Upcoming Colony Sim Games Worth Wishlisting Right Now

The colony sims worth a wishlist slot right now: Whiskerwood, which is in early access with its most interesting systems still unbuilt, Pappus, an in-development space colony sim where you play the AI managing a colony of cats, and Planet Zoo 2 on October 13, 2026 if your interest runs toward management rather than survival. Beyond those, a cluster of smaller frontier and lunar colony sims are landing through the rest of the year.

2026 has already been an unusually heavy year for the genre, which changes what "upcoming" means. Three of the games people have been waiting years for have now shipped, so the horizon looks different than it did in January.

What already released in 2026?

Worth clearing this first, because a lot of wishlist advice still lists these as upcoming.

Timberborn left early access on March 12 after five years, and <cite index="87-1">broke into Steam's New & Trending and Top Sellers charts within four days, an unusual result for an indie title.</cite> Going Medieval reached 1.0 on March 17. Space Haven finished a roughly ten-year development on May 13, and <cite index="115-1">Bugbyte's three-person Finnish team shipped it after more than 700,000 sales during early access,</cite> priced at <cite index="119-1">$24.99 and now sitting at Very Positive across nearly 6,000 reviews.</cite>

Whiskerwood arrived in early access in January. That is four significant genre releases inside five months, which is why the remaining calendar looks thinner than usual.

Whiskerwood

The strongest wishlist case among things still in progress, because the part that makes it interesting has not shipped yet.

Whiskerwood from Minakata Dynamics, published by Hooded Horse, puts you in charge of mice settling islands in an alternate 1700s under the rule of cat overlords. You manage <cite index="81-1">over 40 commodities</cite> while a royal fleet arrives periodically to collect escalating taxes. Kotaku's summary was <cite index="86-1">Timberborn, Factorio, and Sid Meier's Colonization,</cite> which is unusually accurate for a three-game comparison.

It currently holds <cite index="83-1">93% positive across roughly 1,493 reviews.</cite> The reason to wishlist rather than buy immediately is that <cite index="86-1">the systems allowing a self-sufficient colony to cut itself off from the Claws and revolt are the least developed part of the game so far, sitting mostly in the background as motivation to harvest more.</cite> If those land well, the game becomes something no other colony sim is attempting. If you wishlist now, Steam tells you when they arrive.

Pappus

The in-development entry with the most unusual premise on this list. Pappus is a space colony sim where the colonists are cats and you play the artificial intelligence assigned to keep them alive, currently open for wishlists on Steam with a playable demo in the browser.

The design logic is worth understanding before you dismiss the premise as a joke. Every colony sim runs on the gap between what you instruct and what your colonists actually do, and most games in the genre leave the player's identity inside that gap unexplained. Pappus names it: you are a system, the cats are the population you are accountable for, and the relationship is administrative. Each cat carries its own personality and needs, so two cats in identical conditions make different calls.

The practical reason to wishlist rather than wait: it is a small studio release, and Steam's launch visibility depends substantially on wishlist counts. The practical reason to play the demo first is that it costs nothing and settles whether the loop appeals in about two minutes. We cover the game in more depth in what is Pappus.

Planet Zoo 2

The biggest name on the calendar. Frontier Developments has Planet Zoo 2 scheduled for <cite index="123-1">October 13, 2026 on PlayStation 5, Windows, and Xbox Series X and S, adding aquatic and flying species and letting players build and manage both commercial zoos and wildlife reserves.</cite>

It is a construction and management simulation rather than a survival colony sim, so it belongs on this list with an asterisk. Nothing starves because you misjudged a winter. If your interest in the genre is the building and the systems rather than the mortality, it is the most polished thing coming.

The smaller frontier and lunar entries

Several mid-sized colony sims are due through the rest of 2026, and they cluster around two ideas.

The frontier group takes the settlement premise somewhere other than fantasy. Westlanders starts you with a customisable wagon rather than a fixed town hall, scouting the American West for a site and expanding into ranching outposts and economic networks, which is a genuinely different shape for the opening hours of a colony sim.

The hard sci-fi group is the more interesting cluster for anyone who liked Oxygen Not Included. Possible One puts you in charge of a lunar mining colony where the pressure comes from corporate bureaucracy rather than the vacuum, and your funding is the resource that actually kills you.

Neither is a sure thing. Both are the kind of game worth a wishlist specifically because a wishlist costs nothing and Steam will tell you when the demo appears.

How do the upcoming options compare?

The pattern worth noticing is that the genre is fragmenting by pressure source rather than by setting. Timberborn threatens you with water, Whiskerwood with taxes, Possible One with a board of directors, and Pappus with the autonomy of the creatures themselves. Setting used to be the differentiator. It is not anymore.

Does wishlisting actually do anything?

Yes, and more than most people assume. Steam notifies wishlisters at launch and on every discount, which is the practical benefit to you.

The less obvious effect is on the developer side. Wishlist counts feed Steam's visibility decisions, which means a wishlist is one of the few free actions that materially changes whether a small game gets surfaced at release. For a game from a large publisher this barely matters. For a solo or small-team colony sim, it is often the difference between a launch that finds its audience and one that does not.

That is why wishlist requests come from indie developers constantly and from major studios almost never.

How do you tell a promising wishlist from a graveyard?

Wishlists rot. Almost everyone who has used Steam for a few years has a list full of games that never shipped, shipped badly, or shipped so long ago the excitement evaporated. A few filters help.

Prefer games with a playable demo over games with only a trailer. A demo is the developer showing you the loop instead of describing it, and a studio confident enough to publish one is usually further along than the marketing suggests. Steam Next Fest concentrates these twice a year and is the single best time to prune a list.

Prefer early access games where the roadmap names systems rather than content. New maps and new commodities are additive. New systems change what the game is. Whiskerwood's independence mechanics are a systems promise, which is why the wait is interesting rather than merely long.

Be skeptical of scale claims. Colony sims are computationally brutal, and a studio promising simulated populations in the thousands is making a performance claim that frequently does not survive contact with a mid-game save. Ask what the game does at hour forty, not hour one.

What should you play while you wait?

The genre's back catalogue is deep enough that waiting is not much of a hardship. RimWorld remains the reference point, currently <cite index="112-1">holding the top colony sim position on Steam with a player score of 97 across more than 241,000 reviews.</cite> Our is RimWorld worth it in 2026 covers whether it is still the right first purchase, and RimWorld vs Dwarf Fortress settles the other perennial question.

If you are new to the genre entirely, start with what is a colony sim for the mechanics, then best colony sims for beginners for a sensible on-ramp. If the recent releases are what interest you, Whiskerwood vs Timberborn compares the two 2026 animal builders directly.

The one you can try before you wishlist

Most games on this list ask you to commit based on a trailer. Pappus does not, which is the argument for putting it at the top of your list rather than the bottom.

The demo runs in your browser with nothing to install and no account required. Two minutes in, a cat does something you did not authorise, and you will know immediately whether the genre's core relationship appeals to you or irritates you. That is a more honest test than any store page description, and it is the reason to try it before adding it.

If it lands, wishlist it on Steam so you hear when it launches. If it does not, you spent two minutes and learned something useful about your own taste in colony sims.

The genre is in a good stretch. Four significant releases in five months, a strong early access contender still building its most interesting systems, and enough smaller projects on the calendar that the back half of 2026 will not be quiet either.