SimTower gets a modern Windows 11 port without changing the original game

SimTower has always been a slightly awkward game to run on a modern PC. That’s hardly surprising. The Windows version was built for Windows 3.1, back when 16-bit software was completely normal and a 64-bit version of Windows sounded like something from the distant future. Now, though, SimTower is getting a proper native Windows port. The project rebuilds the original PC game as a modern 64 Windows application, letting it run on current machines without relying on the old 16-bit Windows environment. That makes Windows 11 a much more straightforward place to play it. This isn’t a remake. There are no new graphics, redesigned menus or modernised management systems. The idea is much simpler: make the original Windows version work properly on modern hardware while keeping the game itself intact.

SimTower now runs as a modern Windows application

The original SimTower was written for an era of Windows that current 64-bit versions simply don’t support directly. You can work around that problem, of course. Old Windows games can often be made to run through virtual machines, compatibility layers and other bits of technical scaffolding. This port goes another way.

Instead of wrapping the old executable in a simulated environment, it translates the game’s behaviour into native Windows code. That’s a much bigger job than getting the title screen to appear.

The work covers rendering, menus, dialog boxes, mouse controls, sound, simulation timing, construction, information windows, stairs, escalators and the various facilities you can place throughout the tower. And yes, that includes the elevators. It has to.

Elevators aren’t a minor feature in SimTower. They’re practically the bloodstream of the whole simulation, moving residents, workers, shoppers and hotel guests around a building that can eventually become enormous. The project has now reached release-candidate status, with its reconstructed systems tested against the original Windows 3.1 game.

The game underneath hasn’t been redesigned

Anyone expecting SimTower with widescreen apartments, new businesses and a flashy interface should adjust expectations. This is still SimTower. You start with an empty building site and slowly turn it into a busy vertical city filled with offices, restaurants, shops, hotel rooms, condominiums and entertainment facilities.

At first, things are manageable. Then the tower grows.

More people arrive, more floors open, and suddenly the placement of a single elevator shaft can cause headaches throughout the building. People don’t just teleport between floors. They have to move through the tower, and poor transport planning can quickly create congestion.

That’s where much of SimTower’s character comes from. The game tracks money, population, tenants, time and movement while gradually unlocking more facilities as your tower rating increases. The basic idea sounds simple, but the building becomes harder to manage as everything starts interacting.

The port keeps those systems in place rather than trying to reinterpret them. It also addresses one of the less obvious problems with running very old games on very fast computers: timing.

Original software often assumed the processor would run at something close to the speeds available when the game was written. Put the same routines on modern hardware and some parts of the simulation can suddenly run far too quickly. The native version reproduces the original timing behaviour instead of letting the game race ahead simply because a Windows 11 PC has vastly more processing power.

SimTower started life as The Tower

SimTower began in Japan as The Tower, designed by Yoot Saito and developed by OPeNBooK. It first appeared in 1994 before Maxis brought it to Western PC players as SimTower: The Vertical Empire. The Maxis name made sense. This was the company already associated with games such as SimCity, and SimTower fitted comfortably into that broader simulation catalogue.

But its structure was different. Instead of managing roads, neighbourhoods or an entire city, you controlled one building. Everything happened vertically.

That change in perspective gave the game its own rhythm. Deciding what to build mattered, but deciding how people would actually reach it could matter just as much. SimTower later appeared on other platforms, including Sega Saturn, 3DO and PlayStation. Its ideas were expanded in The Tower II, which eventually reached international players as Yoot Tower.

You’ll still need the original game files

There is one catch. The native port doesn’t include SimTower’s commercial graphics, sound, help files or other copyrighted assets. Those remain separate.

So this isn’t a new commercial Windows 11 edition that you can simply install as a complete package. You’ll need files from a legally acquired copy of the Windows version, which are then used alongside the reconstructed application.

The modern code itself uses current development tools, including C++20 and CMake, but the actual game assets still come from the original release. That distinction matters. This isn’t a remaster, and it isn’t an officially redesigned edition. It’s essentially the Windows 3.1 version of SimTower running through newly written native Windows code.

A very old Windows game finally gets a modern foundation

For most players, the technical details will matter less than the result. SimTower was built for a version of Windows that modern PCs left behind years ago. This port removes that old 16-bit dependency and gives the game a native 64-bit Windows foundation instead. The skyscraper hasn’t changed.

Neither have the tenants, hotel rooms, offices or endless arguments with elevator capacity. It’s the machinery underneath that’s new. And for a game originally released more than 30 years ago, that could make the difference between something that’s awkward to get running and something that feels much more at home on a Windows 11 PC.