Cities: Skylines - PlayStation 4 Edition

 PlayStation 4
User Score
7.1

Mixed or average reviews- based on 143 Ratings

User score distribution:
  1. Positive: 82 out of 143
  2. Mixed: 41 out of 143
  3. Negative: 20 out of 143
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  1. Britmatt81
    Dec 7, 2017
    7
    I do enjoy this game as its just soo addictive. But after a while i always like to start again lol. But the only downside is i understand when i purchased this game it would give me more options. Its very basic to start as in you have to choose a small handful of landscapes already designed. I wanted to design my own landscapes but cant. Also the trailers and pictures show things likeI do enjoy this game as its just soo addictive. But after a while i always like to start again lol. But the only downside is i understand when i purchased this game it would give me more options. Its very basic to start as in you have to choose a small handful of landscapes already designed. I wanted to design my own landscapes but cant. Also the trailers and pictures show things like raised metro tracks and close ups but the PS4 version wont allow any of this. So feel i only got half the game. But as its very addictive i really do enjoy this as hours have flown by as i been too into it.… Expand
  2. PissedOffWookie
    Jun 8, 2018
    6
    After much deliberation and waiting and lots of positive feedback online I finally purchased this game. I regret my purchase. It gets a passing grade, it's an okay city builder. But nothing refreshing or amazing. It probably surpasses the latest Sim City in gameplay quality but that is setting the bar rather low these days.

    Aside from that there are frame timing issues and stuttering    After much deliberation and waiting and lots of positive feedback online I finally purchased this game. I regret my purchase. It gets a passing grade, it's an okay city builder. But nothing refreshing or amazing. It probably surpasses the latest Sim City in gameplay quality but that is setting the bar rather low these days.

    Aside from that there are frame timing issues and stuttering during gameplay, I was told the performance was top notch, but it is not, not even on my PS4 Pro with boost mode on. While the graphics look like it could easily run on a PS3.    … Expand
  3. Markos-
    Oct 14, 2020
    7
    It succesfully clones the Sim City mechanics and ideas, and even improves some of them. The graphics are obviously nicer and it overall is a sleek and fluid experience, considering that we are using a PS4 controller to manage so many aspects of a city.
    I had fun building one city up to around 80k population but after that I felt I had seen everything the game had to offer. It will bring    It succesfully clones the Sim City mechanics and ideas, and even improves some of them. The graphics are obviously nicer and it overall is a sleek and fluid experience, considering that we are using a PS4 controller to manage so many aspects of a city.
    I had fun building one city up to around 80k population but after that I felt I had seen everything the game had to offer. It will bring good memories back if you used to play Sim City for PC back in the days!    … Expand
  4. luckydutch
    Oct 3, 2017
    7
    There is a lot to like about this as many of the other reviewers have covered. I am amazed at how well they've been able to port a complex city builder over to PS4. They use the controls in a very intelligent way. My girlfriend is useless at games but isn't having too much trouble with the controls.

    My main gripe with the game is not about what is there but about what is missing. The    There is a lot to like about this as many of the other reviewers have covered. I am amazed at how well they've been able to port a complex city builder over to PS4. They use the controls in a very intelligent way. My girlfriend is useless at games but isn't having too much trouble with the controls.

    My main gripe with the game is not about what is there but about what is missing. The options for customisation are really quite limited. For example, for your commercial sector you just have 'basic shops' & 'big department stores'. It'd nice to be able to create a street of restaurants on one road then a retail street elsewhere with an out-of-town supermarket near your residential area. You can make a district 'leisure' or 'tourist' which changes the buildings slightly but it's beyond your control what they actually become and 2 options is hardly deep customisation.

    It's the same story for houses - you have 'low density' residential homes and 'high density' tower blocks. They upgrade as your property values rise but you have no control to customise them.

    The monuments should be a way to add flair to your city but many of them require you to do some odd achievements first (like run into debt).

    The maps are OK. There is a reasonable amount of variation between them but you can't really take advantage of that as you'll just be building hundreds of the same houses you built in the last city.

    All in all, it's worth getting as your first city build is an incredibly satisfying, addictive experience but there's little reason to bother building a second or third one. It's a good design but needs a free DLC to add a bunch of extra assets to make up or lacking the mods/asset editor that the PC version gets.    … Expand
  5. tomvs123
    Mar 16, 2020
    6
    This is essentially old-school SimCity, but modernized, which is great if you like SimCity.

    I played through the standard game and there's not much point to it besides building the city you want, while keeping your citizens happy. There's not a lot of challenge to it, but I don't think that's the point. Some thing are simplified compared to what I remember from SimCity, such as water    This is essentially old-school SimCity, but modernized, which is great if you like SimCity.

    I played through the standard game and there's not much point to it besides building the city you want, while keeping your citizens happy. There's not a lot of challenge to it, but I don't think that's the point.

    Some thing are simplified compared to what I remember from SimCity, such as water and electricity delivery. Water pipes can be built in the general area of buildings, and you'll rarely need to build power lines - power is transmitted automatically between close buildings.

    And then the road and traffic system is greatly complicated, and is the only true challenge in the game. Garbage trucks, hearses, resource trucks, goods trucks, and all of your citizens must transport themselves along set routes. And if there's too much traffic, they'll be late. This causes your stores to close, garbage to pile up, the dead to pile up, industries to stop producing, and stops your power plants from getting fuel. So you'll learn early on that filling every square inch of the map with buildings, while using the smallest road size is a bad idea.

    After you get over the traffic and road-building learning curve, it's smooth sailing from then-on-out. You can just keep building until you can unlock the best buildings, that do things like reduce all pollution, educate all citizens, and power your entire city.

    Maybe I'm just naturally good at it, but I quickly had more money than I knew what to do with, even with tax cuts and polices in place that decreased revenue in favor of citizen happiness. Although there was this one time when I built a dam in the wrong place in a nearly map-filled city and it ended up flooding everything. Even though there were buildings destroyed and people were leaving, they just kept coming back, so it was barely an inconvenience.

    So yeah, great for those who want a sandbox city builder, but not so great for those seeking story modes or game-set goals.    … Expand
  6. dingobreath
    Oct 18, 2017
    7
    I actually knew nothing about this game until I saw it being played on a you tube channel. It seemed like a sim city clone, but actually turned out to be a lot more.

    The game does a fairly good job of being an easy relaxing game to play where to succeed you must build a city with a large population. There are several graphs and things you can tweak like policies and taxes if that's your    I actually knew nothing about this game until I saw it being played on a you tube channel. It seemed like a sim city clone, but actually turned out to be a lot more.

    The game does a fairly good job of being an easy relaxing game to play where to succeed you must build a city with a large population. There are several graphs and things you can tweak like policies and taxes if that's your thing.

    The game has a fairly set of robust creation tools to create your city on various maps. There are a few types of cities which effect how the buildings look. The roads in the game will ultimately play a huge part in your success or failure as heavy traffic creates all sorts of problems for each building type.

    The graphics are simple but very effective with a decent frame rate, however even though I played on a ps4 pro, beware as the game has slow down the bigger your city gets and the more icons are flashing on the screen at once. But the frame rate issue is mostly only if the camera is zoomed in close to the street level.

    While I will say that the game somewhat can play itself, it is still enjoyable to design your cities and to watch the traffic flow nicely through the neighbourhoods. The game is certainly suited to the PC, however the console is mostly OK, just without the modding and all the expansion packs. (even though they are coming according to the devs). The game certainly picks up when you start building train lines and shipping ports as the traffic in the cities increases exponentially. It can become challenging at that point with a lot of management, thankfully you can pause the game and still build roads and change your zones and policies.

    My only other complaint is the population counter appears unrealistic for the city. I had built a large city and my population was at 14000 people, I could easily tell that there were more than 14000 people in all the cars and hi rise apartments on the map. Also it is a little unrealistic getting may fires in your city daily and also having 20 hearse cars carrying dead bodies at once travelling the streets.

    While the game is certainly not for everyone and has an acquired taste, I found it rather enjoyable, much better than sim city.

    I give it 7.5 out of 10    … Expand
  7. ToshLichev
    Jul 15, 2020
    5
    As someone who isn't a fan of the genre I walked into Cities: Skylines convinced I'll be pretty bored. After the first hour and a half I realized I was actually having a bit of fun... and then the metrick **** of micromanagement hit me and I started feeling less and lees joy and more and more frustration and tedium with every new problem that I had to manage in my city. For me this is aAs someone who isn't a fan of the genre I walked into Cities: Skylines convinced I'll be pretty bored. After the first hour and a half I realized I was actually having a bit of fun... and then the metrick **** of micromanagement hit me and I started feeling less and lees joy and more and more frustration and tedium with every new problem that I had to manage in my city. For me this is a great game to play for 2 hours and pick it up again in 3 months for another 2 hours if you have nothing else to do. However I do realize that, at least in my opinion, it manages to do what is expected of it fairly well and for that I can't rate it too low - it's 100% not for me, but the people who it's meant for will probably enjoy it.… Expand
  8. MissDaisy
    Nov 9, 2019
    5
    Basically a sweet game, but: more than once my city was shrinking and I had no clue why. There are no advisors. Why? Why would a real mayor not have any advisors? Examples:
    - people are dying, no clue why. (the pollution panel helped in the end but it was too late)
    - corpses don't get picked up although there are dozens of cemetaries, crematories and money (I never figured that one out)    Basically a sweet game, but: more than once my city was shrinking and I had no clue why. There are no advisors. Why? Why would a real mayor not have any advisors? Examples:
    - people are dying, no clue why. (the pollution panel helped in the end but it was too late)
    - corpses don't get picked up although there are dozens of cemetaries, crematories and money (I never figured that one out)
    - people are sick (no clue why)
    - Industry complains they don't have customers (how do I get those? Building new apartments close to it did not work)
    - shops need "raw materials" (a tech shop - what would it need? The game doesn't tell you)

    So, the game is fun but as soon as there is a problem, you are dead. Civilization has advisors, Sim City has advisors, why not this game?    … Expand
  9. Sylaman
    Nov 11, 2019
    7
    The game is the best city-planning and city-building simulator ever. I wish we meet more unexpected developments, disasters, force majeure circumstances and something like that. It would make game more entertaining because sometimes it becomes boring and you put it aside for a month or two and then come back.
  10. MissDove
    Nov 22, 2020
    7
    Nice visuals and graphics make the city look alive. A lot parameters and info. However, everything is too easy to manage (just build the specific service building and the problem is gone). The only challenging aspect of the game is traffic management. In short, the game is fun at first, but everything becomes too repetitive and tedious after a few hours of gameplay. Additionally, I am notNice visuals and graphics make the city look alive. A lot parameters and info. However, everything is too easy to manage (just build the specific service building and the problem is gone). The only challenging aspect of the game is traffic management. In short, the game is fun at first, but everything becomes too repetitive and tedious after a few hours of gameplay. Additionally, I am not huge fan of having to pay hundreds of dollars for expansion in order to get the full experience of the game.… Expand
  11. Kowbrad
    Oct 16, 2020
    7
    I would like to say that a city building game is relaxing, but its not. There are a lot of things to keep track of so its the perfect game to take your mind of someting stressful and fill it up with the stress of being a mayor. I would put 8 if not for a glitch that again stresses me out. The shops will ask for educated workers and you cant do anything about it. Customisablilty is veryI would like to say that a city building game is relaxing, but its not. There are a lot of things to keep track of so its the perfect game to take your mind of someting stressful and fill it up with the stress of being a mayor. I would put 8 if not for a glitch that again stresses me out. The shops will ask for educated workers and you cant do anything about it. Customisablilty is very great placing streets fells good and you placing houses as you expect is great. And walking trouth your city is awsome. Also when you get a new level you have new buildings which you have to place immediately so remember to keep 40 000 dolarus in your pocket.… Expand
  12. BastianCL
    Aug 29, 2022
    7
    Un juego que logra engancharte pero aun así le falta contenido a pesar de los años que tiene.
  13. Swagforever
    Aug 9, 2023
    5
    Pros:
    Fun game with lots to build and customise. Not had any graphical issues or crashes.
    Full control over saves.

    Cons:
    Controls are inconsistent.
    Icons are not obvious and there is no way to see what some of them mean without Googling it.
    Few glitches with traffic and hydrodams.
    No undo option.

Awards & Rankings

53
#53 Best PS4 Game of 2017
70
#70 Most Discussed PS4 Game of 2017

Critic Reviews

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Metascore
81

Generally favorable reviews - based on 15 Critic Reviews

Critic score distribution:
  1. Positive: 14 out of 15
  2. Mixed: 1 out of 15
  3. Negative: 0 out of 15
  1. CGMagazine
    Dec 19, 2017
    90
    Cities: Skylines is definitely a must-own for fans of the genre, or gamers with a nostalgic itch for SimCity that EA certainly won’t scratch.
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  2. PlaySense
    Aug 25, 2017
    80
    A surprisingly superb PC port, Cities: Skylines nevertheless doesn't include all DLC, which makes the otherwise great package feel somewhat incomplete.
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  3. PlayStation Country
    Aug 23, 2017
    80
    Cities: Skylines – PlayStation 4 Edition is a great port of a great game. If you just want to sit down and build a city from scratch then this gives you a lot of control over how you want your city to look and operate. If you want a more guided experience then you may struggle to stay motivated but there's no doubt that watching your city grow and prosper is a worthwhile and rewarding experience.
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