Every week, we take a look at games from the industry’s past, looking at those that were received poorly at the time, flew under the radar, or have largely disappeared from our current zeitgeist.
This time, however, I want to dedicate the entry to a particular title that enjoys quite a large crowd even today. Crowned by many as the best city builder of all time, this game remains at the top of the genre, with a sequel dreaming of ever achieving what it did.
The game, of course, is Cities: Skylines, the undisputed king of city building that has reigned supreme for a full decade, since first launching in 2015.
Lately, I’ve been restarting my city builder binge, as I do just about once a year. Every time I’d scour the market, looking for a new and refreshing city-building experience to make me feel something again. And, of course, I’d end up running into loads of indies, ambitious attempts, and all sorts of genre mixtures, but would never truly think I’ve found the new best.
And that puts me on the path of returning to Cities: Skylines. No matter what I do, or what games I play, Cities: Skylines, for me, represents the pinnacle of the city-building genre, a game with infinite possibilities, not least because of its robust modding scene.
Released all the way back in 2015, when the proverbial grass was far greener than today, Colossal Order’s colossal title quickly earned itself the moniker of “best city builder.” Ten years down the line, with loads of DLCs and countless mods, Cities: Skylines has only grown and been improved, grasping that title ever harder.
If you have never given it a try, it’s a game where you’re given a big plot of land, some rudimentary zones to place, and the possibility of a village, town, and, eventually, city. You lay down roadwork, provide services, ensure all zones are properly placed, and watch as your small hamlet evolves into a metropolis bustling with people and tourists. You prop up a whole small country, really, given how big of a town you end up making, which is truly a network of smaller cities all converging into one big metropolitan area.
There’s no political simulation to the game, but every single citizen has their own job, goals, preferences, social status, and so on, making Cities: Skylines a robust social sim, though far from games that strictly focus on that end.
But you can still expand on the quality of life of every citizen, pretending at least that they’re functional living beings who love what you’re doing for them as mayor. You can build detailed parks of all kinds, whether merely a forest to walk through, an amusement park of epic proportions, or a historical plaza for tourists to pour money into; the possibilities, like in many other parts of the game, are truly endless.
Industrial zones, offices, stadiums, skyscrapers, megabuildings, the damn Statue of Liberty—you think it, you can place it, which most other games don’t offer.
All of the above can be taken further with the introduction of mods, which range from adding new assets to reworking the entire simulation of the game, providing more realistic housing, demand, supply, traffic, and so much more. It’s so expansive that it’s almost overwhelming.
With so many DLCs released over the past decade, and mods that just make the game better in every way, Cities: Skylines has the most content, possibilities, and fun out of any city builder, and it has held a special place in the genre for 10 whole years.
Though not a dead game by any means or obscure, I had to dedicate an entire Save File Sundays episode to it for two reasons.
One, Cities: Skylines is 10 years old. That puts it into unc territory and almost retro for most young people today. Just imagine: kids born when Cities: Skylines came out are well into their elementary school age now, with only a few years left before they start high school. Those who were growing up around the time the game launched now consider it a childhood classic, which, though still active, is nowhere near as popular as it once was. We’ve grown old.
Secondly, Cities: Skylines is simply better than most other city builders out there, including its sequel, a game lacking in so many ways that playing the original is still the superior option.
What’s more, Cities 2 has had two years of active post-launch development and still nothing’s come of it. Sure, CO introduced new asset packs and other fixes, but core features are missing from the game. And, what’s more, there’s no official asset editor, a fundamental tool that’d allow people to make their own assets for the game.
The simulation is broken half the time, the game displays false information about your city, while mods in general are way smaller and more limited than they are in the first game. There’s even no Steam Workshop, as Paradox has forced CO into opting to use Paradox Mods instead, which, though usable by all means, just introduces confusion and breaks an established ecosystem.
A lot of stuff in Cities 2 is fundamentally great. The assets are larger, many things are more realistic, and there’s potential in there, absolutely. But with two years of horribly-received DLCs, half-baked additions, and constant delays of a console release and asset editor (and many other things) CO truly fumbled the bag with this one, making Cities: Skylines, the original, that much more of a cornerstone of city builders.
It’s such a good game that not even its own creators could re-create it or make it better with a sequel, proving that Cities 1 might have been a divine intervention in the city builder genre, which we should cherish for as long as we’re around.
I usually give re-reviews in Save File Sundays for games that are our focus. So, here goes.
Recompiled Review Score: 10 years ago, we gave Cities: Skylines (the original) a 9/10, praising everything it had to offer. Now, a decade later and with all the DLCs, mods, and a sea of improvements, Cities truly deserves the perfect score of 10/10.
Nostalgia Factor: 1/10 – Cities: Skylines remains in most city builder fans’ minds even so many years later, and returning to it doesn’t give that much of a nostalgic kick. Even so, some younger players who grew up alongside the game will consider it their comfort nostalgia play, so for them, the score here would probably be much higher.
Closer: Cities: Skylines remains the undisputed king of city builder games, with mechanical complexity and content rivaled only by the likes of SimCity 4. Even the latter, great though it is, suffers from age, whereas Cities endures even a decade later, having not aged a day.
Like our content? Set Destructoid as a Preferred Source on Google in just one step to ensure you see us more frequently in your Google searches!
