Cities: Skylines 2 is a complex game. It was, in fact, always going to be a complex game, and virtually all the reviews agree that it succeeds in establishing a new baseline of quality for the city-building genre. That's right: we've got heaps upon heaps of reviews already, and though it's clear that Cities: Skylines 2 will be the city-builder to play for times to come, there are some caveats to keep in mind as well.

Those caveats are one of the topics of this article, then. They will share the spotlight with other novelties featured in what is, in effect, the most realistic city-builder we've seen to date. As there's a bunch, we've got quite a lot of ground to cover, and by the time we're done, you'll have a great idea of whether now's the time to start building Cities: Skylines II cities, or if it'll take a bit more time in the oven for the game to work properly.

READ MORE: Building the City of Your Dreams in Cities: Skylines 2

What's New in Cities: Skylines 2?

Quantifying the novelties in Cities: Skylines 2 is no mean feat. This is a game that deals with precisely the same things as its predecessor, after all, which means whatever new things it might be doing will be about more fine-tuning control and influencing the way a simulated city grows, than it would be about anything truly game-changing. Enhanced construction and customization options are, therefore, the focus here. We'd add the game's advanced modding capabilities to the mix as well, though those will be coming a bit after release, according to Paradox and CO.

The biggest change, we think, comes from the fact that Cities: Skylines 2 tries to streamline large chunks of its simulation to make it meaningful, interesting, and less unwieldy than it used to be. Make no mistake, these tidbits absolutely do run in the background still: you're just no longer forced to deal with them all the time. Take roads, for example, which now integrate power, water, and sewage landlines by default.

That's the sort of changes you ought to expect to see here, broadly speaking.

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Comparison with the original Cities Skylines game

For all its novelties and improvements, Cities: Skylines 2 has an immense challenge in front of it. Its predecessor has ostensibly been Paradox Interactive's crowning jewel for almost a decade now, after all. This meant a truly mind-boggling breadth of post-launch support and expansion pack upgrades from the developer, Colossal Order, which was obviously great news.

Right now, however, with the sequel out and about at last, we've got the flip side of the equation to consider: Skylines 2 was never going to be able to include everything its predecessor received over the past ten years. It was, by default, going to be a smaller and more focused experience, for better or for worse.

As you'll see as we discuss some of the most notable reviews, then, Cities: Skylines 2 is a far superior starting point than Cities: Skylines was, back in the day. Comparing it with Cities: Skylines in its current, massively upgraded state, however, is a more complicated ordeal.

Critical reception of Cities Skylines 2

Now, onto the hard numbers: Cities: Skylines II is enjoying a wealth of positive critique from the critics. It is, also, getting warranted critique that is centred around its performance, as it leaves much to be desired at this time. This was, perhaps, to be expected, given what the developers had been highlighting in the lead-up to the game's release. Performance, however, is going to improve as time goes on, and it's not necessarily the most important consideration here.

"The original Cities: Skylines improved massively after it launched," said PC Gamer's Christopher Livingston. "yes, mainly through dozens of pieces of paid DLC, but there were also lots of completely free additions alongside them, not to mention the thousands of mods created by passionate community members. I'm hopeful Cities: Skylines 2 will someday become a better game than the original, instead of just a bigger one."

Livingston scored Cities: Skylines 2 with a fairly solid 77/100, and his take broadly agrees with most other critics, too. Take, for example, Rock Paper Shotgun's Sin Vega: "For a follow-up, Cities: Skylines 2 is basically good," they said. "I’ll even continue playing it, which isn’t that common after a review, especially for such a timesink. This time around, it has grabbed me, and yet it's such a small step forward that I don't feel entirely comfortable recommending it outright."

Trends in critics' opinions towards Cities Skylines 2

Broadly speaking, the critics are rather positive about Cities: Skylines II. The game is well and truly better than its predecessor was for years upon its own release. It's just going to take a bit of time until it truly comes into its own, performance and modding-wise. We know for a fact that Colossal Order will continue working on it for times to come, so bearing with it through its growing pains should be no issue at all.

On MetaCritic, Cities Skylines 2 is enjoying a solid 76/100 based on 45 critic reviews. On OpenCritic, the game has got a 'Strong' rating with the majority of reviewers recommending the game with gusto.

Obviously, Cities Skylines 2 is bound to release with some notable issues, but there's still immense value in kicking things off by playing it early. If you're interested in doing that, make note of 2Game's early release discounts!

Positive aspects highlighted by reviewers

As GamingTrend's Ron Burke explains, Cities: Skylines 2 aims to make city-building much, much, much more satisfying and interesting, rather than annoying and overburdening. "It’s clear that the team at Colossal have worked very hard at putting a leash on tedium," he said. "It’s the proverbial “one more turn” junkies like me crave. There are so many more things to explore, including day and night cycles, climates and seasons, advanced technologies, airports and passenger cruise ships, disasters and early warning systems, and so much more. You can even build the Large Hadron Collider for crying out loud!"

GGRecon's Harry Boulton had similarly positive things to say: "Cities Skylines 2 is more of the same in the best possible way." According to Boulton, the biggest shift present here comes from Colossal Order's focus on producing a wealth of quality-of-life improvements to improve the cire city-building experience. "While it doesn't quite have that one new blockbuster feature, nor does it revolutionise the genre in the same way that the original did back in 2015," Boulton says, "it is still a brilliant game that you should not miss out on."

Future updates and expansions for Cities Skylines 2

There are reasons to be positive about Cities: Skylines II even today, then, but there are some obvious problems and concerns that Colossal Order needs to tackle. The really good news, then, is that you shouldn't be worried whether updates will be coming or not: both Paradox Interactive and Colossal Order are known for their penchant for updating evergreen titles for very long periods of time.

The most important bit, we believe, is that there's a well-established precedent of both of these companies fixing and improving their games, bar none. And, since Cities: Skylines 2 is a phenomenal core with a delightful city-building component, it's only going to get better over the coming weeks and months.

Announcements and plans for post-launch content

We are yet to receive any concrete announcements from either Paradox Interactive or Colossal Order on Cities Skylines II's exact post-launch content plans. For a broad overview of what's to come, content-wise, you can reference our previous buyer's guide for the game!

What Comes Next for Colossal Order?

In summary, Cities: Skylines 2 has oodles of greatness in it. It's a delightful city-building experience that has every bit of potential to outshine any other genre offering we've seen yet. Before that happens, though, Colossal Order's got work to do.

To that end, we fully expect all of the following in the shortest order possible:

The biggest problem right, now, arguably, is the fact that Cities: Skylines 2 is very hard to run on PC, which helps explain why the console versions got pushed back into 2024. Our recommendation, then, is to make use of 2Game's launch-day discount and get in on the fun early: fixes will be coming quickly, and then all we'll have to do is to start building our towns and cities exactly how we always wanted them to be, industrial zones and all!

Play Cities: Skylines 2 on day one with 2Game's discounts!

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Cities: Skylines 2 is a complex game. It was, in fact, always going to be a complex game, and virtually all the reviews agree that it succeeds in establishing a new baseline of quality for the city-building genre. That’s right: we’ve got heaps upon heaps of reviews already, and though it’s clear that Cities: Skylines […]