Cities: Skylines 2

There's two directions I can take this review. One is "I recommend, but ..." and the other is "I don't recommend, however ...", and they're both probably going to say the same things. Strap in, and grab a cup of hot chocolate, daddy's gonna tell stories again:
If I compare my experience playing the first game on release to this one on release, this one is much, much better. But how?
The original Cities: Skylines was a relief from the crushed dreams of SimCity fans. It came in as the rightful conqueror of the city building genre, and built a huge community of gamers, designers and modders that have influenced the growth of the game since. It refined the SimCity style beyond expectations, it broke the gridded city building style, it introduced gamers to urban design and planning ideas that they have never thought of before, and a whole sub-genre of urbanist YouTubers rose up from this. However, when you compare the two vanilla games, without the mods and DLC and hundred of YouTube content creators, the first game is great, but a bit empty. It didn't start with a day-night cycle, that was added in After Dark. It didn't start with many of the best transit options, they came in later DLCs. Inland water treatment plants didn't exist until 2020 with Sunset Harbor.
Cities: Skylines 2 starts with everything that the base game should have. It doesn't only have a day-night cycle, it has seasons. It doesn't just have different zoning densities, it has mixed use zones. You don't just place down industry building and print money, the game has a diversified economy, hearkening back to SimCity2000 when you could individually manage tax rates for different industries, but here you can do that to the entire economy. You can encourage and develop an economy based on retail and services, or primary industries, or manufacturing of any kind. You don't just have buses, trains and planes, you have the option to use taxis, buses, trains, trams, subway metros, planes and boats to transport your people and cargo outside cars and trucks. To build the city you don't just lay down roads, you can plan curves and bends and intersections using the various feedback that it gives you, create clean interchanges and intersections, and use a variety of tools to limit turns and eliminate traffic conflicts. You can even obverse traffic accidents affect your roads and disasters affect the city, pollution affecting the environment and a myriad other things that you didn't even think of when the original was released in 2015.
Compared to that, yeah, no questions.
So why is everyone saying "Yes, but ..."?
I won't repeat it in detail, you've already read the other reviews. Basically, expectations for the game's performance and delivery were misaligned between the developers, the publishers and the consumers. Performance issues were a huge problem right off the bat because most people do not have systems that meet the requirements of the game, but the developers have been tasked with making the game suitable for console. Misaligned expectations. The game's economic system was too opaque to clearly understand what was going on, to the point that unsubstantiated rumours began spreading that the economy was fake (it's not). Feedback to the user was not adequate to completely understand what was going on, and many players assumed things were bugs when they were not. Misaligned expectations.
However, the performance issues and opaque UI feedback aside, none of this was helped by the myriad of bugs that have since seen six major patches to clean up, with more work to come out after the Christmas holidays.
Finally, to nail the point home about misaligned expectations: content. I came in to the original game in March 2015, right on release. I was with it the whole way through. I was there when the beacons were lit and Gondor called for aid. I didn't even bother using mods until 2019, because that's when they were interesting and mature enough to really make a difference in the game. By the time the Great Plague of 2020 hit, the original was primed to receive huge interest in the game. Content on the workshop exploded. YouTubers exploded. Everything exploded. It was wild! So when, in early 2023, the new game was announced, a host of gamers came in with huge content expectations and none of the context. YouTubers speculated on the most insane speculations, people were having meltdowns about the new engine staying on Unity instead of hopping over to Unreal Engine. Wild.
And so on release, despite having literally been released with more tools and content than city builders have ever had, with all of the good ideas from everywhere in the broader community being incorporated into the base game, the chief criticism was a lack of content. The game felt empty. Grey (UK)! Gray (US)! Graey (WTF)! Critiques went from blasting CS1 for being too cartoony to blasting CS2 for being too realistic with its browns and concretes. At this point, I stopped listening to shameless and pointless, often contradictory criticism and looked for genuine concerns.
These are easy to list:
- the game is still in need of more performance fixes
- the game's UI needs more obvious indicators of what's going on with underlying systems
- the game is a resource H-O-G
- tools still feel a bit unrefined
- there are missing options that would make things so much nicer (props, prop tools, decorative tools, etc)
- no mods at the moment, we want mods
- no editors, no map editor, no asset editor, none of that yet
- console version still needs to be released
- the bug issues have delayed the Ultimate Edition's Q4 and Q1 DLC releases
- there are still some major bugs that require further investigation
To be frank, though, my stance is straightforward: bugs can be fixed, and these issues will be ironed out over time. The devs have repeatedly shown that they intend to see this through.
So yes, "I recommend, but ...", be mindful of the things that are still to be fixed, and you may enjoy the game. "I don't recommend, however ...", set your expectations appropriately and you will realise this game has enormous potential to be the definitive game of the city simulation genre. The first game rightfully conquered the crown. This one will keep it, even it has to fight for it.

Colossal Order please re watch your own promotion video from 5 years ago by Justin Roczniak/donoteat01 and listen to what he says. That's what a good city simulation needs to be able to do, on top of being a good looking city painter.
Its a start but still has some odd design. I think the worst part is somehow its more sterile and overly clean felling than the first game. Shame on Paradox for pushing this out the door long before it was ready. Making hardware requirements this high end was a fundamental misread of your audience. City builders are traditionally played on mid range systems and laptops and by people who often don't prioritize cutting edge first person shooter/ action game graphics.

Cities Skylines 2 has had a bit of a rocky start, and I believe it's due in part because of Paradox probably pushing to get CS2 out earlier than it ought to have, and CO being the victim of its success with CS1 that it's set expectation way into the stratosphere.

That being said, with the release of the Economy 2.0 and the now additional assets just released, I would say if you've been on the fence about getting CS2, then I think now is a good time to get into it.

CO have been working hard on getting optimising the performance. They have listened to the community and have retracted the beach property DLC and incorparated them into the main vanilla game instead. They have reworked the economy which is a welcome change and actually makes the game a challenge and fun to play. The newly released assets are fantastic additions that now allow me to build smaller communities, and cul-de-sacs!!

The game still has more promise. When CO release a working version of an asset editor, this game will explode with potential. There's already some fantastic modders and content creators who are able to make truly stunning cities.

If you're happy to mod your game, and are into high level detail, then I advise you check out Sully's youtube video on detailing Snowdonia. It is utterly breathtaking. This is what I wanted from CS2 and Im glad we have it.

I'm not one of these people who set unrealisticly high expectations. I knew full well that any base version of second game will be a rough diamond. Much like CS1 was when it released. CS1.

Very much enjoy this game.

If you've never played a Cities game play CS1, then with DLC, then with mods first. Come to this if you're a fan of that and want a graphical update, economy, and gameplay change. However, despite this CS1 will always be better for a long time. That is solely because of the amount of time updates, DLC, and mods have flooded into the community.
Each fix of CS2 is a step towards the right direction but it doesn't overshadow the fact that the launch was very disappointing. It should never be standard in the industry.
Performance and stability has improved since launch for me. Pretty playable and the essential mods from CS1 are here.
It's also a very pretty game but CS2 is not without its flaws including some occasional crashes. Consistent updates will help but buyers beware. This game is a slow burn towards what it can become.
Overall I would say this is a cautiously positive 6/10

CS1 is still the better game.
In it's current state, CS2 is just PLAYABLE. However with it's new inclusion of mods, the community is hard at work with making features that's missing.
This game had a slow and terrible start, and we shouldn't exactly forgive CO for that. But the game is just a couple updates away from being a genuine successor to the Cities Skylines we all love, and the future of the game looks promising.

As of 11/24/2023
---{ Graphics }---
☐ You forget what reality is
☑ Beautiful
☐ Good
☐ Decent
☐ Bad
☐ Don‘t look too long at it
☐ MS-DOS
---{ Gameplay }---
☐ Very good
☑ Good
☐ It's just gameplay
☐ Mehh
☐ Watch paint dry instead
☐ Just don't
---{ Audio }---
☐ Eargasm
☐ Very good
☐ Good
☑ Not too bad
☐ Bad
☐ I'm now deaf
---{ Audience }---
☑ Kids
☑ Teens
☑ Adults
☑ Grandma
---{ PC Requirements }---
☐ Check if you can run paint
☐ Potato
☐ Decent
☐ Fast
☑ Rich boi
☐ Ask NASA if they have a spare computer
---{ Difficulty }---
☐ Just press 'W'
☐ Easy
☑ Easy to learn / Hard to master
☐ Significant brain usage
☐ Difficult
☐ Dark Souls
---{ Story }---
☑ No Story
☐ Some lore
☐ Average
☐ Good
☐ Lovely
☐ It'll replace your life
---{ Game Time }---
☐ Long enough for a cup of coffee
☐ Short
☐ Average
☐ Long
☑ To infinity and beyond
---{ Price }---
☐ It's free!
☐ Worth the price
☑ If it's on sale
☐ If u have some spare money left
☐ Not recommended
☐ You could also just burn your money
---{ Bugs }---
☐ Never heard of
☐ Minor bugs
☐ Can get annoying
☑ ARK: Survival Evolved
☐ The game itself is a big terrarium for bugs
---{ ? / 10 }---
☐ 1
☐ 2
☐ 3
☐ 4
☐ 5
☐ 6
☐ 7
☑ 8
☐ 9
☐ 10

It had a really rough launch but the patches and mods that have come since make it a viable replacement for Cities Skylines. Don't forget CS1 had 8 years of patches/DLC on it. The very first version of that game was mediocre but it expanded into something pretty great. CS2 is definitely in a position to do the same. I don't buy any paradox DLCs but I'll be "buying" the ones for this game for sure.

CS2's tools are much easier to use than the original, and I find the UI better in pretty much every way. I think it's already a "better" game, just needs that time to be patched and expanded.