Cities: Skylines

Worth buying? What 300 Steam reviews say.Worth buying? Here’s what 300 Steam reviews actually say.

Very Positive · 93%Very Positive · 93%2015

The verdict

A deep, addictive city builder with a great mod scene, but weak traffic AI and a huge DLC catalog hurt it. Skip it if DLC prices or the Paradox launcher bother you.

Great for

Players who enjoy tinkering with roads, traffic and transit, and who will use Workshop mods

Main risk

Paying hundreds for DLC and needing mods to fix traffic and thin base content

What players love

Excellent Steam Workshop mods

Mentioned in ~1 in 8 positive reviews

“The Steam Workshop breathes infinite life into this title.”
Steam review · 298.8 h played ↗

“pretty good when modded. painful when not modded”
Steam review · 49.8 h played ↗

“Compared to the second part this game is much cooler, with more interesting content, and with mods it's simply a song”
Steam review · translated · 288.8 h played ↗

Addictive and relaxing builder

Mentioned in ~1 in 11 positive reviews

“this city-building simulator can still swallow up hours of your life.”
Steam review · 68.1 h played ↗

“This is my go-to comfort game. It has been for years.”
Steam review · 521.4 h played ↗

Better than Cities: Skylines II

Mentioned in ~1 in 13 positive reviews

“Even after all this time, this is still a MUCH better game than CS 2.”
Steam review · 36.5 h played ↗

“I do prefer this one to the newer version.”
Steam review · 14.1 h played ↗

Spiritual successor to SimCity

Mentioned in ~1 in 19 positive reviews

“solid next-gen SimCity, the true successor to 2000”
Steam review · 10.9 h played ↗

Satisfying traffic and city planning

Mentioned in ~1 in 21 positive reviews

“Balancing highway intersections, roundabouts, cargo trains, and public transit systems is both a brutal challenge and immensely satisfying”
Steam review · 298.8 h played ↗

“Similarly I find it very satisfying to build a road network and watch the cars drive through it”
Steam review · 57.9 h played ↗

Deep, detailed simulation

Mentioned in ~1 in 21 positive reviews

“every system connects and reacts in a way that feels rewarding and believable”
Steam review · 72.7 h played ↗

“requires a lot of effort and research to maintain the city's progress in mid to late game”
Steam review · 47.3 h played ↗

What players complain about

Overpriced DLC, content locked behind it

Mentioned in ~2 in 5 negative reviews

“72 DLC. Let me say that again, 72.”
Steam review · 92.4 h played ↗

“It's like you pay for a trial version, and the full version of the game is locked behind about $300 of dlc.”
Steam review · 137 h played ↗

“Without all the DLC the game feels incomplete (like a demo you have to pay for)”
Steam review · translated · 97.8 h played ↗

Forced Paradox launcher and data consent

Mentioned in ~1 in 7 negative reviews

“But making me AGREE to you collecting my "personal data" to even play the game now? It's absolutely insane”
Steam review · 584.5 h played ↗

“I go through the policies and go to the home menu and I'm locked out of my save!”
Steam review · 27.7 h played ↗

DLC subscription model backlash

Mentioned in ~1 in 8 negative reviews

“Greedy devs now wanting people to pay A SUBSCRIPTION for content on an 11yr old game.”
Steam review · 18 h played ↗

“your DLCs are now locked behind a subscription pay model”
Steam review · 157.1 h played ↗

Crashes, poor optimization and lag

Mentioned in ~1 in 9 negative reviews

“Constant 20 fps on a brand new save.”
Steam review · 79.2 h played ↗

“Crash way too much sometime all it takes is just open it for 3 mins then it would crash and all the stuff u build is gone”
Steam review · 135.8 h played ↗

Bad traffic AI, needs mods

Mentioned in ~1 in 13 negative reviews

“it doesn't matter if you have one lane or a million lanes, The traffic AI will only ever use one”
Steam review · 111.2 h played ↗

“Buggy trash where cars just turn off the roundabout onto a street and drive back into it”
Steam review · translated · 122.5 h played ↗

Updates break mods and saves

Mentioned in ~1 in 15 negative reviews

“the devs intentionally breaking mods with the Race Day update and absolutely no given way to go hack to the previous version”
Steam review · 1032.2 h played ↗

“with every update Colossal Order tries to make some money and is screwing up many of the existing mods”
Steam review · 2318.3 h played ↗

System requirements

From the Steam store page

Steam Deck: Playable

Minimum

OSWindows® 10 Home 64 Bit

ProcessorIntel® Core™ I7 930 | AMD® FX 6350

Memory8 GB RAM

GraphicsNvidia® GeForce™ GTS 450 (1 GB) | AMD® R7 250 (2 GB) | Intel Iris Xe G7 (Tiger Lake)

Storage4 GB available space

Recommended

OSWindows® 10 Home 64 bit

ProcessorIntel® Core™ I7 2700K | AMD® Ryzen 7 2700X

Memory16 GB RAM

GraphicsNvidia® GeForce™ GTX 580 (1.5 GB) | AMD® Radeon™ RX 560 (4 GB)

Storage4 GB available space

OSWindows® 10 Home 64 Bit

ProcessorIntel® Core™ I7 930 | AMD® FX 6350

Memory8 GB RAM

GraphicsNvidia® GeForce™ GTS 450 (1 GB) | AMD® R7 250 (2 GB) | Intel Iris Xe G7 (Tiger Lake)

Storage4 GB available space

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