Key facts
- Cheapest right now
- € Standard · Account · Global · Difmark
- Live offers
- 9 offers · 7 stores
- Our pick
- Standard · eShop Code · Europe · Gameboost — €
Want to see more from Gocdkeys on Google?
You need to be signed in to your Google account.
Building cities on a Switch means doing without a mouse, and the games that cope best with that fall into two camps. Some have controller layouts good enough that you stop noticing, like Civilization or the Two Point games. Others were designed from the start around a handful of tiles and simple rules, and suit ten minutes on a train as much as a long evening. This list has both, plus a few villages that have to get through endless rain, a post-apocalyptic winter or life on the back of a giant walking creature.
To build it we took every game Steam tags as City Builder, looked for its Switch version on Gocdkeys and kept the ones with offers in stock this morning. That left over fifty. Plenty of them carry the tag because there's a town to rebuild between quests, as in several RPGs and the Atelier games, and we dropped those, along with DLC and expansions. Sixteen games are left. Two Point Museum only has a Switch 2 page on our site, and Civilization VII has one for each console, so you get both prices. If you're wondering about Cities: Skylines, its Expanded Edition arrives on Switch 2 on 28 October and we've covered it in a separate article.
eShop code or account: what you actually get on Switch
Only four of the sixteen had an eShop code in stock this morning: Civilization VI, both versions of Civilization VII and Two Point Hospital. All four codes are for the European eShop. For the other twelve there was no code, and the cheapest offer was always a Key4Games account. Two Point Campus, Surviving the Aftermath and Against the Storm also have boxed cartridges on their pages, if you'd rather have a physical copy.
- eShop code: you redeem it on your own Nintendo account and the game is yours for good. Check the region before you pay. A European code works on an account from Spain, France, Germany or the UK, but a code marked US region only redeems on an account set to the United States. The steps are in our guide to redeeming eShop codes.
- Account: the seller sends you the email and password of a Nintendo account that already owns the game. You link it to a user on your Switch and download from there. The game never goes on your own account, and if the seller recovers that account, you lose it. Here's how to activate one.
We don't track the Nintendo eShop's own prices, so they're not in this article. Buying there also puts the game on your account, and it's worth a look before you settle for an account. Where there's a code at a reasonable price, that's what we recommend, but we give you both figures and you decide. Prices come in pairs: the shop's price with the coupon, then what you pay once the payment fee is added.
Civilization and cities planned block by block
Civilization VI is the one to pick if you want a single game to last you a year. In Firaxis' turn-based strategy you take a civilisation from its first settlers to the space race, and each city spreads across the map in districts: a campus here, a harbour there, each placed according to the terrain around it. That's where the city building lives, and on Switch you can tap your way through the menus in handheld mode. The page is for the base game; the Rise and Fall and Gathering Storm expansions are sold separately. The price is the odd part. The cheapest European eShop code this morning costs €77.99 with coupon GCDK13 (€81.50 with fees) at Gameboost, a figure that makes no sense for this game. Difmark's account costs €10.07 with coupon Gocdkeys (€10.52 with fees). Rather than pay that much for the code, we'd set a price alert and wait for a sensible one.
Civilization VII changes the formula more than any sequel in a long time. Each game is split into three ages, Antiquity, Exploration and Modern, and when one ends you switch to a new civilisation while keeping your leader, your cities and part of what you'd built. Smaller settlements start as towns that you can later turn into cities, and buildings go on specific tiles of the urban area. Shorter chunks per age suit a portable console well. The cheapest European eShop code for the Switch version is at G2A: €13.88 with coupon GCKG2AM4E7H (€14.17 with fees). That's 47% below its usual price, and in 138 days of tracking we've never seen the code cheaper; the previous low was €13.99 on 29 September, without fees. Key4Games has an account for €13.00 with GOCDKEYS15 (€13.84 with fees). Saving 33 cents isn't worth giving up a copy of your own.
There's also a separate Civilization VII page for Switch 2. Its European code at G2A costs €19.13 with GCKG2AM4E7H (€19.42 with fees), against a usual price of €24.39 without fees, and Key4Games' account €13.72 with GOCDKEYS15 (€14.59 with fees). If you've got a Switch 2 and don't mind which version you play, the Switch one also runs on it and is the cheaper code today. These are the best offers right now to buy Civilization VII key for Switch:
Urbek City Builder is the closest thing here to a classic city builder, at a smaller scale. You lay out neighbourhoods on a grid, and each block improves depending on what's next to it: parks, services, a shop on the corner. Resources come from the land around you, so the map shapes the city more than in most games of the genre. There's no code this morning; the cheapest offer is Key4Games' account at €10.11 with GOCDKEYS15 (€10.82 with fees), the cheapest we've seen it.
Project Highrise builds upwards. You start with an empty plot in the middle of a city and put up a skyscraper floor by floor, renting space to offices, shops, restaurants and flats. Every tenant wants something different: one needs phone lines, another complains about the smell from the restaurant downstairs, and all of them want power, water and lifts that don't keep them waiting. If you played SimTower, you'll know the idea. There were only accounts this morning, the cheapest at Key4Games: €10.83 with GOCDKEYS15 (€11.57 with fees).
Two Point: a hospital, a university and a museum
Two Point Hospital is the spiritual successor to Theme Hospital, made by people who worked on the original. Patients turn up with ridiculous conditions, like Light-headedness, where the head has become a light bulb, and each one needs its own room and machine to be cured. You build, hire doctors, nurses and janitors, and keep queues, money and the occasional ghost under control. It's the easiest way into the genre on Switch. Kinguin has a European eShop code for €6.74 with coupon OCTGOC10 (€7.63 with fees), 38% below its usual price; in 506 days we've only seen it cheaper on two, with a low of €4.50 last November, without fees. Key4Games' account costs €5.92 with GOCDKEYS15 (€6.44 with fees). For €1.19 more the code is yours to keep, and every offer to buy Two Point Hospital key or account is on its page.
Two Point Campus takes the same humour to a university. You choose the courses, from Knight School to Gastronomy and Wizardry, build lecture rooms, libraries and halls of residence, and see each year's students through to graduation. They make friends, throw parties and fail exams, and you end up more attached to them than to any patient. No code this morning: Key4Games' account costs €14.44 with GOCDKEYS15 (€15.34 with fees). It isn't its best moment, as in April the account dropped to €6.99, without fees.
Two Point Museum is the newest of the three, and on our site it only has a Switch 2 page. This time the exhibits don't arrive by themselves: you send staff on expeditions to dig up fossils, catch ghosts or bring back sea creatures, then arrange it all so visitors stay longer and leave a donation. Again there were only accounts, the cheapest at Key4Games: €15.16 with GOCDKEYS15 (€16.10 with fees), the lowest in the 161 days we've been tracking it.
Settlements that have to survive
Against the Storm is the most demanding game on the list and, for many people, the best. It's a city builder in roguelite form: on the Scorched Queen's orders you found settlements in a world where it never stops raining, each run on a new map with different resources and races to look after, from humans to beavers, lizards, harpies and foxes, each with their own needs. Take too long and the Queen loses patience; cut too deep into the forest and it fights back. Between runs you return to the capital and unlock improvements for the next one. Key4Games' account costs €18.05 with GOCDKEYS15 (€19.12 with fees), its lowest in 416 days.
Surviving the Aftermath puts you in charge of a colony after the end of the world. Water, food and shelter come first, then defences against raiders, radiation and disasters like meteor showers. Specialists leave the camp to explore the region and bring back supplies, so part of the game happens on a world map. It's published by Paradox and plays more slowly than the rest of this section. Key4Games' account costs €16.55 with GOCDKEYS15 (€17.55 with fees). It's been cheaper on 44 of the 236 days we've tracked, with a low of €14.99, without fees.
The Wandering Village has the best premise here: your village sits on the back of Onbu, a gigantic creature crossing a world poisoned by toxic spores. You farm, build and keep the spores at bay while deciding where Onbu goes, and the creature trusts you more or less depending on how you treat it. Look after it and it'll follow you; exploit it and it stops listening. Key4Games' account costs €15.89 with GOCDKEYS15 (€16.86 with fees), the cheapest in 434 days.
Dice Legacy replaces workers with dice. Each die is a villager whose faces are the jobs it can do, you roll them and place each result where it's needed, and dice wear out as you use them. The settlement travels around a ring-shaped world, and winter is the real enemy. It's a strange idea that works better than it sounds. Key4Games' account costs €7.22 with GOCDKEYS15 (€7.80 with fees), less than half of what it cost at launch and the lowest price in 839 days.
Before We Leave is the gentle option: no wars, no enemies to fight. Your people, the Peeps, come out of their underground shelters and rebuild a civilisation on hexagonal islands, first on one planet and later across a whole solar system, where the danger is space whales rather than armies. Key4Games' account costs €7.94 with GOCDKEYS15 (€8.55 with fees), the lowest we've recorded in 471 days.
Islands, tiles and roads for shorter sessions
ISLANDERS: New Shores is the new instalment of a small indie favourite. You get an empty island and a pack of buildings, and each one scores points depending on what's around it: a lumber mill near trees, houses away from the factory. Reach the target and you unlock new buildings, then a new island. Games last minutes and there's nothing else to manage. It's the cheapest on the list: Key4Games' account costs €5.05 with GOCDKEYS15 (€5.53 with fees).
Dorfromantik, by the German studio Toukana, is a puzzle about placing hexagonal tiles of fields, forests, villages, rivers and railways so their edges match. Some tiles carry small tasks, like finishing a forest of a certain size, and completing them gives you more tiles to keep going. There's no pressure, and it's ideal for playing in handheld mode. Key4Games' account costs €8.66 with GOCDKEYS15 (€9.30 with fees). We've only been tracking this offer for 23 days, so there isn't enough history to say whether that's a good price.
Terra Nil turns the genre around. You start with a wasteland and build machines to clean the soil, bring water back and plant forests, wetlands and coral, and the level only ends when you've recycled every structure and left the place as if you'd never been there. It's published by Devolver and each map is a puzzle. Key4Games' account costs €12.64 with GOCDKEYS15 (€13.46 with fees), the lowest in 471 days.
Mini Motorways, from the makers of Mini Metro, is about traffic. Houses and businesses pop up across the map of a real city, and you draw the roads that link each house to the business of the same colour. Every week you get more pieces, a motorway, a roundabout or traffic lights, and you rebuild the network before the jams bring everything to a halt. Key4Games' account costs €7.22 with GOCDKEYS15 (€7.80 with fees), again with only 23 days of history behind it.
The sixteen at this morning's prices
Both columns include the payment fee. A dash means there was no offer in that format.
| Game | European eShop code | Account |
|---|---|---|
| Civilization VI | €81.50 | €10.52 |
| Civilization VII (Switch) | €14.17 | €13.84 |
| Civilization VII (Switch 2) | €19.42 | €14.59 |
| Urbek City Builder | — | €10.82 |
| Project Highrise | — | €11.57 |
| Two Point Hospital | €7.63 | €6.44 |
| Two Point Campus | — | €15.34 |
| Two Point Museum (Switch 2) | — | €16.10 |
| Against the Storm | — | €19.12 |
| Surviving the Aftermath | — | €17.55 |
| The Wandering Village | — | €16.86 |
| Dice Legacy | — | €7.80 |
| Before We Leave | — | €8.55 |
| ISLANDERS: New Shores | — | €5.53 |
| Dorfromantik | — | €9.30 |
| Terra Nil | — | €13.46 |
| Mini Motorways | — | €7.80 |
If you've never played a management game, start with Two Point Hospital: the European code costs €7.63 with fees and the game teaches you everything as you go. For long campaigns, Civilization VII is at the lowest price we've seen for the code. If you've already played a few city builders and want a challenge, Against the Storm. And for short sessions on the go, ISLANDERS or Mini Motorways. If any of the twelve without a code is on your list, a price alert on its page will tell you when one turns up.
Playing on another console? We've made the same list for PS5 and for Xbox.
Prices checked on the morning of 24 October.
Buying guides and price comparisons written alongside live prices from the stores verified by GOCDKEYS.
Italiano
English
Español
Português
Deutsch
Français