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Rebuilding Chicago
- Designer: Quinn Brander
- Publisher: Wizkids
- Players: 1-5
- Age: 12+
- Time: 60-120 minutes
- Amazon affiliate link: https://amzn.to/4n29utO
- Played with review copy provided by publisher
In Rebuilding Chicago, a standalone successor to 2023’s Rebuilding Seattle, you’re responsible for managing the zoning and expansion of a major neighborhood following the “Great Chicago Fire” of 1871.
Each round, your population grows, then you can either build a new building, expand into a new suburb, activate an event, or build a landmark, after which you earn profit based on your neighborhood’s commerce. You’ll buy building types from a shared market — looking to find shapes that fit your grid and types that fit your strategy — and construct landmarks on the right tile combinations. Suburb tiles connect to your grid however you like, creating uniquely shaped neighborhoods. Triggering citywide events can change the tide of the game, offering points, money, and expansions for the players ready for it. You can even enact laws to give yourself the advantage!
You earn points for building types, upgrades, landmarks, events, and remaining cash, and at the end of the game, whoever’s neighborhood has earned the most points wins. Rebuilding Chicago also comes with a solo player deck so that you can compete to build the best version of Chicago even with just one player. Enjoy gameplay against a deck designed to simulate the actions of a second player to discover strategies and configurations you can use to improve Chicago.
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Solo Gaming 2026: The First Four Months
The new era of well-designed automata and solo modes for multiplayer games, coupled with excellent new solo game designs, is actually quite heartening to someone (me!) who finds something very satisfying about physically playing a game: shuffling cards, moving pieces, seeing it all spread out in front of you. (I will note that the new era has also brought some really weak solo modes for games that probably shouldn’t have had a solo mode in the first place, but I’m trying to focus on gratitude rather than griping in 2026.)
Solo gaming is now a decent-sized chunk of my gaming experiences – while I still play a lot of games with friends and family, 20% of my gaming in the first four months of 2026 was solo. Last year is was over 30% for the first few months, so this is a bit of a drop-off. For comparison, the yearly total for 2025 was 24%, the yearly total for 2024 was 31%, 2023 was 20%, 2022 was 22%, 2021 was 33%, 2020 was 19%, and 2019 was 6%. I’ve actually more opportunities for both online play (BGA and playtesting games on TTS) and in-person play this spring.
So, what follows are my thoughts on the twenty-five (25) different solo games I’ve played so far in 2026 – ordered by the number of times I’ve played them. (Note: this is not necessarily how much I like a particular game for solo play – for example, I think Arydia: The Paths We Dare Tread is an excellent solo game design but I haven’t played it [yet!] in 2026.)
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