Cities: Skylines Review Summary

Deep, realistic city management: Cities: Skylines offers deep and realistic city management, allowing players to control every aspect of urban planning, from infrastructure and public transportation to economic policies and public services. The game provides limitless creative freedom for designing diverse cities, enhanced by detailed graphics, dynamic day-night cycles, and weather effects. DLCs further expand gameplay with new systems and mechanics.

Extensive modding community support: The game has a robust modding community and Steam Workshop integration, offering countless user-created assets, buildings, maps, and gameplay enhancements. Mods provide extensive customization, allowing players to tailor the game to their preferences, improve traffic management, and add new features. The Steam Workshop offers a plethora of free custom content, some of which rivals similar DLC content.

Engaging and addictive gameplay: The game is highly engaging and addictive, making players lose track of time and providing a satisfying mix of challenge and reward. The game is immersive, making players lose track of time. The game is so engaging that the reviewer forgot to eat while playing.

Endless possibilities and customization: The game offers vast possibilities and choices in gameplay, with endless replayability due to DLCs, mods, and robust gameplay mechanics. The game allows for the construction of almost anything imaginable, limited only by the player's creativity. The game provides insane freedom, absurd customization options and incredible planning freedom.

Enjoyable and well-optimized game: The game is enjoyable, well-optimized, and worth the price, especially with DLCs and mods. The base game is incredibly solid, even without DLC. The reviewer expresses love for the game.

Excessive, expensive DLC policy: Many reviews express concerns about the game's DLC policy. Players feel essential features are locked behind paywalls, making the base game feel incomplete and pushing the overall cost of the game too high. Some reviewers feel that the DLCs are overpriced for the content they offer.

Steep learning curve, poor tutorials: Many reviews mention a steep learning curve and a lack of adequate tutorials. New players can feel overwhelmed by the complexity of the game's systems and mechanics, leading to frustration. The game doesn't adequately explain certain mechanics, requiring players to seek external guidance.

Base game needs mods: Many reviewers feel the base game is limited and becomes boring without mods. They feel that the core game lacks depth and that mods are essential to improve the experience. Some reviewers feel the base game is unplayable without mods.

Poor traffic AI, congestion issues: Many reviews criticize the game's traffic AI, citing illogical routing and congestion issues. Players find traffic management frustrating and often require mods to address these problems. Some reviewers feel the game becomes primarily a traffic management simulator.

Sequel inferior to original: Some reviewers feel that Cities: Skylines 2 is a step backward from the original game. They cite missing features, simplified mechanics, and performance issues as reasons for their disappointment. Some reviewers recommend against playing Cities: Skylines 2 at the moment.

Challenging traffic management: Traffic management is a central challenge, requiring players to design efficient road networks and public transportation systems. Realistic traffic simulation demands constant adjustments and strategic planning to alleviate congestion. Some reviewers feel it is the core gameplay.

Economic and budget management: Players must carefully manage the city's economy by balancing income and expenses, setting tax policies, and providing essential services. Strategic thinking and patience are required to maintain financial stability and citizen happiness. Early mistakes in planning can lead to financial ruin.

Resource and infrastructure management: Players must strategically manage essential resources like electricity, water, and waste to ensure the city's functionality and sustainability. Balancing resource consumption with environmental concerns adds a layer of complexity to the gameplay. Infrastructure management is key to a thriving city.

Sandbox, no story, easy-to-learn: The game lacks a traditional story or campaign, focusing instead on a sandbox experience. While the mechanics are easy to pick up, mastering the game's complexities requires experimentation and learning through failure. The game is primarily a single-player experience.

Isolated game mechanics: These points describe specific game mechanics, features, or strategies, but lack broader context or analysis. They are often isolated observations without clear implications for the overall gameplay experience.

Hardware impacts performance significantly: The game's performance is highly dependent on hardware, with significant FPS drops and slowdowns occurring in large cities, especially when using mods or high settings. Some players report needing high-end PCs to maintain playable frame rates, while others note optimization issues even on newer hardware. Some reviewers noted that the original Cities: Skylines had better optimization.

Game is memory-intensive: The game is memory-intensive, requiring significant RAM (16-32GB recommended) for large cities, custom assets, and mods. Insufficient RAM can lead to crashes and long loading times. The game and its associated files can also take up a significant amount of drive space, especially with mods and DLC.

Graphics are acceptable, not revolutionary: The graphics are generally considered acceptable or nice, but not revolutionary. Some reviewers suggest that the visual experience can be improved with mods.

Runs well on specific hardware: The game runs well on some specific hardware configurations, such as the Steam Deck and Macbook Pro M3 Pro. This suggests that optimization may be better for certain systems.

Clipping issues persist: Some players continue to experience clipping issues even after removing or updating mods. This suggests that the issue may not be solely related to mods.

Highly recommended city-building simulator: The game is highly recommended as a top-tier city-building simulator, praised for its depth, creative freedom, and engaging gameplay. Many suggest it's better than its successor, especially with mods. Some reviewers suggest waiting for a sale, but overall, the game is considered a must-have for fans of the genre.

Mods and DLC enhance experience: Many reviewers recommend using mods to enhance the game, fix issues, and expand gameplay. Some DLCs are recommended, but not essential, and it's suggested to wait for sales due to the cumulative cost. The modding community keeps the game fresh and addresses limitations.

Buy on sale: Many reviewers recommend waiting for a sale before purchasing the game and its DLCs. The game is worth the price, especially when it has good sales.

Technical issues reported: Some reviewers have experienced technical issues, such as game crashes and black screens. One reviewer recommends buying the game on Epic Games instead of Steam.

Broad audience, infinite playtime: The game appeals to a broad audience, including kids, teens, adults, and even older players. Many reviews mention the game offers long play sessions and an almost infinite playtime, suggesting high replayability and long-term engagement.

City-building simulation with depth: The game is a city-building simulation, often compared to SimCity, where players manage various aspects of a city. It can teach players about city infrastructure and planning, and some find it helps them appreciate or critique real-world urban design.

Workable size, large content library: The game's file size is considered manageable, and the world area is substantial. The Steam Workshop provides a large amount of additional content, further expanding the game's size and scope.

Base game affordable, DLCs expensive: The base game is reasonably priced, but the numerous DLCs can become expensive. Some reviewers suggest the expansions are optional and primarily for supporting the developers or adding bonus content.

No story or narrative present: The game lacks a traditional story or narrative component. The focus is primarily on city-building and management rather than a story-driven experience.