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Foundation
Foundation is a grid-less, laidback medieval city-building game with a focus on organic development, monument construction and resource management.
In short, Steam reviewers most often praise “organic free-form building mechanics” (53 of 103 reviews) and “relaxing low-pressure learning curve” (21); the most common complaint is “faulty logistics and worker AI” (17). What reviewers agree on ↓
What players say
Steam review score and the most-helpful voices, which may include critical ones. Score via Steam as of 2026-09-27 · quoted reviews as of 2026-05-12.
What reviewers agree on
53 of the 103 reviews raise this.
“-Buy On Sale/Not Recommended- It's a great game. Very similar to Settlers. The production chains are good and the modular buildings add depth. However, I've built two settlements on standard difficulty and both hit a…”
“Definitely my favourite city builder game. I also really like frostpunk and surviving mars. 1) The game is beautiful! There is a bazillion possibilities how to customize, beautify your city. And thats not just for fun,…”
“Regardless of what any review (hell, even this one) says, you WILL enjoy and appreciate this game under two circumstances: - You have a unique itch for a city building game with minimal restraints for creativity and…”
21 of the 103 reviews raise this.
“Definitely my favourite city builder game. I also really like frostpunk and surviving mars. 1) The game is beautiful! There is a bazillion possibilities how to customize, beautify your city. And thats not just for fun,…”
“I love cozy city building games like this, but what makes Foundation unique is the manor/castle building. It involves carefully planning your city, and it takes up quite a few tries before I was even remotely successful…”
“After 441 hours of playing, Foundation has undoubtedly become my favorite city-building game. The organic building system ensures that every village feels unique, and it is always fascinating to watch it grow. The pace…”
19 of the 103 reviews raise this.
“Definitely my favourite city builder game. I also really like frostpunk and surviving mars. 1) The game is beautiful! There is a bazillion possibilities how to customize, beautify your city. And thats not just for fun,…”
“+ lovely building levels + lots of beautification stuff you can do unfortunately game is borderline unplayable: - population starving despite having hundreds of different foods in the bank - goods distribution/storage…”
“This is a beautiful game but the UI is so unintuitive. I need to build a building. It tells me what the criteria are (when you learn how to hover over the criteria) but it gives you no clue as to why you can't place all…”
7 of the 103 reviews raise this.
“Complex strategy to keep you occupied, free build city builder, excellent graphics, on-going development. Resource logistics could do with some improvement but otherwise an excellent game that keeps you coming back for…”
“After 441 hours of playing, Foundation has undoubtedly become my favorite city-building game. The organic building system ensures that every village feels unique, and it is always fascinating to watch it grow. The pace…”
“I really love this game—I feel like it’s one of the best city builders on the market right now. It’s definitely more focused on a laid-back building style once you understand the basics of keeping your villagers alive.…”
5 of the 103 reviews raise this.
“I love cozy city building games like this, but what makes Foundation unique is the manor/castle building. It involves carefully planning your city, and it takes up quite a few tries before I was even remotely successful…”
“Very Fun and chill city building game... compared to its competitors its easier to learn and has ton of replayability. I recommend this game to everyone who just wants to open the game and chill for few hours. You'll…”
“Great builder/manager game with some wonky late game issues related to operations/warehousing. There are a few different ways to grow your city based around labor, religion, and military which helps with replay value.…”
17 of the 103 reviews raise this · 8 of them still recommend the game.
“This game is extremely frustrating. There are a lot of things in the game that don't work as expected or as you're told. This makes doing any kind of logistical planning damn near impossible unless you somehow…”
“Have been playing the game since early access, coming back from time to time to see the progress made hoping it will finally be working properly. It has been fully released for a while now and is still fundamentally…”
“+ lovely building levels + lots of beautification stuff you can do unfortunately game is borderline unplayable: - population starving despite having hundreds of different foods in the bank - goods distribution/storage…”
12 of the 103 reviews raise this · 4 of them still recommend the game.
“-Buy On Sale/Not Recommended- It's a great game. Very similar to Settlers. The production chains are good and the modular buildings add depth. However, I've built two settlements on standard difficulty and both hit a…”
“This game is extremely frustrating. There are a lot of things in the game that don't work as expected or as you're told. This makes doing any kind of logistical planning damn near impossible unless you somehow…”
“Have been playing the game since early access, coming back from time to time to see the progress made hoping it will finally be working properly. It has been fully released for a while now and is still fundamentally…”
6 of the 103 reviews raise this · 3 of them still recommend the game.
“This is a beautiful game but the UI is so unintuitive. I need to build a building. It tells me what the criteria are (when you learn how to hover over the criteria) but it gives you no clue as to why you can't place all…”
“no tutorial. very confusing”
“Foundation spent a long time in early access, and all the time really paid off. The full version of it is in fantastic shape, and though some aspects could be a bit better explained, it's still a very fun city builder,…”
4 of the 103 reviews raise this · 4 of them still recommend the game.
“Since first versions of SimCity I never thought there will be a city builder I am going to play again, but this one is really good and innovative. I have masterd this game in about 100 hours, than it runs out of…”
“Really fun and engaging city builder. It does a good job of walking the line between game mechanics and creativity. The art style is adorable and the game is super well rounded at this point. Definitely grab this one if…”
“Absolutely and utterly delightful! The no-collision building system places this game in a league of its own and allows for flexibility and creativity that, after 50 hours, I'm still only beginning to unlock. The systems…”
Counted across 103 English reviews, sampled to match this game's 86.7% positive rating · as of 2026-05-12
“This is a really great city builder, however there is one thing that seems very frustrating to me is that the game doesn't tell you who left your village. It just says 1 citizen left, or 1 commoner or serf. I would like it if it also told you what job they were doing at the time…”
— a player, Steam review · 922 hrs played“Truly a fun game. The way cities can be organically built without grids really is a milestone for PC gaming. This is one of the only games where it is implemented properly and looks good doing it. It has also come so far from the old style and mechanics. Honestly I would highly…”
— a player, Steam review · 102 hrs played“Foundation is not the game I want it to be. There's no logistics control for long distances. Best practice is that for every area you want to utilize you need to build an outpost at least. It will require food, water, and presumably a church. Did you want to have a forestry…”
— a player, Steam review · 36 hrs playedPlayer activity
Monthly average concurrent players. Live data self-collected from the Steam API · history through 2026-06 via SteamCharts.
Achievement stats
Global completion rates across all Steam players — a data view of how far people actually get. Source: Steam official stats · as of 2026-10-24.
Price tracking
US-region pricing (USD), sampled twice daily by our own tracker since 2026-07-11. Steam prices vary by region — always confirm your local price on Steam.
Regional prices at last sample, in local currency — Steam sets each region's price independently.
Cheapest → most expensive, converted to USD at ECB reference rates (2026-10-23). Relative comparison only.
Latest official news
Developer announcements via the Steam news API — links go to the original posts. More across all games on the news hub.
Hotfix 1.12.0.16 is live
Hello Lords and Ladies! Thanks for continuing to report issues you encounter in Foundation. Your reports help us track down bugs, and this hotfix (1.12.0.16) addresses a few of them. Changelog Fixed a
Hotfix 1.12.0.15 is live
Hello everyone, Hotfix 1.12.0.15 is Live Thank you for your patience and for continuing to report issues. This hotfix fixes an issue with the Continue Game button when loading a save with DLC deactiva
Patch 1.12.0.14 is live!
Dear Lords and Ladies, We sincerely apologize to everyone who encountered issues enabling Foundation: Harvest Festival in an existing game. This patch improves the process and addresses a few addition
Hotfix 1.12.0.13 is live
Hello everyone, There's a new hotfix out that includes fixes for missing building parts for quarries in old save files as well as the ! (s new) icon not disappearing in the build menu. Patch notes: Fi
Hotfix 1.12.0.12 is live
Hello everyone, We have a hotfix out that could prevent some players from activating the DLC in game. Please update your game files to the latest version. Patch notes: Fixed a crash on load of some ol
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Screenshots
Official Steam store screenshots — click any shot to enlarge.
Facts & details
From the Steam store record, snapshot 2026-05-12.
| Genres | Indie, Simulation, Strategy |
| Player tags | City Builder · Simulation · Medieval · Strategy · Sandbox · Resource Management · Management · Relaxing · Atmospheric · Economy · Building · Indie (SteamSpy community voting) |
| Features | Single-player · Steam Achievements · Steam Cloud · Family Sharing |
| Languages | English, French, Italian, German, Spanish - Spain, Russian, Portuguese - Brazil, Simplified Chinese, Japanese, Korean, Polish, Swedish, Turkish, Vietnamese, Czech, Thai, Ukrainian |
| Achievements | 45 |
| Official site | https://www.polymorph.games |
Minimum system requirements (PC)
Minimum: Requires a 64-bit processor and operating system OS: Windows 10 Processor: Intel Core i5-4460 Memory: 8 GB RAM Graphics: GTX 960 / R9 290 - 3 GB Video Memory Additional Notes: OpenGL 4.3