A cozy VR city builder where you lay out roads, homes, shops and industry on small islands, connect utilities and keep citizens happy, with a campaign, sandbox mode and hand tracking.
Little Cities is a cozy city-building strategy game from UK studio Purple Yonder, published by nDreams. It launched on Meta Quest on May 12, 2022, and UploadVR named it its favorite new Quest game of that year.
How it plays
Each map is a small island laid out in front of you like a diorama. You draw roads, zone land for homes, shops and industry, and connect power, water and other services so neighborhoods can grow. Your citizens' needs guide what you build next, and the campaign unlocks new islands with their own themes and challenges, including natural disasters.
Free updates added hand tracking, livelier citizens you can watch going about their day, new attractions, and a sandbox mode with a landscape editor for shaping islands from scratch and adjusting rules such as the city budget and available resources. The paid Snowy Islands expansion adds two wintry islands.
Comfort
You build while looking down on the island rather than walking through it, and Meta rates it comfortable. It can be played seated, standing or in roomscale, using either controllers or hand tracking on Quest.
Platforms and what to know before buying
- On the Meta Horizon Store it costs $19.99 and runs on Meta Quest 2, Meta Quest 3, Meta Quest 3S and Meta Quest Pro.
- On the PlayStation Store it is sold as Little Cities: Bigger! for $24.99. This PS5 version launched on March 12, 2024, requires PlayStation VR2, and includes the Snowy Islands content. Its listing asks for a 2 m × 2 m space for roomscale play.
- A separate mixed reality version, Little Cities: Diorama, launched on Apple Vision Pro through Apple Arcade in December 2024. There is no Steam version.
- It is single-player and rated PEGI 3 (ESRB Everyone).
