Workers & Resources: Soviet Republic

Workers & Resources: Soviet Republic is a deeply ambitious city-building and economic simulation game by 3Division, one that sets itself apart by focusing not on capitalist expansion, but on the intricacies of planning and sustaining a socialist republic during the Cold War. Unlike most city-builders, which simplify production chains and rely on abstract budgets, Soviet Republic asks players to manage every inch of their infrastructure—down to the flow of coal, fuel, and bus schedules—while keeping their population educated, housed, and loyal. At its core, the game is a sandbox of logistical complexity. Roads, railways, pipelines, and power grids all need to be meticulously planned, and every factory, farm, and school must be supported by a functioning network of workers and resources—true to the game’s name. There are no magic budgets here; everything must be produced, transported, and maintained by your republic’s own economy. It’s a simulationist’s dream come true, and also a significant challenge for those unprepared for its depth. What makes Soviet Republic stand out is its dedication to realism. Trains and trucks move goods in real-time. Workers must physically travel to their jobs. Power outages, heating shortages, and traffic jams are consequences of poor planning, not random events. This emphasis on physical logistics gives the game a strong sense of place and cause-and-effect that few other city-builders capture. The learning curve can be steep, especially for players used to more forgiving systems, but the reward is a level of immersion and satisfaction that feels earned. Visually, the game strikes a utilitarian tone that suits its theme: concrete apartment blocks, smokestacks, and sprawling factories dominate the landscape, set against bleak but occasionally beautiful Eastern European environments. The interface is dense but increasingly refined, and ongoing updates have made significant improvements in usability and performance. The soundtrack is sparse, but the ambient sounds of machinery, trains, and city life lend a grounded atmosphere to your industrial empire. In conclusion, Workers & Resources: Soviet Republic is a rare and rewarding simulation for players who want more than glossy graphics and simple supply chains. It’s not for everyone—its pace is deliberate, its systems complex, and its presentation utilitarian—but for those who appreciate planning, realism, and ideological flavor, it offers one of the most compelling and unique city-building experiences available today. Whether you're laying out your first rail line or trying to power an entire republic without imports, it challenges you to build not just a city—but a functioning society. Rating: 8/10

It's a cool concept and a very in depth city builder...it was basically just the learning curve for me that made me quit. If you are the type that likes to get into that, it's a great game for sure. I approached the game far too casually and it kicked my ass immediately for it. For people saying that the graphics are dull or whatever, that's not true, the 80's Soviet vibe is awesome. Honestly, If I wasn't so lazy this would probably be my favourite city builder.

Combine Factorio-level of logistic complexity, combine it with Cities Skylines simulation depth, add a UI from the 90s (both visually and functionally). And now micro-manage that all. This game is definitely not for everyone. But if you like to torture yourself with micromanagement and really slow (yet rewarding) progress, this might be your poison.

0.000000001% of communism has been built. Evil child murdering billionares still rule the world with a shit eating grin. Pros: best city builder to date. Cons: a lot of mechanics are downright obscure and a lot of frustration can be had when things dont work like you want them to ( snowplows not plowing essential roads, rail track builders deadlocking your rail network, citizens not staffing essential infrastructure ) . All of these problems can be overcome its just that the game wont teach you how to.

This game has an 11,716 word guide on how electricity works. I don't even fully understand all the systems yet 75 hours in.

I wanted to play this because it seemed so detailed, but the mechanics just aren't baked out enough. For example the micromanagement options are quite limited unless you do everything manually. For example you can't automatically stop importing stuff if your storages are full. You also can't manually assign your road cranes to the most important buildings. Another example is that excavators can't build roads that are too short for some reason, which means your road system is bottlenecked due to some tiny crossing, which also stops guest workers from coming, who only come with like 10 people at a time in a Bus that fits 80 people to work on the building that needs 300 workdays.

Bloody good game. Factario meets SimCity Eastern Bloc style. But mad and intense and challenging. Like 1980s Elite challenging. Don't believe me? I just completed the second level and the award said "1% of players have this achievement".

I really liked a lot of things in theory, like optimizing walking paths and producing / mining enough goods to have a self-sustaining city. However, the gameplay was extremely clunky... I found that some things such as train depos were not well explained or easily built (having trains pass each other on the same track for instance was difficult to maneuver but I did not want to have 10 different tracks side by side). When the game tutorial got to the power lines and water pipes I lost it because trying to connect the two was just horrible, the pipes never went where you wanted them to and they would always be curved instead of going straight... if the roads, trains, pipes and cables were easier to connect and deal with I would play this game to death but right now it's so frustrating I don't even want to continue.

1. Guys, building a subway is really hard. You can see why it's important to be able to build so many subways in Istanbul at once. 2. It's a game about complete control. You have to control everything. You can see in other comments how much control is required. 3. In my last game, I invited Third World citizens to my country, and because they were illiterate, the city collapsed right from the start. 4. While playing in realistic mode can be a bit stressful, having everything and being a "complete" game is so much fun.

A great city builder held back by a lack of polish. The game has 10+ kinds of road, not counting the ability to designate any road as one way or limit the kind of vehicles which are allowed on it. Which makes traffic planing very detailed, complex, and fun. Yet it's impossible for vehicles to pass along a road while it's being worked on. The game has a distance measuring tool which shows a *elevation profile along the path*. But no way to easily align a buildings rotation with the game grid. The list goes on like this. For every great features there is a obvious shortcoming which means it all balances out to a decent city builder. When really it could have been amazing with some more iteration. Overall the base game is absolutely worth the price, the DLC's only if you are really enthusiastic.

Game seems great but there are just to many bugs. The demolition crews sucks at getting rid of the under ground pipes. no matter what i do. It seems because you can run roads to it under ground. Also i want to play in realistic mode, because that's what is fun about the game and i want the challenge. but things just keep getting stuck. I fix the issue then some thing else is getting stuck on their 30th trip of doing the same thing. The trains are always finding new way to get stuck on the same track they have been running on for about 50 trips. Also no there is nothing in front of the train and they still don't move. i know the signs are right because they run find for many trips passing by each other then one stops with no trains in front of it or the fuel station is unreachable all of a sudden.

I thought I'd like this game as I like a lot of other city builder games in this genre, but this game just has too many issues for me to recommend it. This game is slow, tedious, and unwelcoming to new players. In my 16 hours playing this game, I made 1 semi-successful town after separate 3 attempts. Everything about this game is feels like it's designed to be incredibly tedious and time consuming. Buildings don't tell you much information about what they need or how distant they should be from other buildings. The game doesn't give much info on most of the buildings in the game which is annoying for me, a new player. Despite this game advertising itself as super realistic, pedestrians refuse to walk short distances. Pedestrians/citizens can only walk a maximum distance of ~450 meters before quitting which is super annoying and unrealistic. I belief a walking distance of ~1000 meters would be much more realistic, maybe balanced by a mood debuff, but alas. With my issue of lazy pedestrians comes the obvious solution of public transport. Only it isn't the solution I was hoping it would be. Citizens don't seem to want to take public transport (other than rail for some reason), nor take it to get to work. They seem to just get on or get off whenever the bus stops at a stop which is annoying. What this means from what I can tell is that I have to micromanage every bus stop so people get to the stop they need to be at. Public transport stops are also really annoying to place down because they don't replace roads but instead need sections of said road removed so it can be put in that place. This is really annoying because deconstruction isn't instant with some settings turned on (though, this is more my fault for not turning it off). The building placement mode in this game is also really finicky which just adds to my frustration with it. Overall, the game has a lot of issues with pacing and frustrating game mechanics. I know there are ways to overcome some of the problems I have with this game looking online, but the solutions are basically just getting better at the game, which at it's pace could take hundreds of hours. 4/10: Shows promise but is too tedious

I find the games complexity keeps in interested although do get the odd quirk such as trains disappearing down tracks with no warning then having to find them. Normally due to signals changed etc. but would be useful if it flagged it was off its route!

I almost completed the first campaign but after 16 hours of gameplay my save suddenly stopped loading. It instead started crashing the game while I try to load my save file without any reason whatsoever. I tried to re-install the game, search for possible fixes on steam discussions, youtube and internet in general but to no avail. I hope devs will fix this issue very soon and I can play on my save again.

I love this type of games but I couldn't get into this one. I tried starting multiple times and every time I place the first road and first building, I just want to exit. It simply doesn't feel good and fun. I think it's the low visual quality models and how badly they blend into the environment. I get it's an indie game but even games like Factorio or Surviving Mars have a better feel

Honestly the best city builder game I have played yet. Super addicting. If you get frustrated just work through it. The game feels rewarding

I’ve only reviewed a handful of games before, but this one deserves the spotlight. I’ve always loved SimCity-style games, and the more detailed the better. Workers & Resources feels like a fusion of SimCity and Jurassic World Evolution—an odd comparison, I know, but that’s how it struck me. It's hands down the most detailed simulation I’ve ever played. I’ve clocked nearly 300 hours in just a few weeks, and the only real downside is the steep learning curve. It took about seven hours of tutorials before I could even get a functioning country off the ground! But once things clicked, it became one of my all-time favorite games. And here's a bonus: it's great for your wallet—you'll be so hooked you won’t have time for anything else. 😄 Strongly recommend

It is impossible to lose at this game, because even if your city doesn't work, everyone is starving, and you can't figure out how to get your industry working, congratulations, you have built a Soviet Republic.

Very fun! Very addictive! Like Socialist Sim City. Lot of modern stuff of course. worth it!

I really want to love this game I can sense the potential is there but the game is simply too janky and frustrating. Trying to get my garbage trucks to collect trash, "no road connection" yet everything is all connected perfectly fine and close by. Trying to build some underground wires? some unknown and invisible to me "infrastructure is in the way" I get the game has many mechanics to learn, but its not fun all the jank and bugs being part of the "learning process" Seems like quite a poor quality and unpolished game i'm quite surprised at the positive reviews, Maybe the game wasn't designed to be played on realistic mode & its less buggy/janky on the easier difficulties

Definitely the most complex game about city simulation. A master piece. The motherland calls!

this game has an immense amount of detail to learn all the systems. i spent 10 hours in game and watched tutorials and other vids really trying to learn this game and it was difficult for me to learn the basic economy integration. setting up one dual track train was overly complicated for me. if you like an intense amount of detail and customization in city builders (also so many train options) this is perfect for you.

Challenging, contains many bugs and the worst thing about it is that you never know how to fix a problem in your buildings. Also the performance and the UI could be significantly improved. Overall though, it's a good resource management / city builder with a focus on micromanagement.

The game is cool, I loved playing it in the evenings, but after switching to Mac OS, unfortunately I can't play it, which is a shame. It would be cool if the game supported Mac OS

Very good game, has a lot of detail and leaves me wishing for more detail in the future. From what I've seen so far, the updates that I would like would probably be workshop mod downloads instead of base game. Micromanaging a soviet style economy, can be very unforgiving as you learn how it works. Took a 5 attempts to get a town that breaks even on input/export balance to allow growth (with help from a friend). Game is still growing, wiki and in game detail is good but not aligned/unified yet. If you like planning a city and watching it grow, planning your economy and see if it unfolds as you intend. This will be fun for you.

sooo good of a game! you can play this a endles amount of houers. side note: it would be cool with a library that you can control how much soviet propaganda, anti-religion ect, like in the prisson or radio station.

This is honestly one if the greatest games I have ever played. I may have only just gotten it but i am already hooked. The tutorial is very simple and the game is easy to learn through trial and error

The most in-depth city-builder i have played. it has its faults but is better than the rest. if you like factorio or openTTD this is the next step.

I think the game is excellent, but there is i feel one big issue. Everything is super manual with bare bone tools and stuff is unnecessarily granular. Setting up anything to work is very time consuming. Get the road, get the water, get the sewage, get the electricity, transport the people, goods in and out, check your capacity, oh you need to build more electricity, build power plant, get the HV, get the transformer and MV... It feels like setting up anything remotely good looking takes 3 times longer than it should.

I heard a youtuber describe this as city skylines for people with autism, and it is absolutely correct. It takes some time to learn the mechanics, but once you do the game is incredible. I reccomend this game to anyone into city planning and/or the cold war.

W&R is an absolutely engrossing city builder and logistics simulator with staggering levels of depth and complexity. This game is damn near perfect

Love the game, a lot of mechanics, I like the depth and possibility to set difficulty by how many things one needs to manage. What I do not like: there is still a lot to do when it comes to quality of life. Early on in the game I spent half of my time googling "how to {xyz} in workers&resources", also there is big lack of visibility into underlying aspects (other than clicking through individiual buildings and backtracking, when advisor compains...)

Great game love it;however, some tips/tutorials are completely useless like my iron processing facility saying it cant store iron but not telling my why.

Good game, very rewarding. I love that you can increase the complexity of the simulation over time as you learn.

amazing game if you want a more complex cities skylines, not so amazing if you want something as engaging as cities skylines as the game can get pretty slow paced at times, especially early game, would benefit a lot from faster speed settings

One of the best City builders out there. Its also very fun to play and basicly doesnt have any bugs. The only Down side is that it may be a bit to complicated.

This game is too addicting. If you like city builders and Factorio it's the perfect game for you. I learned more about how shit it is to run a real city is. Expand here and build there. Stressful but rewarding.

If u are city builder enthusiast just buy and play, u wont be disappointed. Its a promise.

very complex and high learning curve but when you get into it is very fun as it a factory game mixed with a city biulder

very in depth simulator, it used to be janky back in early access but now it's good. you do need a decent computer to run it, mine struggles a bit

I've been a lover of management, city-builder, factory, and logistics games for over the past decade of my adult life. Worker & Resources Soviet Republic takes all of these concepts and blends them in a really, really well-blended cocktail of immersive systems and intertwined mechanics. I've been playing exclusively on the Realistic difficulty which slows the game down dramatically but does also require that all of your actions be decisive and meticulously planned ahead. This *is* a wiki game. While there are in-game tutorials that I recommend playing through, there's far too many nuances that aren't taught in them. Watching YouTube videos helps a lot with learning the game as well, even if it's just a Let's Play, you'll be able to pick up on all of the habits that others have learned through experience. Highly recommend, this game stands as a pillar to the city-builder genre.

Workers and Resources has ruined all other citybuilders for me. It requires depth and detail of city design that make success difficult and satisfying. In fact, you are really designing a state with an interlocked web of logistics and civil infrastructure. The game has been getting constant updates that make it (optionally) even harder. The vast range of difficulty settings let you choose a chill or challenging experience. Somehow I always pick realistic, early start, Siberia... Highly addictive and highly recommended.

Fantastic and deep micromanagement. For people who like to build a nice city... a little bit complicatet

One of the best city simulators ever. The simulation of industries is very detailed. Infrastructure details are great as well. Highly recommended!

Game good, like mighty Russian tank. Play for glory, play for Yuri, play for the little Russian voice inside your head screaming DA COMRADE!

Loving the game so far. I'm not usually one for hyper realistic/micromanagement city builders but it doesn't feel like that. At the basic level learning everything comes easily. There's definitely a lot of mechanics I still don't understand, and I keep getting a couple hours into my sessions then having to restart because I screwed up with little funds to recover or didn't realize a certain mechanic only worked a certain way, but I enjoy restarting and doing it again and there's not many games I can say that about. My only complaint would be the tutorials are robust, but don't seem to go over how to fix common problems such as power grid failures, finding water/sewage errors, or how to make public transportation operate more efficiently.

Greatest city building sim and amazing planned economy sim, a game like no other

i don't understand why this game is so high rated. the placing tools are clunky. the entire UI feels like its on meth, shifting the entire layout worse then a microsoft word document when adding a space. the pace is extreme slow the road placing is very clunky, trains are a bit better. idk, feels like a 5.5/10 game for me. i wish i could love it more.

Love city builders but too much micro managing required in this one for me.

Really like the fact that materials has to be transported to construction sites and that it takes really long to build things instead of instantly rising from the ground after building like it tends to be done in the genre.