtrack for hours without getting tired of it. Sometimes it's very hard to believe Stardew Valley and its soundtrack was produced by just one person. See More

Top Pro

A great mix of genres

While Stardew Valley is primarily a farming simulator, it also has social interaction elements and combat elements. The social interaction elements allow you to interact with people around the town. You can befriend them, get quests from them, hang out with them, and even find a significant other to go out with and eventually marry. It can be very addictive to max out your relationship with everyone. The combat elements are introduced when you unlock the dungeon, allowing you to battle creatures such as slimes, golems, and even mummies. While the combat is pretty simple, having you just swing your weapon, it's very satisfying to whack away at enemies. If farming ever starts feeling stale you can try either of these to mix it up, allowing you to keep the game fresh for a longer time. See More

Kerbal Space Program

Top Pro

Teaches orbital dynamics & rocket design fundamentals in an accessible manner

The physics engine does a reasonably accurate job of replicating the fundamentals behind both orbital dynamics and rocket design, so by going through the tutorials and experimenting, you're actually learning some real rocket science. See More

Top Con

Some visuals are poorly done

While the rockets, buildings, and even the Kerbals look pretty good, the environments and particle effects are a bit lacking. See More

Specs

Steam Rating:Overwhelmingly Positive

Top Pro

Excellent construction sandbox for building and launching rockets

KSP at its core is a rocket building and launching sandbox. When creating a rocket you can place engines, fuel cells, structural elements, and even parachutes, allowing you to build a rocket in any shape and size. The end result can even look like a giant doughnut, which might be difficult to get it into outer space. Even if you fail, the entirety of the process is really enjoyable. See More

Top Con

Steep learning curve

Kerbal Space Program is not really a pick up and play title. It can take hours just go grasp the basics and the game will keep throwing new concepts at you as you progress into space, even stuff like orbital dynamics. Because of this, it can easily take dozens of hours to truly master this game. See More

Top Pro

Motivates you to learn

Kerbal Space Program puts into perspective how amazing the advancement of the human race is. It inspires you to learn our history, how we got here, and what we can do proceed. See More

Top Pro

Tons of stuff to do

Build rockets, space planes, space stations, rovers, landers, probes. Explore planets, moons, capture asteroids, set up a communications network, colonize a planet, mine for resources and much more. It can even simulate our solar system. See More

Top Pro

In constant development

KSP is a shinning example of early release done right. The currently available game is fun to play, and the developers are constantly adding new content. See More

Prison Architect

Top Pro

Relaxing to play

Building your prison is almost zen like. There are periods of stress when there are riots or things going wrong, but you can always pause to take your time and figure out a good solution. See More

Top Con

Gameplay is poorly explained

The game does a poor job of explaining all the mechanics to the player when they begin the main game which leaves the player guessing as to what they need to do in order to be successful. See More

Specs

Steam Rating:Mostly Positive

Genre:Simulation

Top Pro

Developers are releasing free updates and additions to the game

Developers have been updating the game almost every month with new content, improvements and tweaks to the game. See More

Top Pro

Great freedom of playstyle

You can run the prison in the way that you see fit. You can put the wellbeing of prisoners at the top of the priority list by making sure their living spaces are comfortable, that they're well-fed, have the opportunity to educate themselves and often get to go outside in the yard to socialize and exercise or you can run the prison with an iron fist by instituting regular shakedowns, putting CCTVs, metal detectors, K-9 units and armed guards in every corner. Whichever play-style you choose, the game will offer challenges that will keep the game interesting. See More

Top Pro

Works great for both long and short play sessions

The gameplay lends itself well to both doing a couple of things around the prison every once in a while or setting up elaborate systems that can take hours upon hours of time. The game can be saved at any time so you don't have to make commitments in one way or another. See More

Top Pro

Amazing depth

The game consists of a wide variety of overlapping systems that work together to create excellent depth. You have to figure out the layout of your prison, how to manage the needs of your inmates, how to earn enough money to expand and hire new staff, what to do in the case of a natural disaster, a riot or attempted escape and so on. Every decision you make will impact all other elements of the game. For example, instituting regular shakedowns will help prevent prisoners from carrying banned items like forks taken from cafeterias that can be used to dig tunnels, but will also make the inmates more angry and thus more likely to riot. You can decide to instead use tunnel-sniffing dogs set to patrol around the perimeter, but that will cost more money and if the inmates pick up on the patrolling patterns they will tunnel around them. Or you may decide to check each inmate individually to see who's tired from staying up late to dig while everyone else has been sleeping though that approach may not scale. See More

Elite: Dangerous

Top Pro

Great Oculus Rift integration

Elite Dangerous has very good integration with the Oculus Rift thanks to its cockpit view only gameplay philosophy. All ship UIs are part of displays that appear on each side of you that appear when you turn your head, so accessing the navigation or ship menus happens seamlessly just by looking in their direction. The game also uses the direction you are looking in for targeting, so your lock on target is whatever you're head is pointing at. By sitting in the cockpit of a ship, you are given a stationary frame of reference that helps prevent motion sickness associated with movement in game when you aren't actually moving. See More

Top Con

"Mile Wide and an Inch Deep"

The game has a serious problem with depth and requires the user to repeat the same few fun actions over and over again. The world is massive and beautiful but feels empty. The game gets stale quickly despite being visually stunning. See More

Specs

Steam Rating:Mostly Positive

Genre:Space trading and combat game

Co-Op:Multiplayer

Controller Support:Full

Top Pro

Exploration at every level of detail

Full exploration of the galaxy is planned, allowing you to be able to jump from star system to star system, and fly around within a solar system from planet to planet, eventually going all the way down to a planet's surface at a 1:1 scale in a later update. Planetary landings will require a lot of details to be developed and designed, but you can still see the level of detail shift in action when flying into a planet's rings, where getting close enough show the individual asteroids within, which you can then interact with through mining, or by having a battle among them. See More

Top Con

Really complicated to learn

Looking up faqs and trade routes from first hand users will be the norm for figuring out many aspects of Elite: Dangerous. On top of this notes will have to be taken, which is made more difficult by the fact the game does not support in game not taking. So a pad and paper is recommended to remember all of the minutia of the game. See More

Top Pro

Built with future expansion in mind

When Elite Dangerous come out, development won't stop. To build a game with the huge scope of Elite Dangerous, not all of it can be done at once, so the developers have adopted an approach of incremental improvement. Various game play elements are being designed as a foundation for later features. For example, although planetary landings aren't going to be available until a later update, the engine has been designed to be able to support going from lightyears away to meters away. See More

Top Pro

Very realistic representation of space & star systems

Elite Dangerous uses publicly available real world star maps that we have of the Milky Way consisting of 150,000 star systems. Although in the current beta, full access to the entire galaxy is limited, in the final game, you will be able to visit any of the 400 billion stars in our galaxy on a 1:1 scale. Stars that we do know of are properly mapped in place and are of the correct type given the information we have about them. Stars we haven't collected data on are procedurally generated which allows you to explore any of the 400 billion of them. Star systems are intelligently simulated using the "Star Forge", a generator that simulates the creation of a star system forming from its nebular cloud to determine what celestial bodies appear and what orbits they have. This feature leads to many varied and unique star systems possibly with planets that can co-orbit around each other, or with binary star systems, and infinitely more possibilities. See More

Project CARS 2

Top Pro

Amazing sound design

Listening to every sound of the exhaust and engine from the driver's seat is exciting, making you feel like you're right behind the wheel. Other cars jetting by, the sharp noise of the wheels burning rubber on tight turns, and the clicking motion of the player character manually changing gears are all at their best, making Project CARS 2 a standout game of the genre in terms of realism. See More

Top Con

Difficult for new racing players

While there are some tools to help ease new racing players into the game, like an engineer that will help suggest how to tune your cars based on your preferences, Project Cars 2 can otherwise be a daunting experience. There are an overwhelming amount of cars, tracks, and customization options. The optional lines along the tracks for beginners to follow will sometimes lead players off track or into frustrating, hard-to-pull-off turns, souring the learning experience. See More

Specs

Steam Rating:Mostly Positive

Genre:Racing Simulator

Top Pro

Great selection of cars and tracks

With over 130 tracks and 180 cars to choose from, there's a great deal of variety that gives the game a lot of replay value for both single-player and multiplayer races. Open wheels, dozens of vintage cars, popular road cars such as a handful of Porsche and Lamborghini models, and tons more are all on offer, along with a near-endless combination of customizable tracks for single-player races and rule sets for AI opponents. See More

Top Pro

Finely-tuned controls with a peripheral wheel

Playing with a peripheral wheel will be the superior choice for racing game vets, and Project CARS 2 is a great choice for anyone who wants an immersive driving experience. The wheel is smooth and responsive, with rumble feedback picking up each bump in the road, the grip loosens in chaos each time you lose control of the vehicle, and it quickly tightens up once you regain control. Controlling races with the gamepad naturally isn't as responsive as the wheel, but it's still a fine way to feel the thrill of the game's speed and fluidity. See More

Top Pro

Gorgeous visuals and dynamic weather

Project CARS 2 shows off every glare of sunlight over each car, the droplets of rain over the windshield in the middle of a downpour, and the flurry of snow rushing across the field as you navigate through a blizzard. Each car is recreated with painstaking detail, and the movement of the player character's hands as they rumble in-time with the wheel or shift around to change gears looks life-like. See More

State of Decay 2

Top Pro

Online co-op with friends makes the game more fun and strategic

Four-player co-op online with friends is great. You all get to work together to plan your next move, gather resources, and protect your base by killing zombies. The third-person shooter gameplay shines as you work cooperatively, since you can watch each other's blind spots to take out any enemies that might catch someone off guard. You can also pull off more strategic moves, like coordinating fire strikes to distract zombies, while another person hurries to collect the resources in an area. Working as a team lets you accomplish more and experience the game in a way that the single-player mode just doesn't offer. See More

Top Con

Not for players who dislike micromanaging small details

If you don't like keeping track of resources and other necessities that come along with base-building games, then State of Decay 2 probably isn't for you. Your main objective is keeping your survivors alive and your base thriving, meaning you have to scavenge the open world for food and materials, make sure your peoples' needs are met, and a lot of other similar tasks. Finding and allocating resources is what makes or breaks your group and your operations, so if you hate keeping track of things like that, then you may not want to pick this game up. See More

Specs

Genre:Survival Horror, Third-Person Shooter

Co-Op:4 Player Online

Top Pro

Open-ended approach to managing your base, resources, and survivors

You have the freedom to make choices in State of Decay 2 that determine how things turn out for your operations. You're tasked with taking care of groups of survivors during a zombie apocalypse, so that means gathering food and other resources to keep your people and your base safe. When you know you're about to exhaust all the resources in one area, you have to decide if you want to keep your base in what's probably a safe location away from zombies, at the cost of having to cross more distance to find materials in the future. Or if you do move your base to a resource-rich location, you may end up getting swarmed by zombies more often, and potentially losing your survivors. These types of moment-to-moment choices end up having a big impact down the line, making each of your gameplay sessions unique. See More

Top Con

Buggy

There are some random bugs that pop up during gameplay. They're mostly physics-based, with zombies dropping down from the sky as they spawn, or vehicles tipping over and flipping around for no apparent reason. Some of them are pretty funny and aren't too detrimental, but they still make the game look and feel unpolished. A few patches from the devs should iron out these issues. See More

Top Pro

Excellent performance

Everything runs well at solid framerates on both console and PC. If you're on the Xbox One X, or if you have a high-end PC at max settings, you'll hardly notice any stuttering or FPS issues. The regular Xbox One and mid-tier PCs also run the game quite well. See More

Top Con

No dedicated servers for online play

Not having dedicated servers makes online play hit-or-miss. The peer-to-peer connection means that one player in the lobby acts as the "host" for your game. If the host's individual connection is bad, then everyone in the lobby suffers with possible rubberbanding and packet loss. You'll be fine as long as the host's connection is okay, but if not, then you're out of luck. It would have been better to have dedicated servers to avoid these awkward issues. See More

Top Pro

Good price of $29.99 USD at release

State of Decay 2 is priced well at launch at only $29.99. Even better, with the Xbox Game Pass, you can get the game for only $10 on either PC or your Xbox console. This is great for anyone who doesn't want to shell out the usual $59.99 for a retail game as soon as it's released. See More

The Sims 4

Top Pro

Emotions mechanic gives a feeling of realism

Emotions replaces the old system of traits. Using emotions to regulate how sims behave does feel more natural to a way a person would behave making for a more realistic feeling simulation. This allows the player to feel more immersed in the game. See More

Top Con

Clipping

Characters can sometimes clip each other when trying to navigate the same path, which results in a loss of immersion for the player and shows a laziness of design. See More

Specs

Genre:Life Simulation

Top Pro

Multiple active tasks in queue

Unlike previous versions, The Sims 4 allows for multiple active tasks to be performed from the queue at the same time as long as they are physically possible. See More

Top Con

Missing features that were in previous versions

The Sims 4 is missing a lot of features and options that were in previous version making the title feel unfinished or rushed. Of course it all could be a ploy to sell these features to the consumer at a later date basically making the users pay for the games content piecemeal. See More

Top Pro

Tone of silliness easy to manage

Depending on the players choices tone may be set to a degree. So players wanting a less silly story to their game may do so by making rational choices during the game. See More

Top Con

Too many loading screens

There are way too many jarring loading screens when trying to navigate The Sims 4 small world. See More

Top Pro

Customizable maps

Users can change plots on the map to build different kinds of building such as cafes. Giving the player more depth and customization options to their world creates a more enveloped playing experience. See More

Top Pro

Build tools, best in the series

The Sims 4 offers the best build tools in the series making it even easier to design and furnish their homes. See More

Top Pro

Easy cloud sharing

A new feature, cloud sharing is very useful for those that like to share their designs or download other players. From other sims to house patterns and layouts all can be shared or downloaded for use in game. See More

EA Sports UFC 3

Top Pro

Career mode goes way deeper than just fighting

Career mode offers a new way to play that resembles a simulation game. In this mode, your goal is to become the best fighter possible, starting from the World Fighting Alliance and working your way up to be recruited and fighting in the ranks of the UFC. During this mode, you will have to manage not only your fighter in the ring as you punch and kick your way to the top, but everything that goes into the spectacle itself such as promoting your fights, building hype, and making fans. You are free to join and represent different gyms, with each one focusing on a particular fighting style. Every week you get points to spend on upgrading your character, learning new moves, promoting fights, and conducting research about your opponent's strengths and weaknesses. It's not possible to do everything at once, so it's up to you how you choose to spend your points. This mode will really appeal to players who want some more depth to their beat-em-up and gives a nice glimpse into what goes on behind the scenes in the UFC. See More

Top Con

Fight commentary gets repetitive

While there's nothing wrong with it at first, the same bland pre-recorded lines are used over and over, resulting in commentary that feels very repetitive over time. See More

Specs

Genre:Fighting, Sports, Simulation

Top Pro

Stamina meter promotes intelligent play over wild swinging

Whenever you take an action during a fight, your stamina meter will slowly deplete. Jumping into the ring and wildly throwing punches and kicks will get you nowhere and exhaust your fighter. The game requires you to play smart to win. You will have to manage your stamina so that you can punch, kick, and execute combos when the time is right, conserving your energy for the best takedown moments. This stamina system adds a nice layer of strategic play, as well as a manageable resource, to a genre that is mostly filled with button mashing. See More

Top Con

Ultimate Team mode has microtransactions

The only way to add fighters or moves to your team in Ultimate Mode is through an item shop. See More

Top Pro

You can step into the ring as your favorite fighter

All major UFC fighters are playable in game, with the in-game models doing a great job of representing their real life counterparts. It's a great chance to step into the shoes of your favorite fighter as you punch, kick, and grapple your way to victory. In the event you want to create your own fighter, you can even do that as well. See More

Top Con

Poor submission and grappling system

Unlike the strategic fighting, the submission and grappling system is handled through a timed minigame in which you press buttons in a certain order or move the control stick in a certain direction. This can feel disjointed from the rest of the fight. See More

Top Pro

Fights look and feel polished

When your fists or feet connect with an opponent, you can see the pain in their face as they stagger backwards. Hits and kicks feel heavy and powerful, with a real impact, and the animations are incredibly smooth. Fighters are molded after their real life counterparts in extreme detail down to tattoos and facial expressions. Everything about the fights just looks and feels fluid and polished from the lighting in the ring to the punching, kicking, and grappling itself. See More

Top Pro

Reworked striking system leads to more strategic fighting

The striking system for UFC 3 has been reworked from the system appearing in 1 and 2. Using the control stick on the right, you can now bob and sway to dodge and avoid incoming punches and kicks. This new striking system allows you to set up counterattacks by dodging and striking back-to-back allowing for more strategic counterplay. It encourages a delicate balance between offense and defense, as one smart move can lead to knocking out your opponent, whereas one wrong move can send you crumbling to the floor. See More

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