Review: Cities: Skylines revives the city-building genre on consoles

Platform: PlayStation 4 (reviewed), Xbox One, and PC.

Developer: Colossal Order

Publisher: Paradox Interactive

MSRP: $29.99

Gone are the days of the city building simulator. Maxis went under and Simcity is pretty much dead and there are very few studios attempting to keep the genre alive. One studio that wants to revive the genre is Colossal Order. They released Cities: Skylines on PC back in 2015 and released their Xbox One version earlier this year.

Now the game has made its way to PS4 and it’s really something special. You’re given a blank slate to begin building your own personal city however you want. If you want to create a really awful city where everyone is unhappy and be a North Korean-like overlord, go for it! If you want to build a larger than life bustling city that is sleek and well-maintained, you can do that too. The decision is yours.

The game offers so many options for the player and allows you to choose just how difficult you want the game to be. If you make dumb choices like me and spend all your money on really stupid stuff or make a lot of mistakes, you can give yourself unlimited money and unlock every milestone in the game so you have every tool you could ever need. If you prefer to have restrictions and like to have the added layer of tediously managing everything, you can make sure that you’re given a starting budget and have to hit milestones to unlock extra buildings and other objects.

Cities: Skylines is a game with very deep mechanics. Everything has some sort of system that tangentially works with other systems to help keep the metaphorical heart of your city beating. The water pipes pump water from nearby streams into your city’s homes and business through well-placed pipes that connect with each other into different segments of the city. Then there are things like sewage pipes that run out from the city and back into the stream but the pipes have to go down the stream, beyond the water pipes so you don’t pump dirty sewage water back into the city. Everything has to be managed in a very specific way, you’re constantly making changes and adding on with new business and other systems to make everything easier on yourself.

Not only will you likely want everything to work well, but you’ll also want it to look aesthetically pleasing. You choose everything from major things like building placements to smaller elements like how roads are placed, where they turn or curve, what kinds of roads they are (roundabouts, one-ways, etc.), and more. Every single mechanic in the game has a purpose and you’re likely to use almost all of them at some point.

You’ll often find yourself checking on various little stats, making sure everyone in the city is satisfied and working on ways to improve your city to bring in new citizens and money. Although I had to cheat my way through most of the game using the unlimited money option, many players will probably enjoy the challenge and see how big of a city they can construct before it all falls apart.

There are some mechanics that can feel a bit confusing at times, maybe the instructions weren't clear enough or were too confusing. Connecting power lines and making sure certain areas benefit from utilities on the other side of the map via pipes or wires sometimes didn't seem to work instantly either and it made me wonder if it was a mistake on my part. It didn't always register in the game instantly so I found myself moving things around or tweaking things when they should've worked in the first place.

Cities: Skylines is an incredible city-building simulator/tycoon-like game filled with intricate mechanics and tons of options that fit the playstyle of all players. Some mechanics may be a bit confusing and could take a bit of time to master but if you're patient, you can figure it out in time. If you were let down by the reboot/remake of Simcity and need a new city-building sim to fill the void, Cities: Skylines is for you.