Cities: Skylines 2
If you can dream it, you can build it
Raise a city from the ground up and transform it into the thriving metropolis only you can imagine. You’ve never experienced building on this scale. With deep simulation and a living economy, Cities: Skylines II delivers world-building without limits.
Lay the foundations for your city to begin. Create the roads, infrastructure, and systems that make life possible day to day. It’s up to you – all of it.
How your city grows is your call too, but plan strategically. Every decision has an impact. Can you energize local industries while also using trade to boost the economy? What will make residential districts flourish without killing the buzz downtown? How will you meet the needs and desires of citizens while balancing the city’s budget?
Your city never rests. Like any living, breathing world, it changes over time. Some changes will be slow and gradual, while others will be sudden and unexpected. So while seasons turn and night follows day, be ready to act when life doesn’t go to plan.
An ever-expanding community of Builders means more opportunities to build a truly groundbreaking city with mods. They’re now more easily available in Cities: Skylines II.
The most realistic and detailed city builder ever, Cities: Skylines II pushes your creativity and problem-solving to another level. With beautifully rendered high-resolution graphics, it also inspires you to build the city of your dreams.
Deep simulation
AI and intricate economics mean your choices ripple through the fabric of the city. Remember that as you strategize, problem-solve, and react to change, challenges, and opportunities.
Epic scale, endless possibilities
Cities: Skylines II lets you create without compromise. Now you can build sky-high and sprawl across the map like never before. Why not? Your city is you.
Cities that come alive
Your decisions shape each citizen’s life path, a chain of events that defines who they are. From love and loss to wealth and wellbeing, follow their life’s ups and downs.
A dynamic world
Pick a map to set the climate of your city. These are the natural forces you’ll negotiate to expand your city amid rising pollution, changeable weather, and seasonal challenges.
Steam User 470
Ever since development has been taken over by Iceflake Studios, the game has seen a dramatic increase in bug fixes, game stability, and performance improvement. Original City Skylines has more content, but if Iceflake keeps up the good work, I believe this could be the proper sequel it was meant to be.
Steam User 328
Iceflake Studios is really saving this game right now and I can finally recommend it.
Steam User 344
complacency, lazyness and undiscipline nearly killed this game and franchise, but now with a new dev studio that also contains ex colossal order staff, under new management that actually cares the future looks brighter than the past. Not everythings is fixed yet, some mistakes are still being made but theyre also being corrected a speed that seems like lightspeed compared to before. Problems are being adressed and new stuff added that has been requested for years now. all in all its going back uphill
Steam User 365
I've read a lot of negative stuff about this game, and I was one of these severely disappointed at the state when the game release. I held off for a year and a half before I bought the game and still several months before I finally dove in
What changed? Frankly the devs' commitment to making things better. I was skeptical at first but I have to say that despite there still being issues, the devs do care about fixing things. Colossal Order leaving and Ice Flake taking over seemed concerning but at least at the time of writing, the first update released by them seems promising.
So what about my actual thoughts about the game? I'll be honest, I got this game not as a replacement for Cities Skylines 1 but for Simcity 4. In my opinion, Cities Skylines 1 was extremely overrated because while you could build incredible things with it, you needed a ton of mods to do that. The base game was extremely ugly and nothing I built looked satisfying. I could never get all of the mods I wanted working and I was plagued with constant crashes to the point where I just stopped playing
In contrast, Cities Skylines 2 has been stable and looks amazing. It actually has a consistent design philosophy unlike CS1 which couldn't decide if it wanted to be cartoony or realistic. The amount of customization I have with just the base game itself is amazing and with just a few mods, becomes ever better. I've been making things I could never in CS1 without a ton of mods and a lot of instability
As for negatives, some people say the simulation is illogical. Maybe it is but its good enough for me. My biggest complaint is about performance. The game chews through framerates and zooming in makes it worse and I have a fairly decent machine. Its not unplayable by any means and I'm still having tons of fun
So there's my review. Its a decent game and I'm having more fun than I did in CS1 which in my opinion is overrated. The fact that the developers have stuck around and have addressed some of the most major complaints and are still working to make things better is what finally tipped my review in favor of it
Steam User 426
History of Cities: Skylines and I:
>play the first game in 2015
>hate colossal order
>pc has pentium in it, 5 fps but somehow still enjoy it
>hate colossal order
>watch city planner plays for hours
>after years, Cities: Skylines 2 announces
>everyone is hyped, me aswell
>game releases
>it sucks
>hate colossal order
>hating the second game and keep playing the first game
>game gets updates and going better
>hate colossal order
>buy second game
>play it for hours, love it
>hate colossal order
>iceflake studios takes over, doing much more work in months than colossal order
>game gets better
>hate colossal order
Steam User 174
Let me be upfront: when Cities Skylines II launched in October 2023, I was deeply disappointed. Not just as a fan of the original, but as someone who felt genuinely let down by the people responsible for bringing it to market. Two and a half years on, with Iceflake Studios now at the helm, I find myself in the surprising position of writing something I didn't think I'd be able to say for a long time — this game is finally worthy of the Cities Skylines name.
But before we get to the good news, let's talk about accountability. In the week before release, Colossal Order themselves acknowledged that the game's performance may not be up to expectations at launch. And yet Paradox Interactive, as publisher, pushed it out the door anyway. Yes, Colossal Order must share some of the blame — they built the game and the technical shortcomings were real. But the decision to ship a product that its own creators flagged as not ready sits squarely with Paradox. Publishers control the money, the marketing, and ultimately the release date. That responsibility cannot be dodged.
After two years of painful patches and failed DLC, Colossal Order and Paradox parted ways, with Iceflake Studios stepping in to take over all development. Iceflake have since delivered a UI overhaul, improved terraforming tools, better lighting, more distinct weather systems across maps, and community-friendly "legacy toggles" letting us choose which simulation changes they adopt. Steam reviews and statements from the major players noticeably changed for the better, and for the first time since launch the game genuinely feels like it has momentum behind it.
Is it a perfect game? Not yet. But for the first time I believe Cities Skylines II has earned its place as a true successor to the original. Iceflake have been making all the right noises and have backed this up with a couple of excellent patches - and I'm watching with considerably more optimism than I had two years ago and look forward to what Iceflake might being to the game in the future.
Steam User 120
the mixed reviews are from the initial release, the game is a lot more refined and is very enjoyable to play. It still has issues, but the new studio is putting in more effort to optimize the game and make it a really good game. I highly recommend this one over the first game if you can run it, as the QOL features are a must have and make the game 10x more enjoyable.
I wouldn't buy the game full price, but on sale it's very much so worth it.