The city builder genre often forces players to watch their creation from a bird's eye view. While this can be fun for a while, sometimes players want to get a different perspective, yet they often have to resort to mods to do so. These types of games seldom give players the ability to actually be within their city, so when one does it is pretty surprising. And it seems like Ubisoft understood that when it crafted Anno 1800, which is why Cities: Skylines 2 may want to take some notes.

Anno 1800 and Cities: Skylines 2 are vastly different types of city builders, yet they can learn from each other. Specifically, Anno 1800's unique first-person mode could shine in an urban city builder. Letting players actually walk around the city they spent countless hours constructing just sounds like a nice treat, especially if they can actually interact with its many citizens. While a feature like this should not come at the expense of other much-needed changes, including it could add a nice extra layer to the city simulator.

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Cities: Skylines 2 Should Give Players a New Perspective of Their City

The focus of Anno 1800 is on building a thriving country during the Industrial Revolution. It is up to the player to construct the cities, ensure they have everything they need, and upgrade them as the world evolves. It blends classic city-building mechanics with the strategy genre for a pretty interesting experience that players may want to check out. One of the best parts is that it gives players the ability to actually live within their creation.

If players get bored with the bird's eye view of Anno 1800, they can actually view their city from a first-person perspective, as they can assume control of a random citizen. Then, they can walk through the streets as if they actually lived there. While there is not a lot to do in this mode, it is nice to view the city from this perspective. Plus, Ubisoft tossed in a few quests that players can complete to unlock even more fun things to do while they are there.

Letting players see their Anno 1800 city in first-person can be a lot of fun, which is why a game like Cities: Skylines 2 should offer something similar. Even though the focus of the game is on constructing a city, actually being able to explore that city as a citizen can be a nice change of pace. That way players can see everything going on among the streets from much closer, and they can even feel like they are a part of the action. Along with that, if Colossal Order followed in the footsteps of Ubisoft, then it could even fill the city with fun events and quests to discover.

Right now, the only way to really get a first-person view of a Cities: Skylines environment is to download mods. If players can find a working mod, then they can get this experience. But it should be included as a base game feature instead. It could just be a fun little treat for players to mess around with whenever they want. And if the studio wanted to take it to an entirely different level, then it could even replicate Maxis' Streets of SimCity to let players actually race through the cities they have built.

Cities: Skylines 2 delivers a pretty content-rich city simulator that will likely be expanded upon for years to come. And right now, some of the first updates should focus on fixing the game's many performance issues. But after that, the studio should consider adding a fun little feature like this. Even if it simply lets players walk around their city, it could be a great addition to the formula.

Cities: Skylines 2

Colossal Order and Paradox Interactive's Cities: Skylines 2 builds on the foundations of its 2015 predecessor. Prioritizing realism, the city-building sim offers a deep economic system and an ever-changing world driven by player choice and creativity.

Platform(s)

PC , PS5 , Xbox Series X , Xbox Series S

Released

October 24, 2023

Developer(s)

Colossal Order

Publisher(s)

Paradox Interactive

Genre(s)

City Builder