Best Tower Defense Games 2025

Are you a fan of strategy games with tower defense elements? If so, you'll love our picks for the best tower defense games to play in 2022.

Few things are as satisfying as successfully standing your ground while waves of enemies get crushed by a cacophony of spikes, turrets, and other defenses.

Tower defense games challenge us to explore various strategies and come up with the optimal solutions for surviving in the face of peril.

In this game list, we’ll highlight the best tower defense games to play in 2025, including strategy tower defense games on Steam, PlayStation, Xbox, Switch, and mobile.

Related:Best Strategy Games 2025Best Puzzle Games 2025Best Roguelike Games 2025

Table of ContentsShow

Candy Disaster is a 3D tower defense game that looks to combine ridiculous traps with infinite strategies to stop the candy zombies from invading your base.

In it, you take on the role of Jick, a deranged scientist on a mission to help their enigmatic partner collect Energy Candies scattered across different planets.

However, to gather them all, you’ll have to ward off waves of undead enemies using a broad array of traps with distinct effects.

The game uses procedural generation to ensure every session feels distinctive, with even the zombies changing their tactics to try and catch you off guard.

A somewhat concealed gem of the TD genre, Barricadez offers a mix of tower defense and survival gameplay in one clever little package.

In it, you control a robot assigned to protect a baby from waves of undead-like creatures by crafting defenses such as barriers to ensure you both make it through the night.

This requires you to investigate nearby underground locations to gather resources for building traps and discover new blueprints.

It’s a simple yet captivating mix of action and discovery that creates a satisfying gaming experience that has only improved through updates after its release.

If you’re looking for a strategy game you can play in short bursts, 3 Minute Heroes is an attractive choice that combines tower defense gameplay with deck building and rogue-like advancement.

Each run sees you selecting a champion, organizing your deck, and heading into battle with the goal of keeping your home safe for 3 minutes.

During battles, ferocious monsters will constantly try to flank your base, forcing you to summon units onto the field that vary based on your hero’s capacity and deck composition.

There are over 20 characters to pick from and a total of 400+ unique cards that can turn the tide of battles across increasingly difficult stages.

Bloons is one of the most renowned free-to-play tower defense games around and Bloons TD Battles 2 shows why the franchise is still so cherished.

In it, you gather a hero, assemble a team of powerful Monkey Towers, and enter into battle against other players and endless waves of Bloons.

Much like its predecessors, TD Battles 2 focuses on competitive tower defense gameplay in which players must outmaneuver and defeat their opponents head-on.

There are countless strategic combinations to explore, as well as an abundance of unique arenas and a rank system to chronicle your rise to victory.

One of the characteristic properties of tower defense games compared to other genres is their ability to turn deceptively simple mechanics into compelling gameplay.

Such is the case with Vectorio, a rather simple-looking strategy game with vector graphics and first-rate tower defense gameplay.

In it, you’re tasked with claiming resources around a map and using them to research groundbreaking weapons and technology to survive attacks from an onslaught of hostile shapes.

Still in Early Access, the game has benefited from continuous updates adding new defenses, enemy types, and trials.

The Riftbreaker is a novel tower defense mech game released in 2022 by EXOR Studios in which you take on the role of a scientist/commando named Ashley.

Ashley is joined by her mech Mr. Riggs as the pair try to establish a colony on an extraterrestrial planet whose native inhabitants aren’t too keen on visitors.

Alien creatures will frequently invade settlements, forcing Mr. Riggs to step into action and blast them away using his automatic weapon, rocket launcher, sword, and more.

Gameplay incorporates survival, tower defense, and dual-stick shooters elements along with crafting and resource management.

When They Are Billions first released in Steam Early Access in 2017, it was immediately apparent that Numantian Games had grand plans for the Steampunk-inspired strategy game.

In it, players are tasked with guiding the last surviving humans as they strive to reclaim civilization from enormous hordes of flesh-eating zombies.

Included are two modes: Campaign, in which you defend colonies from the undead while researching new technologies, and Survival, which focuses on staying alive for as long as possible.

One of the game’s most distinctive features is the ability to pause the action and give yourself time to build new structures, issue orders to troops, or just catch your breath.

If you’re a longtime enthusiast of tower defense games, chances are you already know about the Dungeon Defenders series.

Dungeon Defenders II sees 1-4 players battling to protect the land of Etheria by constructing traps and turrets designed to freeze, incinerate, or simply annihilate piles of monsters.

The game’s roster of heroes is fairly diverse and includes some intriguing playstyles such as the popular Gunwitch, a blunderbuss-wielding-mage with a broomstick.

While it can feel a bit more monotonous compared to the original DD, we consider that a fair tradeoff for enhanced visuals and more playable characters.

If you’re a fan of games like Satisfactory and Factorio, you may enjoy Mindustry, a resource management-oriented tower defense game.

In it, players chain together innumerable conveyor belts to supply turrets with ammo, produce building materials, and defeat waves of foes.

A powerful map generator tool lets you modify the shape of the terrain, ore generation, placement of rivers and resources, and even enemy wave layouts.

Mindustry boasts five game modes: Campaign, Survival, Attack, PvP, and Sandbox in addition to supporting cross-platform distant play.

Repetition has always been a problem for tower defense games, particularly those with a limited number of defenses, enemy types, and maps.

Dungeon Warfare II shakes things up by incorporating procedurally-generated assets to aid you in your mission as Dungeon Lord.

In a fascinating role reversal, the game sees you trying to prevent greedy adventurers from robbing dungeons blind by placing deadly traps and obstacles all throughout.

This is made even better by the game’s modeled physics, which can see enemy heroes flung across the map by swinging death orbs or knocked off ledges into scorching pits of lava.

Grim Nights is a laid-back yet demanding side-scrolling survival game with tower defense elements.

In it, you control an entire village, assigning townsfolk various tasks such as chopping trees for wood and exploring mines for precious ores.

These resources allow you to expand your village and strengthen its defenses, which you’ll want to do sooner than later if you plan on surviving come nightfall.

At night, creatures will appear and try to invade your village, requiring your townsfolk to combine their strengths and hold off the enemy until the morning.

Orcs Must Die! 2 maintains the thrilling strategic tower defense gameplay of the original while focusing more on online co-op.

The game sees you and a friend taking on the role of a formidable War Mage or Sorceress as you protect fortresses, dwarven mines, and more from hordes of monsters.

The sequel also sees the return of cherished defenses from OMD, in addition to new traps and game-altering arcane trinkets.

Those who prefer to do all their Orc-hunting solo will be happy to hear the game is still fully playable in single-player as long as you don’t mind a bit more challenge.

Bad North is a demanding, real-time strategy roguelite with tower defense components.

In it, you’re tasked with defending your tiny island kingdom against hordes of Viking invaders alongside the last remaining soldiers.

Instead of assaulting directly, gameplay revolves around positioning and relocating troops to counter different Viking enemy types.

Islands are procedurally-generated and entirely unique in layout and appearance, providing the perfect opportunity to develop battle-hardened soldiers and crush the Vikings once and for all.

Minion Masters offers rapid-paced, MOBA-inspired tower defense gameplay in which players use cards to summon minions to do their bidding in fierce combat.

In addition, players are assigned a Legendary Master with extraordinary abilities that can be further enhanced with a deck of spells that complement their playstyle.

Once minions are summoned, their movement and attacks are governed by AI, allowing you to concentrate on planning your next move.

It’s ideal for both competitive and casual battling and features online matchmaking with 1v1 and 2v2 co-op modes.

Kingdom Two Crowns expands upon the triumph of the acclaimed 2D building sim while featuring a novel campaign tailored for both solo and co-op play.

In it, you’re tasked with establishing a powerful nation capable of defeating an army of enemies known as the Greed.

To do so, you’ll have to travel throughout the land acquiring gold and recruiting loyal followers to help your kingdom reach its full potential.

As your kingdom continues to expand, more villagers will request to join you, lending their distinctive skills and abilities in exchange for a safe haven.

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Justin Fernandez

As a fan of both indie and triple-A games, Justin finds joy in discovering and sharing hidden gems with other passionate gamers. In addition to reporting on the latest and greatest titles, he manages GamingScan’s social media channels.

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