Since 2015, Cities Skylines has been my jam and now we have Cities Skylines 2. Out of hundreds of games in my Steam library, Cities made it into the prestigious “favourites” section at the top, in which only six games have settled. So it goes without saying that Cities Skylines 2, the long-awaited successor, has not only been on my radar but has been dead centre of it. And truly, the game is huge.
I have seen so much of what is new, exciting and sincerely and carefully upgraded from the original, but equally, feel that there is very much more to learn and discover. The game is a lot of fun, albeit facing some widely-publicised performance issues at launch. Thankfully, Paradox has evidenced some early advances and fixes for this, and the direction of travel is positive.
Cities Skylines made its name as the effective successor to the Sim City series, but far and above that it is widely regarded as the best city-building game of all time. It is not as ambitious as it first sounds, then, for Cities Skylines 2 to be marketing itself as “the most realistic city builder ever”. Frankly, it’s not hard to believe it on paper.
Returning fans for Cities Skylines 2 will be pleased to know that the fundamentals, UI, tools and actions that you need to take in building your managing your city are largely where you would expect them to be and will feel entirely familiar. The foundations of thoughtful zoning, providing and managing utilities, watching and organising your finances, bringing in sectors, rules, services, unique buildings and all of your now-standard Cities basics are present, correct and in the same places as you would expect to find them.
Beneficial upgrades to many of these systems are of course present, but have been integrated in a way that maintains what players are used to and adds on top in meaningful and intelligent ways.
Let’s start with some of the small, simple, but remarkably useful and welcome additions that you will find almost right away in Cities Skylines 2. Here, the devs listened carefully to the community and watched closely the patterns in the modding scene to ensure that the changes made to Cities Skylines 2 were indeed the ones that people wanted.
Abilities like being able to instantly switch to above and below-ground building offer greater efficiency for more fluid, controlled planning and building. More specific road building mechanics and techniques allow you to create the city logistics you could only dream of in the first game, from building whole grids near-instantly to being able to more seamlessly organise traffic through better road upgrades, more road styles and additions such as dedicated bus and tram lanes. Most importantly, pipes and cables are now built into the roads – an absolute win!
These obvious, small changes make a huge difference to the ease, fluidity and creativity of city building in the game, and deserve tremendous applause in their own right. The road options go far and away beyond this, too, with greater control over how your roads should operate and a welcome plethora of roundabouts from the very start of the game. Truly, you could write a whole review on the new roads alone, but I shall refrain – there is so much more to talk about!
Utilities and economy have seen perhaps the most exciting expansions in Cities Skylines 2. The former is now more dynamic, with your supplies coming from more sources but also facing greater challenges. For example, it is not possible to import energy from neighbouring cities rather than run the risk of unstable or polluting means of production at home. This can start out as a great option, but can rapidly become costly.
Of course, you can also sell back to the grid to support your economic efforts, just as you can now participate in a dynamic trade system with your neighbours. To fluid economics of Cities Skylines 2 are exceptionally cool to engage with. Finally, there is a reason to set up sector-based industry for direct benefit, and the introduction of an active economic system really adds to the life blood of the genre and game itself.
Beyond the simple production-based factors in this new system, elements such as government grants and land value can have positive and negative effects on your city and its residents, directly impacting their choices and actions. Yes, you read that last part right – and that brings us onto the next big upgrade…
Citizens in your city now live their lives more realistically, reasonably and intelligently than before. The new AI for citizens influences choices such as where they choose to live based on local economies, services, pollution and indeed factors such as traffic. One of the most impressive updates to the latter in Cities Skylines 2 is that traffic no longer moves only by the shortest route, but also based on other factors such as congestion and travel time.
This makes a world of difference to the old-school Cities bottlenecking and the need to puzzle out your road systems time and again, and it makes the city feel more alive than ever before. You can even track the lives of individual citizens down to a tee to see the “on-the-ground” impacts of your choices. It is remarkably cool.
Money, people, logistics and policy may all influence the day-to-day life in your city, but weather, climate and natural disasters can change your megalopolis’ destiny in an instant. From dynamic seasons to forest fires, hailstorms and tornados, the challenges you face through the game evolve over time and sometimes out of nowhere, bringing a little bit of challenge, a dose or realism and a bit more of the old Sim City flair to proceedings.
These features felt less pronounced than the aliens, meteor showers and Godzilla of yester-year, but are therefore more a part of the structure of Cities Skylines 2 and more meaningful, albeit realistic and exciting to resolve, as a result.
The final big addition that really captured my heart in Cities Skylines 2 was a progression system. Cities Skylines had a linear progression in terms of milestones which unlocked new facilities and options for your city, and this remains in Cities Skylines 2. What is new is that you now have more choice in the needs and direction of your city, with progression points allowing you to, within some reason, choose your own path.
Maybe you have water pollution to tackle as a higher priority than road maintenance, for example, or you want to fast track to becoming a thriving University city. Being able to choose what you unlock first, beyond the locked-in elements such as medical, fire and police services, gives you a much greater sense of control and direction. Coupled with building upgrades to improve existing services as your city grows, I felt much more like a part of the process in Cities Skylines 2 than I ever did playing the original game.
A final note, then, on the performance issues the game is facing at launch, along with one other, minor grievance. The game, by Paradox’s own admission, is not releasing in its perfect, or indeed final, form. The level of detail which has been added upon the original naturally dictates greater hardware demands and requirements, and there remains some smoothing out to be done by the devs before players, and Paradox, are satisfied that the correct standard has been met.
For me personally, some obscurities graphically and a few drops in frame rate did not deter from my enjoyment of this substantially updated Cities experience, but for some these factors my frustrating and a deal breaker. Time will tell the degree and speed at which the fixes for these issues release, but early signals are very positive and the above-board nature of Paradox’s response will no doubt be refreshing for fans.
My only other issue with the game was the camera controls, which somehow felt more clumsy than the last time out and a little difficult to focus on the finer details like placing a pipe connection or cable correctly. This, I am sure, will feel more natural with time, but in an otherwise refined experience, the blip in smoothness stood out to me.
On the whole, Cities Skylines 2 is exactly what I had hoped for from a sequel to the greatest city-building game of all time. It maintains everything that was overwhelmingly loved about the first game, and sensibly introduces the upgrades that players actually wanted. There is no doubt that the game will evolve further still over time, just as the former did, and continue to wow its enthusiastic community.
If you were a fan of Cities, this game will hit the right tones for you. If you are new to the franchise, you are in for a real treat. Just try not to trip on the work-in-progress lighting or frame rate on your way in.
Cities Skylines 2 Trailer
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