Screenshots
Watch trailer on Steam ↗Metropolis 1998
Yesbox Studios · Published by Yesbox Studios · Official site ↗
Last updated 27 Sept 2026
A fresh, modern city builder with charming aesthetics. Detailed agent-based simulation and scheduling. See inside buildings. Design and customize almost anything. Business-specific zoning, and mixed use zones too!
Indie, Simulation, Free To Play, Strategy, Early Access · 2026 · More free games
Explore Metropolis 1998's charmingly detailed buildings as you build and manage a futuristic city. With agent-based simulation and business-specific zoning, your choices shape the urban landscape.
About this game
Welcome! Metropolis 1998 is a new city builder entrant that pushes familiar gameplay into unexplored territory.
Despite the charming retro aesthetics, this is a modern city builder. Every single citizen is it's own entity with their own needs, job, schedule, and family. As the mayor, you will manage infrastructure, utilities, citizen needs, municipal and emergency services, zones, traffic, pollution, and more!
The game offers extensive customization tools for players who enjoy designing, creating buildings, and customizing the look of their city.
New features Metropolis 1998 adds to the genre:
See inside every single building and every individual floor. This includes the people living or working inside!
Optionally design any building you want within the game world. Save it as a blueprint. Place copies or randomize the textures and colors. Share with other players.
Citizens will demand specific businesses, not general zones.
Businesses are individually placed and have a supply radius for residential customers (otherwise it's global).
True mixed use zones. You can combine any mix of building types (excluding utilities).
Residential buildings level up as their inhabitants' needs are fulfilled. Businesses level up when their customers do, and office and industry level up as the businesses they supply level up.
Other features include:
Performant pathfinding. The engine can handle 80,000 to 150,000 sims (depends on your CPU).
Beautiful 90s/00s isometric pixel art enhanced with shaders (optional).
Complex agent simulation. They will eat, sleep, work, run errands, enjoy leisure activities, and more.
Overlays to view detailed information about your city.
Top down camera mode.
All the classic features of the city builder genre: utilities, roads, transportation, municipal services, emergency services, citizen happiness, schools, economy, and more!
Day/night cycle and weather (no precipitation yet).
Early access communication
Some features will not be implemented when the game launches (but are planned):
Transportation options. Sims can only walk or drive.
Placing roads or buildings on elevated terrain.
Intricate road types, bridges.
Functional bodies of water (i.e. no ships, ports, or water physics).
There are a lot of ideas planned for the game, which will soon be linked in the FAQ in the discussion forums.
Hardware requirements:
As a solo developer, this is really difficult to answer for everyone. The game is generally not CPU bound, though you will hit a CPU-restricted population cap (see above) eventually.
ARM integrated graphics will not work! (e.g. Snap Dragon)
Intel 1st-5th gen integrated graphics will not work!
The game will be GPU bound for low powered computers. I tested the game on an eleven (11) year old laptop (Intel 6th gen i5). This necessitated implementing a low-quality graphics mode (not available in alpha demo 05/22/2026). An empty map was used for the test.
Integrated graphics:
Low Quality: 30 FPS
Same laptop using 4 GB NVIDA GPU:
Low quality: 135 FPS
High quality: 60 FPS
My main PC uses a GTX 3060 and is more than enough for high quality mode.
System Requirements
Will my PC run this? →Minimum
- Requires a 64-bit processor and operating system
- OS: Windows 10 64 bit
- Processor: Intel / AMD: 2 GHz - (Intel 6th Gen or Later)
- Memory: 1 GB RAM
- Graphics: A Graphics card. Game needs 2+ GB of *available* VRAM
- Storage: 100 MB available space
- Additional Notes: Requires a 64 bit operating system
Recommended
- Requires a 64-bit processor and operating system
- OS: Windows 10 64 bit
- Processor: Intel / AMD: 3 GHz - (Intel 6th Gen or Later)
- Memory: 4 GB RAM
- Graphics: Dev uses GTX 3060, more than enough
- Storage: 100 MB available space
- Additional Notes: Requires a 64 bit operating system
Supported Languages
*languages with full audio support
Latest news
Patch NotesOfficial
Patch - Alpha 0.2.1 / Itch.io
Update - Alpha 0.2.1 - STABLEAlso: Itch.io is being updated this morningThere is always one thing that is missed after marking a build as stable ːsteamsadːBUG FIXESFixed invalid error message when placing utility pole (mouse hover, before click). Placement looked like it would cause an error/be invalid, when it's not.Read full article on Community Announcements (yesboxstudios)Patch NotesOfficial
Patch - Alpha v0.2 - STABLE
Update - Alpha 0.2 - STABLE - Will be live soonOnly critical updates will be applied to the game going forward. Time for me to return to making progress towards the early access release build!QOLUpdated zone flood fill depth control (SHIFT) to use an anchor point so it overrides splitting the area in half within an enclosed blockBUG FIXESFixed camera tracking disabling itselfFixed wall lights not lighting the room if a floor object is placed on the same tileFixed blueprint business overlay / road paint sometimes leaving road painted after moving blueprint preview away from roadFixed utility pole selection tile not turning red when illegal placement on mouse hoverRead full article on Community Announcements (yesboxstudios)Patch NotesOfficial
Patch - Alpha 0.1.7d
Update - Alpha 0.1.7dThis will hopefully be one of the last few updates before marking the build as "stable". Once stable, I will update the itch.io build, and only critical fixes will be appliedNEW FEATURESAdded game speed options (1,2,3,4 on keyboard, or icon bottom right (next to pause icon))Some key bindings have changed. Press F1 (after loading a city) to see the updated listQOLAdded supply info to blueprint text for businessesZone mouse hover highlight tile now turns red when placement is invalidImproved the 'edit object menu' iconWhen placing blueprint, holding SHIFT will disable the additional rotation checksUpdated some warning icons. Added some new onesFixed warning icons not immediately updating position on camera rotation when game is pausedExpanded tutorial to cover creating the first 10 housesBUG FIXESFixed zones going off/on market when using road expansion toolFixed color value overflow. When editing an object and applying the darkest color, loading a save changed it to the brightest colorFixed individual fence objects being over-written when placed in outdoor room wall position when placing blueprint/copying buildingFixed bug that did not save blueprint size info when creating blueprint (it was being deleted after adding). This may have caused demand calculation issues? (It corrected it self when reopening the map)Fixed units being able to move into buildings that are not connected / accessible to the highway. (They teleported in)Fixed micro mode outputting warning icons and not having infinite demandFixed water pipe warning icons potentially over-writing existing warning icons (like no power)Read full article on Community Announcements (yesboxstudios)Patch NotesOfficial
Patch - v0.1.7c
Build Update- Alpha 0.1.7cMAJOR BUG FIXESFixed abandoned building logic bug that prevented units from moving into homes, causing population stagnation for some playersFixed ghost apartments. This happened when entirely replacing a room with another room (note: they go away when copying or placing a blueprint of affected building). These was causing save files to fail to load. Units would move into the property without a room for themselvesQOLAdded Apartment number to zone-building-room output (e.g. when placing room)And changed "building" to "business" in this tooltipAdding / deleting subdivisions outputs this tooltip nowIncrease default tooltip text sizeSubdivision hover highlight tile now turn red when there's an errorZone alpha tiles/boarders now output when adding/removing subdivisionsImproved the vehicle deceleration code when stopping for a red light Output "family deleted" message when a player deleted a unitBUG FIXESFixed wrong city size text in mail box goalFixed subdivision counter incrementing when no subdivision outputtedFixed overlapping messages when error and @mouse tooltip is outputted at the same timeFixed bug in road validation code that prevented connecting two dead ends together into one. Fixed a potential crash when unit is slowing down to turnRead full article on Community Announcements (yesboxstudios)Patch NotesOfficial
Alpha v0.1.7b (again)
Update - Alpha 0.1.7bBUG FIXES- Fixed rare road deletion and expansion crash- Added missing UI sounds to auto zone menu icons- Disabled traffic sound when game is paused- Fixed building density being removed when building is under construction- Fixed custom roofs outputting bad rotations in blueprint preview when camera is rotated- Fixed parking not outputting correctly in blueprint preview when camera is rotated- Fixed businesses not creating jobs when the road they're on is extended (using expand/contrast tool). (they are readded to market using this tool)- Resolved the "strange error" blueprint placement error that demolished the building after placement- Fixed top down office chairs sprite position/rotation- Fixed the top down room selection tile not outputting when camera is rotated- Fixed terrain brush not outputting terrain when mouse is first pressed- Fixed camera tracking jumping to black area of map when unit is deleted- Removed the command line console when game launchesWARNING: This update updates the config file. I decided to disable VSYNC by default as this is the recommended advice for custom engines.Note, I updated the game, recalled the update to fix a crash (all road extensions crashed, oops!), and then just pushed out a new update with the crash fix!Read full article on Community Announcements (yesboxstudios)
