Last updated on January 4th, 2026 at 08:14 pm
Mini Metro – Strategy Game Review
Mini Metro is a Strategy/Entertainment/Simulation game from Dinosaur Polo Club Limited, first launched in 25th December 2015.
It’s rated 4+ and currently has 30,675+ ratings on the App Store.
What Makes Mini Metro Stand Out
Mini Metro, the sublime subway simulator, now on iPhone and iPad.
• Included in the App Store Best of 2016
• Mac Game of the Year in over 30 countries
• BAFTA-nominated
• IGF award-winning
• IGN Mobile Game of the Year nominee
• Included in Gamespot's Best Mobile Games of 2016
Mini Metro is a game about designing a subway map for a growing city. Draw lines between stations and start your trains running. As new stations open, redraw your lines to keep them efficient. Decide where to use your limited resources. How long can you keep the city moving?
• Random city growth means each game is unique.
• Over two dozen of real-world cities to test your planning skills.
• A variety of upgrades so you can tailor your network.
• Normal mode for quick scored games, Endless to relax, or Extreme for the ultimate challenge.
• Build your metro exactly how you want to with the Creative mode.
• Compete against the world every day in the Daily Challenge.
• Colorblind and night modes.
• Responsive soundtrack created by your metro system, engineered by Disasterpeace.
"If you love the city-planning aspect of Sim City but can't handle the pressure of playing god, then you may have just found your new favorite time-waster." – Ashley Feinberg, Gizmodo
"Take my word for it that a game about mass-transit system design can be a tense, white-knuckle thriller." – Owen Faraday, Pocket Tactics
"Mini Metro: fun game simulates planning and running public transit system." – Cory Doctorow, Boing Boing
This Strategy game offers engaging gameplay and regular updates for mobile players.
Player Feedback
As a newer release, Mini Metro is building its player community. Early feedback suggests .
Recent Updates & Development
Latest Update: 15th September 2025
Recent improvements include:
We've been updating the backend in preparation for the new upcoming Apple Games app. No changes have been made to the game itself.
Download & Availability
Mini Metro is available through the official App Store for iOS devices.
Requirements: Requires iPhone 5s / iPad Air / iPad Air (Cellular) / iPad Mini 2 (Retina) / iPad Mini 2 (Retina, Cellular) / iPhone 6 / iPhone 6 Plus / iPad Air 2 / iPad Air 2 (Cellular) / iPad Mini 3 or later.
Compatible with iPhone and iPad devices.
Player Experience Highlights
Community Insight:
Would like a quick clear option please, especially for us iOS users, having small screens.
This is the best game we have downloaded, by far. It is beautiful, challenging, addicting and also very soothing. We now feel sorry for all the other apps on our phone as they are now highly neglected. The app has several options to play and to remember how you did. We find ourselves emailing our better works to our kids and they do the same to us to compare how we are progressing. We would love more cities, however, there is much room for creativity within each current city on the app. ABSOLUTE PERFECTION! Thank you to the developers and to the App Store for advertising this. We couldnt be happier with an app.
Been playing this game for a long time and we love it! Challenging, fun and simple. Suggestion: be able to see the top map layouts on the daily challenges. Would love to see how other people do it.
Give the controls time. They are nuanced.
Fun to watch strategies replicating how your city works fail. Wish there was Milan.
Great game. We noticed an issue where we started a new track and there was no train movement. Passengers were queued up. Running on an iPhone X.
We first tried it at the Apple Store and fell in love. Very fun and entertaining for those who like strategy games. The key is patience.
The game is amazing just by itself. Even though you have to unlock all the stations it adds a challenge to the game. The strategy is Amazing and how you make the lines and every thing is amazing. It is totally worth the $5.
Mini metro is a very fun game.it is very complex and we like it.
This game is magic. Im not saying youll love it, or even like it. But just give it a chance. We hope the devolved reads this.Also if your not an app Person this is a good opportunity to get this game because it has good quality it works just fine especially on iPhone Ive been getting reviews that iPhone X isnt the best want to use it with the big screens like the ZTE are good to use and we really do hope we do get it developers note because we really want to see if they read this and if they think that this is a good enough response for them.
Simple mechanics with depth that reveals itself over time. Interesting, relatable setting. Beautiful presentation. Variety of levels and modes. Mini metro is one of the best mobile games Ive ever played. Im looking forward to more from this developer.
They fixed the bug we were having within a day. This game is amazing.
This game is a lot of fun and now works great on iPhone X.
Really lovely to watch, intuitive to play. Wouldnt mind if it was slightly more forgiving some times. But very enjoyable.
So say that theirs a new place that just spawned and its overcrowding but its across a river and we have no tunnels or lines and we just collected our milestone that only gave us a locomotive and a station. We cant do anything about it and the game ends.
This game needs an endless mode (from the start) and a better way to delete sections of a line. Otherwise, its a great game.
Though too many operations are undiscoverable like removing stations from lines.
This Game is very fun for us because we love maps and cities. We are not sure how many people would be into it, but the strategy is very interesting, although hard. Problems: 1. Its too hard. Maybe its just us, but we cant beat any of the level. Maybe we just need to practice and strategize, but we cant even beat the tutorial, so maybe it should be a little easier 2. Rules explained? There is a tutorial (although hard to find), but we think that the rules should be spelled out more. You are kind of just immediately sent into the game with no rules or anything. We would like for it to be explained how do everything before you start the game (or even just at all) 3. An easier way to delete lines would be much better 4. Right now, we are stuck on New York on endless mode and we dont know how to get out.
Design is fantastic Sounds are amazing Controls are great But its stressful, like, its hard to keep track of everything on the screen but Im sure this is just personal preference. Great game for thinkers and puzzle enthusiasts including those that like simulations.
This is a really fun game. The only problem with is that the controls are pretty difficult sometimes on the touch screen.
We really hate this game. Probably our biggest frustration comes with the games AI. When a station starts filling up, trains will still unreliably skip the station. Even if we extend the line to incorporate the same shape of station that riders are going to! We'll even move trains from other tracks and it won't matter. We've seen other complaints about the same frustration. What's our motivation to play a game that fundamentally doesn't provide you with the resources to address a "crisis"? Garbage game.
Keeps us on our toes! We would recommend this to our friends that arent morons.
Great game, love it! Thanks for the iPhone X update.
Mini Metro offers a variety of cities to play with. The music gives you a sense of relaxation which we like very much. At the same time, it is a challenge to maintain a subway system like New York or Mumbai as time passes which gives a sense of urgency. We like this balance and we are pretty sure that others do too. For some suggestions, try to make some of the instructions like the speed of the game a little more pronounced like mentioning it in the tutorial. Definitely add more cities too. Here is a small list that will be pretty nice ideas to incorporate at your own discretion. List: Chicago Boston Tokyo Beijing Mexico City Lisbon It would be very fun to see what you guys come up with. If the developers are reading this or anyone else, thanks for takin the time to read it. -Lucas.
Each city har different special features and that is so cool! Im addicted.
We loved this game on Steam. When we saw it on iOS we knew we had to have it. The ambient soundtrack follows the in-game trains and tracks, creating a hypnotic zen-like state.
We literately never play ANY phone games, we dont even download them. This app got our attention because we live in NYC and can take like 10+ trains (subway) and buses a day. Its REALLY fun to play, especially on the subway commute before/after school to help pass time.
This game is surprisingly awesome. A little confusing at first but once you figure it out it is tons of fun.
Building and managing the flow of traffic harkens back to the very first games we played on our old iPhone. The concept of the game is very simple, yet it offers a depth that few games can match. The controls are excellent if a little difficult to use with a smaller screen. We definitely recommend using a plus model or the X to play this game.
This app is a lot of fun and very cathartic. We would love to see an Amsterdam map added.
We love how addicting it is and how when you connect different tracks there is some Haptic feedback. Amazing app.
This game is worth every penny you'd spend on it in our opinion. The design (although minimalistic) is great, the gameplay is simple (although it takes ~2 games to truly get used to) but very fun & addicting. The act of removing a station from a line is slightly tedious and we wish it was easier. It would be nice to have more maps (Tokyo & Berlin perhaps?) but the current maps suffice. Great game all-in-all.
Could you please provide some explanation of what the symbols mean.
This game is a blast, but it gets so repetitive and impossible at times. When you need everything BUT a circle station, you get circle stations. When you could use tunnels, you guessed it, you wont get tunnels. Fun game, but gets frustrating an unfair, all the time.
Very buggy for the iPhone X and does not fit the screen correctly on the icons.
We're on 10.5" iPad that launched early 2017 & iOS 10.3.3 and mini metro won't launch past the initial splash screen showing "mini metro".
Super fun that Ive been playing for years. More cities please.
Simple yet increasingly complicated, its hard to beat mini metro on any other game for a brain puzzle.
We love this game so much, we hope to see mini motorways on the App Store soon. Good stuff devs we really like it.
Thats the review. Its amazing. We love it. Its our favorite.
Nice game but we think we should be able to name the stations ourselfs.
One of the first games we downloaded over 10 years ago. Great little diversion.
Goes from a little boring to riveting. Great.
We wish yall would add the St. Louis Metro area.
Very relaxing. Too relaxing our family tried to stop us from getting 1000 passengers on Tokyo so we stopped. Now Im trying to get our family back.
Im addicted to the daily game and still try to improve our personal records on many of the cities. Awesome way to pass time on the actual subway. Short games or an hour of careful fine tuningits your choice.
We love the aesthetics. A quietly addicting little game. A few UX things might improve the game nicely: an undo button; a tools palette; an indicator showing the color of the new line to be added. We only just completed the first achievement and am finding new things in the game that are fun.
Very laggy on iOS 26 for iPad mini. Still usable but distracting.
We think this game is an absolute masterpiece of gaming, for its concept it is the best game! We really enjoyed playing this game but we think creative mode should be removed because of how much of a distraction to the real game. Please join Cringe Empire.
This game is nearly perfect. Its missing personal leaderboards, Game Center has some achievements otherwise you only know your best and your rank amongst other players, Id like to see our personal progress. We also find it a bit difficult to move trains or carriages, and to tell where single carriage trains are if they are at a station during pause.
User feedback from Apple App Store
App Details
- Version: 1.55
- Size: 178.76 MB
- iOS: 12.0 or later
- Languages: AR, CS, DA, NL, EN, FI, FR, DE, HU, ID, IT, JA, KO, MS, NB, PL, PT, RU, ZH, ES, SV, TH, ZH, TR, UK
- Content Advisory:
- Developer: Dinosaur Polo Club Limited
Last updated: 15th September 2025 | Genre: Strategy, Entertainment | Developer: Dinosaur Polo Club Limited