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 468
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 249
Iceflake Studios is really saving this game right now and I can finally recommend it.
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 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 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 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.
Steam User 111
I've owned this game since release and always had mixed feelings about at.
But I still enjoyed it enough that switching back to Cities Skylines 1 wasn't an option.
Cities Skylines 2 has so many great features that I miss when I go back to Cities Skylines 1.
Obviously Cities Skylines 2 has some issues, but the game has massively improved over the years. (More assets, mod support, performance improvements, and bug fixes).
There are still some issues that remain, but I haven't experienced any issues that are significant enough to not be able to enjoy the game.
The game in its current state is very playable and enjoyable.
And currently there is no city builder out there that offers the same range of features as Cities Skylines 2. Other city builders either provide less depth or are more focused on a specific aspect of city building.
You do need a decent PC though, if you want to build a bigger city, so don't expect the game to run on a toaster.
The new development studio (Iceflake) really seems to care about the game, has massively improved the communication, and is adding & fixing things players care about.
Without Iceflake taking over, I probably wouldn't be writing this (positive) review right now. ❤️