Cities: Skylines Review (PC)

very good
key review info
  • Game: Cities: Skylines
  • Platform: PC
  • Show system requirements
  • Gamepad support: No
  • Reviewed on:
Cities: Skylines design

Cities: Skylines is a game about the limits of planning and the constant small scale changes that are needed to keep any urban space alive in the long term, with gamers asked to create a thriving settlement first and then deal with the innumerable mistakes they have made during the initial design process in order to unlock its full potential.

I played a lot of city builders, starting off with Caesar when I was very young and ending with the new SimCity a few years ago, and this is the first title in the genre that made me think more seriously about the incredibly difficult job city planners have.

The first few scenarios I ran seemed to be OK initially, when 20,000 people at the most lived in them, but as I rushed to add more buildings and more services in order to draw in more people, I witnessed my layout become overcomplicated and then I used the tools of the game to try and fix all those small problems and deliver a true urban utopia.

Cities: Skylines has been developed by Colossal Order and publishing duties were handled by Paradox Interactive.

Story

Cities: Skylines is a classic city builder, but the development team is not delivering a classic campaign for gamers to explore, moving from a small settlement to a metropolis, instead of focusing on making sure that gamers are free to create the city they want.

In fact, all players will find it very easy to initially develop their town and unlock buildings and options, and the fact that new plots can be bought means that a scenario can be enjoyed forever, with gamers able to create their own stories of urban development and decay.

There are moments when the freeform nature of Cities: Skylines can feel like a burden to gamers who are more accustomed to clear goals, but I found that it's fun to first focus on the development of a solid city and then switch to the sometimes complex task of unlocking all the unique buildings, some of which have fairly ridiculous requirements.

It will be interesting to see whether the developers will launch DLC to offer some smaller and more focused challenges to the community developing around the city builder or if they will simply focus on mechanics rather than narrative in the coming months.

Gameplay

Cities: Skylines has so many classic mechanics that it feels instantly familiar, a game that understands that the genre has some core elements which should not be messed with if a title wants to have wide and long-term appeal.

A plot of land, a highway connection and some cash are all the player has initially and their first task is to lay down a pattern of roads, secure some water access and power, and then lay down residential, commercial and industrial zones in order to start off their city development project.

Initially, the focus is on the addition of population, which in turn leads to more options for the city, and over time, gamers will need to make sure that they adequately offer services ranging from the basics, like police and firemen, to high-level hospitals and universities.

All of them will help buildings evolve and pay more in taxes, and the newfound wealth (loans are also offered for those who find themselves cash-strapped) can be re-invested into the development process to expand the city and add more citizens

Gamers can at any point zoom into the game and tag every citizen and every car to see them move inside the virtual world of Cities: Skylines, and the developers even allow them to be re-named and tracked.

Watching one simulated human move around the city can be very peaceful and satisfying, but there's also a new crisis or opportunity that requires the attention of the gamers, especially when cities become complicated networks of roads and bottlenecks appear.

Colossal Order's first titles were transport-focused and the influence is also felt in Cities: Skylines, where players will need to carefully evaluate traffic levels and the way they have built their roads, their public transportation and their railroads to try and improve them to deal with higher loads.

Fortunately, the game offers a lot of information, via the various data layers that gamers can consult in order to make decisions, and it's very easy to see how a particular intersection or a whole neighborhood needs to be reconfigured for improved performance.

Players also have city policies to enact in order to tweak the behavior of their citizens, although some of them are very costly, and they can also efficiently segment their metropolises when they become too large to handle as a unit.

The Districts feature means that players can use a simple tool to designate one part of their city and then give it a name and a profile.

Complexity in Cities: Skylines
Complexity in Cities: Skylines

Policies can be tailored for each of them separately, allowing players to create beach neighborhoods with no pollution and extra recycling work or industrial neighborhoods where safety is ignored and output is improved.

The imagination of the player is the only limit for those engaged with Cities: Skylines, but the game does suffer from a problem when it comes to end-game goals, and the mechanics become familiar so fast that replayability can be a problem in the long term.

Graphics and audio

Cities: Skylines is a good looking game when the viewer stays zoomed out and enjoys the general layout of his city, pondering the way it can be expanded and tweaked in order to increase the number of people it houses and the efficiency of its traffic.

When moving to street level, the game loses some detail, but it still manages to look beautiful, with bright colors and the tilt shift effect used to put a slightly magical light on the world.

The user interface of Cities: Skylines is very well constructed, with all the key options laid on the bottom of the screen and the various layout easily accessible on the left-hand side.

It's very easy to create a settlement and to then simply look at the blocks and the intersections to see exactly where problems are appearing, with the engine of the game designed to show gamers exactly where they need to focus their efforts to improve the situation.

Cities: Skylines manages to be both engaging from a gameplay perspective and good looking, but it fails to deliver on the audio front, with a soundtrack that never feels like its connected to the action and limited environmental sounds.

Multiplayer

Cities: Skylines does not feature multiplayer and the game also wisely avoids the mistake of trying to create a connected kind of experience which would basically force players to work with others in order to unlock all the potential of their city.

The developers understand that the genre is a solitary one and that gamers need to be free to focus on their creations, spending hours in order to tweak them towards greater perfection or simply finding new ways to create interesting settlements and solve new problems.


The Good

  • Classic city building mechanics
  • Transport network complexity
  • District rules

The Bad

  • Limited replayability
  • Limited end game

Conclusion

Cities: Skylines is the best experience for a gamer who wants to play a modern city builder that has a solid set of mechanics and manages to avoid all the traps that have sunk the reboot of SimCity created by Maxis and Electronic Arts.

Colossal Order has managed to create an experience that is very easy to understand and allows players to create almost any kind of metropolis they are interested in, with the best part of the game coming a little over 20,000 or 30,000 citizens, when gamers need to carefully work on traffic and building positioning to get constructions to the highest level or to create one of the unique buildings.

Cities: Skylines has already managed to deliver better than expected sales for Paradox Interactive and its success will probably mean that the long-term support delivered by Colossal Order will solve some of the current problems and will expand the mechanics in interesting ways via DLC, using the traditional model employed by the publisher for other titles like Europa Universalis IV or Crusader Kings II.

The modding scene for the title also looks very impressive at the moment, and the fact that full integration with the Steam Workshop is offered from day one means that gamers can create and easily download a wide variety of extra content created by the community.

Cities: Skylines is not a perfect city builder, but it does manage to offer a lot of familiar mechanics that fans of the genre will love, while also introducing two ideas that come packed with innovation: the transport system and the ways it can be tweaked to improve a city, and the district concept and the way it can be used to make the entire experience more varied.

story 6
gameplay 8
concept 9
graphics 8
audio 7
multiplayer 0
final rating 8
Editor's review
very good
 

Cities: Skylines Images (25 Images)

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