Cities Skylines 2 services just got messy, but in a good way. The sublime-looking city-building game from Colossal Order and Paradox is already revolutionizing roads, roundabouts, housing, zoning, traffic, and more, but with the Cities Skylines 2 release date fast approaching, it looks like Cities Skylines 2 services – particularly landfills – are also getting a do-over. And there’s internet now, and changes to police, fire, health, and other buildings. And a new welfare office. Yeah, Cities Skylines 2 is looking seriously good.
Okay, let’s start with the landfills. In the original Cities Skylines, if you want more landfill space, it means building an entirely new landfill site. This inevitably leads to an issue whereby each site fills up and needs emptying either to another landfill or a garbage processing plant. But since these sites are potentially also full, you have nowhere to transport your excess garbage. Well, not any more.
Cities Skylines 2 landfills have drawable boundaries, so you can make each as big or small as you like. Not only will that help with the overfilling issue, but it should allow you to more expertly avoid building landfills near residential or commercial areas, so you don’t affect land prices.
Similarly, service buildings such as schools, hospitals, police stations, and firehouses can now be expanded and upgraded – if you want to expand your services across your Cities Skylines 2 maps, you don’t need to build an entirely new building but rather expand and enhance what you have already.
In Cities Skylines, you always end up with dozens of service buildings plopped around the map just to keep up with demand. Now, if you’re forward planning, you can allocate space for a mega service building and just expand and improve on it as time goes on.
Services themselves are also being extended. As well as the familiar lineup of police, fire, healthcare, education, trash, and deathcare, you can now create welfare offices to provide various forms of financial support to your citizens. It adds another layer to unemployment and economic management, as you decide how much of a monetary safety net to offer to your citizens in need.
Oh, and you can build the internet now. It’s not just electricity, water, sewage, and transport – if you want happy, connected citizens, and also thriving businesses, a functional, high-speed internet connection is a must.
Colossal Order says this can have an impact on not only citizen happiness but the efficiency and profitability of your commercial areas, with the studio calling Cities Skylines 2 “the most realistic city-builder ever.” From what we’ve seen, it’s hard to disagree.
Check out the full Cities Skylines 2 system requirements so you know your rig is ready for launch day. You might also want to try some of the other best management games on PC.