Cities: Skylines released more than two years ago on PC and changed the way we play city building games. After some extra DLC packs and a lot of mods, Cities: Skylines is still going strong on PC but comes to Xbox One as a console exclusive in this Xbox One edition. Porting PC games to console isn’t always a good idea but sometimes, it works out perfectly. Let’s find out how Cities: Skylines survived the port.
Disclaimer: Looking for great PC mods? Check our Cities: Skylines guide.
Learn the ropes
Since this is a console exclusive, chances are pretty high you never touched a city building game like this before. In order to get the most fun out of the game, it’s recommended to learn the controls during your first hour of gameplay. Controlling a game like this with a controller still is a strange thing but it works surprisingly well. The control stick and D-pad are used to look around and point out where you want to create a new building. The triggers are used to zoom in and out of the action while the action buttons give you a wide variety of selection tools. The controls feel intuitive and work surprisingly well if you’re willing to learn them during your first hour in the game. It sounds easy on paper but creating roads with the precision of a computer mouse isn’t that easy. Lucky enough, the game does come with some great tutorials and even when you finished those a small pop-up message can still help you out when you’re stuck. The creators understood the dangers of a console version and made sure the controllers are precise enough to start creating the city of your dreams.
Create the city of your dreams
The first time you start off with your blank slate, it will be rather challenging to put together a city that actually functions. There are a lot of elements you need to take into consideration before you start building your new city. The first thing you’ll need to get is water and electricity for the inhabitants of your new city. But how will you bring it to their houses? Will you create pipelines under the road, or perhaps create power plants outside of the city? Also, keep in mind that everything you do will cost money so you’ll need to give priority to the things your city needs most, meaning that some of the inhabitants might become stressed out due to the lack of fun things to do in your city. Creating a new metropolis isn’t an easy job but you can toggle off the money option. During my first attempt, I switched off this featuring, making it impossible for me to score Achievements but I couldn’t care less since I was creating a big successful city. If you want to create without having to worry about the money, I recommend switching it off during your first session.
You don’t create a city just to make it look good, you’re making it so the people living in it can have a good life. In order to help you out a little, there’s a small box on the top of your screen, showing the thoughts of your citizens. Some of those messages are meant to give the game a small dose of humor, but most of the time, those messages offer valuable feedback on the changes you’re making. If you raise the taxes to increase your income, for example, the citizens will start complaining and eventually will leave your city. There are a dozen of things you can do to improve the happiness, legalizing Marijuana being the strangest one, but keeping them happy will always remain your focus. It’s good to have this message box showing the emotions almost immediately. That way you’ll learn quickly if a change affected the city in a good or bad way. When everything goes as planned, you’ll see your city bustling with activities, day and night. This edition comes with the After Dark expansion installed so you’ll be able to see your city both during the day and night.
It’s not all that pretty
This brings me to a bit of a letdown in this version, the graphics. Cities: Skylines isn’t the newest game and is capable of running on almost every computer out there but that doesn’t mean the Xbox One version should look like it does now. There’s nothing special about the graphics and zooming in on certain areas only reveals a collection of dull pixels and strange models. This isn’t always the case, there are some parts of the city that truly look great and make your work come to life but those moments are rather rare. It’s a bit of a shame the team behind this version didn’t use the power of the console a little more. Especially when you combine these graphics with a frame rate that’s dropping from time to time.
Besides the graphics, the music isn’t that noticeable. Of course, it’s good the music isn’t that into your face while creating your city but at this point, it’s just forgettable. The only good moments are those when you zoom in on your city and you hear everything coming to life, reminding you that you’re creating this new place for the citizens. That’s where the music shines but aside of that, it’s nothing special.
Some missing features
This brings me to the last thing I would like to point out. Compared to the PC version, there are some things missing in this Xbox One port. Besides the After Dark expansion, the game doesn’t come with other DLC packs, which is rather strange since the PC game received a couple more during the years. I’m sure those extra DLC packs will be released later on but it’s a shame those weren’t included in the first place.
The biggest downside to this version is the lack of a fast forward button. You can only pause the game but you can’t force time to move faster, a feature that is active in the PC version. This means you’ll need to wait a little longer than you’re used to and it sadly takes out the fast pacing the original game had. It’s a shame this fast forward button isn’t available on the Xbox One since it would have made the game so much better than it is now.
Conclusion
Cities: Skylines is an example of a good game on PC but isn’t able to bring the same quality to Xbox One. The graphics, frame rate and lack of fast forward button result in a lesser version of Cities: Skylines. It’s a shame really since there’s still a fun to discover here. If you don’t have a PC that’s able to run Cities: Skylines, this Xbox One version might result in a lot of fun but if you can choose, go for the PC version. The Xbox One version certainly isn’t bad but it sadly isn’t as good as the original PC release.