When you do end up needing to turn, say, a two-lane street into a six-lane thoroughfare, the relevant buildings automatically get bulldozed to make way and potential zoning areas are instantly to fit the new road layout. It's easy to replace roads with higher-capacity alternatives, and small upgrades don't even expand the footprint of those roads. Impressively, it's not even particularly tough to keep your infrastructure upgraded to match the needs of your city's growth. The new building tools are better than ever, pruning back the tedium of laying out your highways and sprawling residential districts. The game fully simulates the lives of every citizen, and seeing the actions of individuals affecting everything from traffic density to economic growth gives everything a tremendous sense of life.
I hate having to open this review by dragging the game's technical state, because when Cities: Skylines 2 sings, it really sings.
Developer Colossal Order itself has acknowledged that this launch is not up to snuff and promised further improvements over time, but it's going to take a lot of improvement to get this sim into an acceptable form. Platform(s): PC (Xbox Series X and PS5, TBA 2024)įor all practical purposes, Cities: Skylines 2 is an early access game – an in-development product that you should only invest in if you're patient and optimistic enough to wait for it to improve over time.
