Introducing the Latest City-Building Simulation Game

"After the disappointing release of SimCity 5 in 2013, [Cities:Skylines] is a welcome improvement in the genre," according to a review by Matt Johnson. Cities: Skylines was released on March 10, 2015

Cities: Skylines is the work of the same team behind transit simulation series Cities in Motion, and that background could explain one of the major improvements of Cities: Skylines over SimCity 5, according to Johnson:

…one big change from SimCity 5 is the ability to draw bus lines and build subways and commuter rail. In the most recent SimCity, players could place bus stops, but buses just drove randomly to stops based on where the most people aboard wanted to go.

In Cities: Skylines, players can draw actual bus and rail lines. Buses will actually follow the lines you draw, and stop where you designate stops.

One disappointing feature of Cities: Skylines, according to Johnson, is only allowing mixed-use districts rather than the mixed-use zoning necessary to build residential spaces above retail or commercial spaces.

Johnson goes into a lot more detail about the game, covering all the bases about what to expect before diving deep into this new simulated city builder.