Cities: Skylines II: A Surprising Emphasis on Car-Centric Gameplay and Enhanced Experience

Are you fed up with career-oriented racing games? Sick of exploring the same open environment, tackling slightly varied iterations of the identical speed test? Finally exhausted from managing a totally chaotic taxi service in any Grand Theft Auto that you prefer? Tired of showcasing your Night City designs against the 17,000th (ray-traced!) backdrop? I have a suggestion for you: City builders.

More specifically, the Cities: Skylines series, because fundamentally, these games revolve around vehicles. Whether you craft your city to support their presence, enhance their use, or completely eliminate them, cars are a pivotal element of city design, and that function is mirrored in the games that emulate it. And believe it or not, overseeing such aspects can be surprisingly captivating—even enjoyable. This is particularly true now, as after two years, Cities: Skylines II has matured enough that I feel comfortable endorsing it to casual players. If you’re not acquainted with the game (or its tumultuous development history), allow me to bring you up to speed.

While it drew direct inspiration from the company’s earlier city simulations (Cities XL, Cities in Motion, etc.), Cities: Skylines was more a spiritual successor to another ill-fated city simulator: SimCity (2013). The most recent (and final, as it seems) installment in the SimCity series was a game made in the spirit of peak Top Gear: Ambitious, yet ineffective. It attempted to accomplish two things that no city builder had achieved on such a large scale. One was multiplayer. The game’s constant online requirement (a controversial point for fans who simply wished to build their cities in peace) was justified by the inclusion of multi-mayor regions that could work collectively to construct vast infrastructure projects, such as international airports.

It was an interesting concept, but it was ultimately hindered by the game’s absurdly small scale, which was a result of its other groundbreaking advancement: agent-based simulation.

Let me delve a bit deeper here: There are basically two methods of developing a game like this: you can either employ fuzzy mathematics to depict a population and instruct the game to animate the scene in a way that approximates reality. Alternatively, you can fully commit and create an entire ecosystem that replicates a city 1:1. Every individual, every vehicle, every gallon of water—even every pet, as we’ve recently witnessed. This is known as an agent-based simulation. If it navigates the city in any form, it’s represented by an agent. And the game has to monitor each one, essentially at all times.

The detail of it is enticing. Observing individuals go about their day makes the city feel alive in a manner that was not captured in previous games. However, it places a heavy burden on your PC’s processing power. SimCity’s developers quickly found out that the hardware from 2013 was ill-equipped to accommodate the scale of a typical real-world city, so the maps were drastically reduced in size (under one square mile) and restricted to keep performance stable, transforming it into a highly demanding diorama builder. The game persisted long enough to provide its promised DLC before being entirely abandoned.

When Cities: Skylines was released two years later, it revolutionized the genre. Not only did it effectively adopt SimCity’s agent-based model, but it did so without many constraints—and without a mandatory online requirement. The maps were far more expansive and the performance significantly improved. It even captured SimCity’s somewhat whimsical nature (minus the llama obsession), but if you were not a fan of the default architectural designs or color scheme, the game’s endless workshop of user-generated mods (another capability blocked by the always-online mandate of SC2013) allows you to modify appearances (and much of the fundamental game mechanics) to your liking.

While there remains a healthy, mod-driven community for SimCity 4 (the version prior to the 2013 release), generally, the city builder populace gravitated toward Cities: Skylines. As its popularity soared and the community eagerly consumed frequent paid content expansions, the creation of a sequel became unavoidable. It vowed even fewer limitations, larger maps, a more profound simulation, and a revamped (Unity) engine that would elevate everything for the game’s thriving community of city-building content creators.

It was finally released in 2023. And let me tell you, friends, it was utter trash. The performance was dismal, the simulation itself was incomplete, and the graphics were so poorly optimized that high-end systems were effectively running slideshows if they genuinely wanted their cities to appear any better than the prior game’s. The gameplay loops were patched together with enough safeguards that it was possible to fail your way to a large city that would ultimately collapse under its own size, largely without warning. Oh, and you’d only discover this after hours of observing the simulation stutter through a clumsily implemented time and weather system that was often more of an annoyance than a benefit. To this day, whenever it snows, every vehicle in the game navigates with its windshield entirely obscured.

But the real slap in the face was the absence of mods. The modding community is Cities: Skyline’s lifeblood. Without it, we wouldn’t even be discussing CS2. Colossal Order (the original developer of the game) made the mod editor for the first installment available almost immediately after its launch. The community was assured of mods “soon” after CS2’s debut; they delivered on that promise in a manner, allowing “code” mods via a beta editor in early 2024. However, “code” mods don’t encompass basic elements like custom building or vehicle models/textures, meaning everyone was left working off the same, restricted rotation of randomly generated vanilla buildings. Colossal Order hastily released several regional content packs to help mitigate this issue, but the larger modding community was completely excluded from the process, and has remained so since the game was unveiled.

That was in October of 2023. As I’m composing this, the asset editor has been active for about eight hours. Yes, it took two years, but we’re finally here. Some of the community’s finest have already begun producing new structures. And that’s not the only major update the game has received in recent weeks. In addition to the editor, Colossal Order has finally integrated bicycles into the game and launched the long-awaited Bridges and Ports DLC. And then they got terminated, but that’s a narrative for another forum.

We also received the first two “creator” packs that were outside the bounds of the deluxe pre-order bundle: Skyscrapers and Supply Chains. These are technically just compilations of community-generated assets, but they are directly commissioned by the studio and released like traditional DLC. They’re affordable and support modders, rendering them popular. Both packs feature buildings with unique functionalities. Skyscrapers bundles expandable, mixed-use commercial/residential structures that include integrated public services and transport options, alongside high-rise headquarters for certain services. They appear attractive and align perfectly with the game’s default art style.

Supply Chains consists of a collection of signature industrial and office structures that provide various economic advantages, along with appealing job opportunities. Combined with the new industry offerings infused into Bridges & Ports, they furnish methods to specialize and amplify your industry to best support (or shape) your city’s economy. Therefore, there’s finally something more to engage with in Cities: Skylines II than merely overseeing traffic.

Oh, and there’s also a significantly higher volume of traffic.

If you’ve ever engaged with either Cities: Skylines title, you know that much of the fundamental gameplay centers around traffic oversight. Due to the game’s relatively unfinished condition, the developers had actually reduced traffic density for several patches while various aspects of the simulation were refined. With Bridges & Ports, the developers reinstated that feature back to full capacity, which dramatically enhanced the number of trucks produced by industrial and port areas. And since buildings throughout your city require resource deliveries to level up (think renovations or upgrades), those trucks will navigate into your residential, commercial, and office areas as well. Vehicle infrastructure designed for earlier game versions may find it challenging to manage the increased flow.

Bicycles present a unique obstacle in this regard. This time, they can utilize standard travel lanes, dedicated on-road bike paths, or independent bike paths, offered in one-way formats that allow you to construct your own cycle superhighway with flyovers and all. Because the game treats bicycles as a hybrid between cars and pedestrians, they provide comparable benefits and drawbacks, including the potential to create traffic jams. If you hope for citizens to bike to major transit hubs (airports, etc.), you’ll need to ensure you have parking facilities for them.

The game is still far from flawless, but we’ve arrived at a stage where it’s functional enough to warrant your attention, particularly if you’re a fan of the city-building genre. Think of it as the world’s largest digital car mat—only you get to construct it from the ground up.

The author purchased the questionable privilege of owning Cities: Skylines II on launch day and has received no benefits or access from Colossal Order, Paradox Interactive, or Iceflake Studios. This was an unsolicited critique.

Do you know the inside details of Cities: Skylines II’s tumultuous launch? Contact the author at [email protected]. Have a general car news tip? Let us know at [email protected].