Paradox Interactive has finally unveiled the hotly anticipated follow-up to Cities Skylines, and it is promising a lot. While the studio has not shown any gameplay of Cities Skylines 2 yet, it has said that it will be the most realistic city builder ever. Players will apparently be able to build the city of their dreams, and that sounds great, but those promises also come with some lofty expectations.
The urban city builder genre has seen a lot of games that were allegedly the most realistic city builder ever. As the years have gone by, these games have only gotten more advanced. Cities Skylines may have been one of the most advanced to date, but now Paradox wants to take it even further. If the studio is not careful then the game may never meet expectations, but if it does a couple of things right then Cities Skylines 2 will be well on its way to delivering on its promise.
Cities Skylines 2 Needs to Deliver on a Couple Things
Cities Skylines succeeded where SimCity failed, and it offered players a pretty exciting urban city builder. It hit all the right notes, and offered a new level of simulation for those that love micromanaging. The DLC packs expanded upon the content even more by giving players far more control over aspects of their city, and that content stream has made the game one of the best city builders around. Colossal Order has built a solid foundation for its follow-up, but there is still a lot that Cities Skylines 2 needs to do to deliver on its promise.
One addition that would put Cities Skylines 2above other complex city builders is the addition of more dynamic events. Real cities are constantly moving with things happening every second, and Colossal Order needs to capture that living feeling. Car crashes and construction need to hold up traffic, high speed chases need to randomly occur, politics should play a bigger role, protests should happen, and so on. Random things may occur in Cities Skylines, but adding far more events to Cities Skylines 2 would help bring a new level of realism to the game.
Paradox is also promising a far deeper living economy with Cities Skylines 2, and that would definitely help make the game more realistic. Currently, there really is not much to the economy of Cities Skylines. Players need to ensure they have enough money coming in to afford the services their city offers, but it is pretty easy to manage. Cities Skylines 2 needs to expand upon the economy by adding even more things for players to juggle including trading, citywide events, and a deeper budget system.
One of the other Cities Skylines 2 must-haves is a more realistic day-and-night cycle. The first game introduced the day-and-night cycle with the After Dark DLC pack, but it is mostly just an aesthetic change. Cities Skylines 2 needs to make it so that the day-and-night cycle actually affects the gameplay. The daytime should be livelier, busier, and require the player to think on their toes. The city should be mostly asleep at night, but offer a sufficient nightlife to keep them engaged.
There are a lot of smaller features that Cities Skylines 2 needs to include on top of these major features. Rotating seasons could offer new challenges, players should have to take parking into account, the businesses that dot the city need to be more varied, and there needs to be more road management features. It could even steal SimCity 2013's modular building system. Doing all of this could add so much more depth to the already deep simulation. Calling Cities Skylines 2 the most realistic city builder ever is a strong claim. The first game was already a great urban city simulator, but Cities Skylines 2 is promising so much more. With a few additions it should be able to deliver on its promise, but Paradox also needs to make sure it does not overpromise along the way.
Cities Skylines 2 will be available in 2023 on PC, PS5, and Xbox Series X/S.
