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Cities: Skylines players have generated 61 times the population of earth

A whole lot of cities have been built so far

Looking over a city, lit up at night, from just over a neighbouring highway

City-building strategy game Cities: Skylines turns six this month, and developer Colossal Order had some audacious stats to share. Among the many, many cities players have created, a population several tens of times that of earth’s has been generated.

The figures were shown during the latest Paradox Insider, where the city-building game had a short presentation to mark its sixth birthday. Some numbers were shown to demonstrate the community it’s formed, and so far, over 16 million players have tried Cities: Skylines. Across the over 84 million metropolises made by these players, an in-game population of 432,171,234,270 has been generated. That’s 61 times the regular people on our wee planet, in case you’re wondering.

Total playtime amounts to 74,956 years, making the grand history of Cities: Skylines still in its infancy, really, and a little over 240,000 mods have been made. “It has been an amazing journey for us, seeing the players take the game beyond our original ideas,” Samantha ‘Avanya’ Woods, community manager for Collosal Order, said, “just the creativity and mastery of the game they have, it’s been amazing to watch.”

During the segment, a new build-off was announced. These are community competitions where players are challenged to replicate something in a set map, and the three best win prizes. This latest involves building the Waisenbrücke bridge, from Berlin’s city centre, using one of three pre-made maps by Jason ‘AmiPolizeiFunk’ Ditmars. You have until April 30 to enter, and you could win €1,000 – more details here.

The Cities: Skyline segment is at 43:34:

Curing the Paradox Insider, we got announcements of the return of Surviving Mars, the release date for the next Stellaris expansion, and the arrival of Vikings to Crusader Kings 3. We have guides on the best Cities: Skylines mods, and all Cities: Skylines DLC, if you’re considering becoming a city architect yourself.

Can you run it? Check your PC against the Cities: Skylines system requirements.