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 457
Intro
While I really enjoy the modern take on city building, Cities: Skylines 2 falls short in several areas I hoped would be improved from CS:1. Although some features have been enhanced, many aspects feel very similar to the previous installment. Below are my thoughts, the good, the bad and the ugly!
Passing Thoughts
If you’re wondering whether it’s worth playing at the moment: Yes and No. If you’re looking for a modern city builder and don’t mind some rough edges, then yes, it’s worth trying. However, if you prefer a more polished experience and want to wait until the issues are resolved, then it’s best to hold off.
The Good
Engaging Sim Life: Just like in Cities 1, watching your sims go about their daily lives is a pleasure. The new feature allowing you to track a sim throughout its lifespan is a welcome addition.
Improved Road System: The revamped road-building tool, including slip lanes for highways and dedicated turning lanes, is a significant improvement. While these features could have been added via mods in Cities 1, it’s great to see them included in the base game.
Enhanced City Services: Power, water, and sewage now travel underground, eliminating the spaghetti-like pipes of the previous game. Additionally, there are more city service buildings available, offering varied services to your sims.
Expandable Buildings: Many buildings now come with extra modules to increase their capacity. For instance, schools can be expanded with additional buildings, which reduces the need for numerous schools and service buildings as seen in Cities 1.
Mixed-Use Zoning: This feature, which I wished for in Cities 1, is now officially supported in Cities 2.
The Bad
Stagnant Gameplay: The game doesn’t evolve with city size. Managing a small city feels identical to managing a large one, unlike other city builders that offer varied and evolving gameplay.
Lack of Challenges: There are no significant constraints or meaningful decisions. Problems are typically solved by simply "building more," making the gameplay feel repetitive and flat.
Limited Improvement: Although certain features, like highways, have seen improvements, fundamental issues with the grid layout and overall gameplay remain. These issues appear too deeply embedded to be resolved without a major overhaul in a future installment.
The Ugly
Modding Platform Shift: Moving from the Steam Workshop to a third-party 'Paradox Mods' platform is a poor decision. Despite some solid features, this change detracts from the ease of modding that the first game provided.
Poor Aesthetics: The grid-based design and focus on American urban sprawl lead to bland, unattractive cities. Specialized industry zones and modern industry representations are particularly weak, resulting in uninspired city layouts unless you sacrifice density.
Bugs: The game still has several significant bugs, even after recent patches. For example, homeless people may remain indefinitely in your parks, which detracts from their intended use and overall enjoyment. Although the developers are aware of this issue, the lack of progress in addressing it is concerning.
Is It Worth It?
I wish Steam offered a middle-ground review option, rather than just "Good" or "Bad." While I enjoy the game, it remains quite rough around the edges. If you can tolerate some bugs and occasional issues, it might be worth trying. However, for most players, waiting 6 months+ is probably the best option. Although I believe the game will have a long lifespan, I’m concerned that its poor initial reception might impact its future.
Steam User 278
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
Steam User 277
Just finished playing 99 hours and I love this game. This is my FIRST computer game (I'm old) and I'm truly enjoying my time in Cities Skylines II and looking forward to what will be offered next.
Steam User 298
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.
Steam User 134
This game still lacks a lot of of basic things and feels unfinished. But I have to admit, I haven't played CS1 since I got this game. Overall, I like it.
Steam User 150
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.
Steam User 199
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.