Colossal Order Returns With Cities: Skylines 2

After 8 years of Cities: Skylines, Colossal Order returns with Communities Skylines 2, coming on October 24th. Since we have played city builders since 1989, we took a look at the city in Skylines 2.

There is something striking about Cities: Skylines 2 despite its many new features and improvements. Many fans of Skylines will not be willing to give up all of its DLC and community mods that make it arguably the best city-building game on the market.

Veterans of Cities: Skylines will notice the sequel is bare bones, lacking several tools and add-ons. This sequel is not an expansion. It looks more like a completely different world and game. The absence of eight years’ worth of extra content in Skylines 2 should not come as a surprise, but it can still be disappointing

Casual players won’t notice the downgrade, especially with the new quality-of-life improvements, like the tutorial and help system. With a learn-as-you-go system rather than a completely comprehensive tutorial.

There is enough distraction to keep you busy. Changing the tools needed to manage your budding city is very straightforward. Every time you press on a new tool, a pop-up tutorial explains the basic function of the tool. At times, it gives you some insight into how the tool might affect the development of your city.

For future reference, all tutorials are added to the help screen. This gives you instant access to all the zones, buildings, and city services at your fingertips.

Skylines 2 offers a more streamlined interface, which we verified by comparing it to the original Cities: Skylines. The basic icons are easily identified in both titles, but Skylines 2’s sub menus and tabs are more intuitive to use.

The basic tool functionality is also easier to navigate. For example, zoning and de-zoning are handled by one icon rather than switching between the two. Rezoning can also be accomplished by simply overwriting an existing zone with a new one, without first deleting the old one.