Cities: Skylines announced by Cities In Motion developer
This is amazing news. Seems like an other developer is learning from the mistakes of the genre giant, SimCity. Though I always saw the latest SimCity as an evolutionary step to test the capabilities of a new system. Cities: Skyline seems to be avoiding to be overly innovative and just provide a game for the capabilities of today. No, that's not a negative thing.It's janitorial time at PCG Towers, as we mop up the last few stories of Gamescom. Here's one: the announcement of Cities: Skylines, the new game from the people behind Cities In Motion. This time, rather than create and manage the transport system of pre-built city, you'll create and manage every aspect of a non-pre-built city.
"Paradox Interactive and Colossal Order invite players to create the cities of their dreams in Cities: Skylines," explains the description, "a massive city simulator from the creators of the Cities in Motion series." The developer also promises mod support and "massive maps", which is a pretty loaded feature when set against a certain other city sim.
In fact, that's not the only way they're taking aim at the latest Sim City. In case you missed it, this is a screen from the trailer:
That's a feature now, it would seem.
Cities: Skyline is due out in 2015. You can find more details at its official site.
Watch the trailer. It looks gorgeous. It seems to have everything we love from a city builder. Especially the large scale. While you could only use one 2 km x 2km fixed slot in SimCity you can use 9 of these slots next to each other in Cities: Skyline which translates to a 9 km x 9 km slot or 36 kmsq.
Their reddit AMA provides a lot of information. Here is the transcript.
Some pictures from the game website:
Spoiler Alert, click show to read:
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Main features from the game website:City policies:
- Set policies to guide how the city and districts develop over the course of your playthrough.
- City policies: Set policies to guide how the city and districts develop over the course of your playthrough.
- City districts: Personalize city districts with names of your choice for variety and personality.
- Road building and zoning
- Unlock buildings and services
- Taxation: Fine-tuning the city budget and services and setting tax rates to different residential, commercial and industrial levels and controlling what kind of areas are more likely to spawn in the zoned areas
- Public transportation: Build transport networks throughout the city with buses and metros
- Outside connections: Make industry and commercial districts flourish with new customers in the neighboring cities
- Wonders: the ultimate end-game content that the players strive towards
- Huge maps: Unlock new map tiles with unique possibilities to expand the city
- Water flow simulation: Add new challenges to water services.
- Polished visual style and core gameplay
- Modding tools: Built in feature designed to encourage creative pursuits.