What's new in Digicity
Each version on the App Store and what it changed, newest first. A version is measured against the one the App Store had before it.
Digicity 26.10.1
Upcoming
Coming in 26.10.1: six game languages, nine established challenge cities with Ultimate, optional Scenario policies and ambitions, a clearer city overview, immediate building feedback, and device-local autosave with Saving or Ultimate.
Digicity 26.10.1 is being reviewed before submission and is not on the App Store yet. The App Store currently has 26.10; these additions arrive with the update.
Build in six languages
English, German, French, Italian, Spanish and Dutch, including help, reports, purchase explanations and accessibility text. AI translates from English; mistakes are possible, and English remains the original source.
Nine cities to turn around
Take charge of an established city instead of starting from empty land. Everyone can preview all nine; Ultimate unlocks starting them, including for existing owners. Each has two suggested approaches and an optional opening goal.
Choose your priorities
Set Scenario transport priorities and emergency-service funding. Review monthly costs before choosing, then compare city figures after policies take effect next month.
Get to know your city
A city overview brings population, finances, services and transport together. Pursue seven optional Scenario ambitions and pin a goal while you build.
See what you just built
Accepted builds appear immediately at every speed. A notice tells you when service and travel figures are still updating.
A recent checkpoint to return to
Saving and Ultimate include device-local autosaves, enabled by default, keeping up to three recent recovery versions per city history. Named saves remain separate. Force quitting can lose changes after the last successful autosave.
Challenge cities
- Nine starting points. Industrial River Town, Aging Tram City, Utility Squeeze, Budget Rescue, Safe Streets, Quiet Neighborhoods, Transit Turnaround, Boomtown and The Compact City. Browse challenges alongside Open Build and Scenario in New City.
- Keep the choice yours. Challenge goals and Scenario ambitions are optional. Policy observations compare city figures; they do not isolate a policy from every other change in the city.
Comfort and recovery
- Clearer at large text sizes. At the largest text sizes on iPhone and iPad, the HUD keeps the clock controls on screen and places readout titles beside their values. Purchase cards have more room, and long explanations wrap inside them.
- A familiar place for help. Find What’s new and Translation feedback in the city menu. Digicity follows your supported device language, falls back to English, and lets you choose another supported app language in Settings.
- Saving remains a purchase. Autosave is included in Saving and Ultimate, not in free Open Build. Recovery checkpoints are kept on the device rather than in iCloud, though a device backup may include them. Named saves and optional iCloud saving remain available separately.
- A new look at a glance. The app icon gets fresh city artwork.
Placement and utility fixes
- Power poles stay off roads and rail. Overhead wires can still cross road and rail tiles, and the road or track stays visible. Existing cities keep their electrical connections.
- Roads and rail clear empty zoning. Roads, freight rail and streetcar track now replace undeveloped zoning, with the clearing cost included in the confirmation. Undo restores the lot and refunds both charges.
- Utility routes stay complete. Pipes and power lines routed through civic buildings and developed lots no longer skip missing sections. The buildings stay in place while the route carries service to the other side.
Digicity 26.10
Released October 2, 2026
Neighbourhoods grow into 22 distinct building types, with their own shapes and effects on the city. Larger developments can join four lots, and clearer iPhone menus make it easier to choose a tool, build, and get back to moving the map.
22 kinds of building
Cottage rows, warehouses, office towers, refineries and more give growing districts their own character. Nearby streets, services, land value and other buildings influence what appears.
Room to grow
Five larger building types can combine four suitable lots into one 2×2 development. Each kind grows through three visible stages.
Different shapes, different economies
A building’s type changes what it earns and uses. Warehouses carry more freight; office towers earn more tax and draw more power. Brief +/− amounts show changes to a lot’s monthly tax.
Browse before you build
Build categories now open before selecting a tool. One consistent blue back control returns a level, then closes Build from the top menu.
One tap back to moving
The HUD names your active tool and offers Pan map. Tap it before dragging with one finger to move the city without placing another tile.
Warnings that fit
Power warnings no longer make the iPhone status bar unusually tall or squeeze text into narrow columns. Large-text layouts and speed-button touch areas are improved.
Building and navigation
- A little nudge to scroll. Menus briefly show a small hint when more options are below the visible area. It disappears after a few seconds rather than taking up permanent space.
Existing cities
- Your old city stays your city. Saved cities keep their existing buildings and economy until lots change through normal growth. Opening an old save does not replace its neighbourhoods all at once.
Digicity 26.9
Released September 22, 2026
The first update since launch. Digicity comes to iPhone, Scenario mode arrives with four eras to play through, and the city answers back in new ways: fires that spread, water you can foul, woods on the map, and new things to build, from wind turbines to train terminals.
Now on iPhone
The whole game on a phone held sideways: the same map, the same simulation, the same saves. The build menu becomes a drawer that slides over the city and closes when you pick a tool. On iPad nothing has moved.
Scenario mode
Found a city around a port, a university or a hospital and play it forward from 1900 through four eras, each of which changes the rules. Report cards in 1930, 1970 and 2010 grade what you built. Sold one era at a time, or all together in Ultimate.
Your city can burn
Fires start in dense districts far from help and spread to the buildings next door. Near a fire station a building comes through scorched and grows back; beyond one it is rubble. The Fire Engine sends the nearest free engine to a blaze.
Your cities on every device
With Saving, turn on Keep my cities in iCloud and your saved cities follow you to every device signed in to the same Apple Account. Turning it on or off never deletes a city.
Turn the map
Two arrows turn the whole city ninety degrees at a time, so the far side of a hill is no longer hidden. Roads, rails, pipes, traffic and the land all swing round with you.
Woods and water
New maps are generated with woodland, and a wooded tile is worth more. Industry and coal plants on the shore foul the water beside them: a river carries it away, a lake with no outlet keeps it for decades.
Scenario mode
- Four eras, played in order. The Rail Era (1900–1929), The Motor Era (1930–1969), The Service Era (1970–2009) and The Logistics Era (2010 on). Each era’s buildings wait for that era, so reaching 1970 and reaching 2010 each hand you something new.
- Founding without hunting. Scenario tints every legal site for your port, university or hospital and counts them, and Next site walks the camera from one to the next.
- Report cards. In 1930, 1970 and 2010, each grading what you actually built. The 2010 card also asks whether your power and water kept up.
- Cars. From 1930 cars stretch how far a commute can reach, and then make the streets beside them hard to live on.
- Buildings get old. An ageing building makes its lot less desirable. Renew puts it back to new without losing what the lot grew, and the Building Age overlay finds the tired parts of town.
- Ground that remembers. From 1970, old industry stains the land it stood on and the stain outlasts the bulldozer. Clean Ground and the Reclamation Yard put it back.
- A grid that can run short. From 2010 a power plant supplies an amount of electricity, not just a reach on the map, and a district drawing more than its plants make goes dark at its edges. Water works the same way, and upkeep doubles.
New to build
- Power. Hydro Plant beside water, Wind Turbine, Nuclear Plant, Gas Turbine Plant and Small Coal Plant, plus a District Heat Plant that lowers what a district draws. Hydro, wind and nuclear leave your air and groundwater alone.
- Water. Water Tower, an Artesian Well that draws from under the city rather than from beside it, and Treatment Works to clean fouled water.
- Transit. Streetcar and Freight Rail, Bus Terminal and Train Terminal, and Widen Road and Elevate Line for a corridor that has outgrown itself. A tram line is a street now, and lots along it grow.
- Plant Trees. Put woods back where you want them, for land value and cleaner air.
- Fire Engine. Tap a burning building and the nearest station with a free engine goes to it.
Overlays
- Eight new ones. Traffic, Freight, Building Age, Groundwater, Water Pollution, Contamination, Road Access (for lots stranded in the middle of a deep block) and Elevation (because “is this flat?” was unanswerable).
Learning the game
- What is this?. Hold any tool in the build menu and choose What is this? to see what it places, what it needs to work, and when you would want it.
- Start with a small town. In Open Build the New City screen can found ten lots around a street, already powered and watered, for you to extend. Start from scratch is still there, and the screen says what each one gives you.
- Growing Your City. A short screen at the start explains what the residential, commercial and industrial zones grow, and what the demand meter is telling you.
- A monthly budget. The pie-chart button beside the tax rates shows what the city earns and spends, line by line, and how many months the treasury has left if you are losing money.
- Debt is survivable. A city in debt cannot build, but demolition is free, so you can cut upkeep and climb out. The status bar says so the moment it happens.
- A way back to panning. While a tool is picked, its icon stays on screen with a cross on it. Tap it to go back to Inspect, where one finger moves the map.
- Build Menu Side. A setting in the game’s menu (☰) puts the build menu on the left or the right.
Fixes
- Saves that will not open are listed. A damaged save, or one from a newer version, used to vanish from the list. It now appears greyed out with the reason, and you can rename or delete it.
- Less memory. The map’s artwork takes about half the memory it did in 26.8, and distant tiles shimmer less as the camera moves.
Digicity 26.8
Released September 9, 2026
Digicity’s first release on the App Store: the free city builder on iPad, with saving your cities as a one-time purchase.
Found a city tonight.
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