Cities: Skylines

Cities: Skylines first launched in 2015 as a terrific if slightly wonky city-builder. Sure, the traffic mechanic might’ve been busted, but it captured the minutiae of urban planning—zoning districts, plotting plumbing, building bike lanes, fine-tuning tax policy—unlike anything else. In the years since, Skylines has become the best city-building game around. Patches ironed out many of the kinks. Expansions introduced winter weather, night-and-day transitions (complete with glorious sunsets), and enough public transit options to make any progressive urbanist weep in joy.

But the real evolution came from the mod community. Enterprising modders built on and improved nearly every facet of Skylines. You can download graphical update mods, custom buildings, expanded maps, and tweaked and streamlined game systems. There’s even one that automatically bulldozes abandoned buildings, effectively removing the most tedious part of the game. The result is a city-building game that also gives you a taste of playing god.

A Good Match For: NUMTOTS, urbanists, city planners, and fans of SimCity (not the 2013 debacle).

Not A Good Match For: Minimalists—this is one complex, intricate game.

Read our review, and our retrospective

Watch it in action.

Study our list of essential mods.

Purchase from: Steam | The Humble Store | Green Man Gaming | Amazon