Cities: Skylines II – Suffering from Success ?

Cities Skylines II, the sequel to the widely acclaimed 2015 city-building sensation, has been released by Colossal Order. The game endeavors to maintain the franchise’s legacy of diverse gameplay while introducing a plethora of enhancements and increased depth. Despite encountering notable imperfections along the journey, Cities Skylines II succeeds in delivering an engaging city-building experience.

In the expansive world of Cities Skylines II, players embark on a quest to construct their ideal metropolis, commencing with humble zones and essential infrastructure such as electricity and plumbing networks. The game introduces a progression system through development points, earned at significant growth milestones. These points unlock pivotal infrastructure systems like police and public transport, with expansion permits enabling players to extend city limits or initiate entirely new cities, eventually connecting them. The significance of seemingly mundane tasks is amplified through these unlocks, incorporating features like underground parking and emergency bunkers.

As your city evolves, challenges such as traffic and pollution demand creative gameplay solutions. The game reintroduces an in-game social media platform (a nod to Twitter) that mirrors real-life social dynamics, offering valuable insights into the positive and negative aspects of your city. It becomes evident that not every citizen envisions utopia in the same way.

However, amidst the remarkable growth and expansion, there is a noticeable impact on performance and visuals. While the game showcases moments of visual splendor when closely inspecting your city, frequent frame drops, crashes, and error messages detract from the overall experience. It is apparent that the PC release serves as a platform for performance testing and subsequent patching before the console release and modding in 2024. This approach by Colossal is disappointing and compromises the immersive quality expected from an expansive city builder.

Cities Skylines II introduces the ability to zoom in on individual citizens, providing intricate details about their lives within the city. This feature adds a layer of depth compared to the first game, presenting moral dilemmas when deciding to demolish an area for reconstruction. Although the road-building system has been overhauled for improved intuitiveness, it introduces its own set of challenges, from peculiar junction placements to finicky zoning of roads. Road and pedestrian AI exhibit room for improvement, with issues such as random U-turns and jaywalking pedestrians causing substantial traffic disruptions, even with strategically placed traffic lights. While the Advanced road tool enhances junction management, more in-depth tools would be a valuable addition to address existing AI issues.

In conclusion, Cities Skylines II is an immensely exciting sequel with innovative features that unfold throughout gameplay. The game’s ambition in tasking players with managing multiple issues simultaneously is commendable and offers a welcome challenge. However, the persistent technical issues, inherent in a game that demands full immersive player control, pose a significant obstacle for Colossal to overcome, significantly diminishing the overall player experience.

While I hold a genuine appreciation for the game, as I did for its predecessor, the current price of £41.99 for the standard edition and £74.99 for the ultimate edition on the Steam market gives pause. I would recommend refraining from purchasing until the performance issues are adequately addressed. Notably, the game is available on Xbox Game Pass, and during seasonal offer periods, new users can access it for as little as £1.00 for a month, providing a more accessible way to experience the game for those who remain undecided about a full purchase.