Hell, it won’t even explain how to best plan for industry specializations. The game will not explain to you what happens when too many citizens become educated or about imports and exports. Beyond building a basic road and learning that power and water are necessary to keep the city running, there are no significant tutorial steps that explain the complex and delicate balance between industry and commercial businesses or reveal why all of your buildings are always abandoned. The display is constantly brimming with pop-ups and dialogue windows, but it seems that only a fraction of it is actually helpful.
While most of the mechanics feel pretty seamless, there are many nuances in the game that aren’t made clear from the beginning. Should you find these controls not to your liking, the layout can be changed in the Options menu. Zooming in and out is achieved by intuitively pressing ZL and ZR, cancelling actions is done with B, and radial menus are pulled up with Y. You can cycle through different tools and sectors such as Fire Departments, Electricity or Zoning using the D-pad, and flip through subcategories in those sectors or tabs in the informational menus using L and R. I found the controls easy to use and very intuitive, though it takes some time to get used to due to the sheer amount of menus and options. The camera is smooth and speedy, which means zooming out and scrolling over to different pockets of your city never takes more than a second, and the symbols flashing over buildings and infrastructure indicating different technical issues are scaled nicely as well. While I was skeptical about being able to see and manage everything going on in the booming metropolis I set out to build on the small Switch screen, my fears quickly faded away.
There are no scenarios or challenges just a big sandbox where you can let your creativity flow. This means taking the needs and safety of your people into account, expanding your city and making use of different resources and services. From Humble Beginningsįor those who are unfamiliar with the game, the only premise is to build your very own city from the ground up and keep it running as efficiently as possible. It seemed counterintuitive that a game with so much action, chaos and space could be ported onto such a bite-sized console, but after firing up Cities: Skylines and pushing past the minimal tutorial, I was thoroughly impressed and satisfied with the adaptation - and frankly, grateful for its surprise release last week. Tunnels and European themed buildings and maps added.If separating sewage, putting out fires, and having a whole population of people gripe at you over social media about how no one from the crematorium has picked up their dead grandma yet sounds like the ultimate gaming experience to you, then boy, are you gonna love Cities: Skylines.įor a while now, I have been eagerly awaiting a decent city-building game to play on the go, but I doubted the possibility that something so large-scale could ever be squeezed onto the handheld Switch display. Released alongside Natural Disasters and High-Tech Buildings DLC Released alongside Green Cities DLC, Concerts update, European Suburbia. Released alongside new radio station All That Jazz and Carols, Candles and Candy DLCs. Released alongside new radio station Mars Radio and ChirpX. Released alongside Parklife and Country Road Radio DLCs. Released alongside Industries and Synthetic Dawn Radio DLCs. Released alongside Campus, University City, Campus Radio and Deep Focus Radio DLCs.
Minor update to accommodate Modern City Center and Downtown Radio DLCs. Minor update to fix bugs and implement the Paradox Launcher. Released alongside Sunset Harbor, Modern Japan, and Coast to Coast Radio DLCs. Released alongside Train Stations and Bridges and Piers CCPs, and the Rail Hawk Radio and Sunny Breeze Radio music packs. Hotfixes generally fix bugs and tweak the balance of the game.
Major patches generally have DLCs released alongside them and add new features.
Patches and Hotfixes are free updates for the game.