Cities: Skylines
In Cities: Skylines your city grows along the roads you lay yourself, while you also zone land, run public transport and balance the budget. It was made by Finland's Colossal Order, which had 13 people at launch. Before that the studio was known for its Cities in Motion transport games.
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The studio first pitched a political game, where the mayor issues edicts instead of building neighborhoods. Paradox doubted the idea could stand up to SimCity and asked for a rework. The 2013 SimCity, panned by critics, changed that.
Traffic is what it is all about. Every citizen picks the fastest route to work, so road layout decides where traffic jams. And a car that cannot find any route at all simply teleports back to where it started.
In 2022 a Polish YouTuber rebuilt a planned interchange near Kraków in the game and showed where it would clog. Poland's roads agency ordered an analysis, the problems were confirmed, and the interchange was redesigned.
Some critics missed disasters and a proper tutorial; disasters came later in an expansion. The game has sold more than 12 million copies. Players leave 92% positive out of 220,081 reviews; critics give it 85 on Metacritic. By our Recommended Score it is #377 of 4,736 games.
Liked it? Try Cities: Skylines II, the sequel from the same studio, and Transport Fever 2, where transport grows from 1850 to the present day.
Major updates
Race Day, Iconic Brutalism, and Renewed History is live! · Mar 2026All 5
System requirements
Minimum 8 GB RAM · 4 GBiSteam Deck PlayableMin & recommended
| Minimum | Recommended | |
|---|---|---|
| OS | Windows® 10 Home 64 Bit | Windows® 10 Home 64 bit |
| Processor | Intel® Core™ I7 930 | AMD® FX 6350 | Intel® Core™ I7 2700K | AMD® Ryzen 7 2700X |
| Memory | 8 GB | 16 GB |
| Graphics | Nvidia® GeForce™ GTS 450 (1 GB) | AMD® R7 250 (2 GB) | Intel Iris Xe G7 (Tiger Lake) | Nvidia® GeForce™ GTX 580 (1.5 GB) | AMD® Radeon™ RX 560 (4 GB) |
| DirectX | 9.0c | 11 |
| Storage | 4 GB | 4 GB |
From the game’s Steam store page.
