How do you market a city-builder in this day and age? Well, post SimCity, you promise big cities. Really big cities. The kinds of cities that could absorb a dozen of SimCity’s overgrown neighborhoods without breaking a sweat.
That’s why the Cities XL franchise has abandoned subtlety and called the next instalment Cities XXL. Because it’s going to be big, you see.
Just in case the XXL doesn’t tip you off, there’s a trailer full of soothing music and sprawling megalopolises.
2015 is shaping up to be the battle of SimCity-beaters, with Cities XXL and Cities: Skylines both promising to free would-be municipal planners from the shackles of Maxis’ vision. I’m hard-pressed to think of another game that has so perfectly defined what so many genre fans don’t want to see, and given such a clear direction to its successors.
It’s not just the landmasses you’ll get to play around with in Cities XXL that have the developers bragging. It’s that XXL will feature over a thousand buildings, more than 70 maps, and lots of granular detail for you to play with. They also promise streamlined Steam Workshop support, which should mean lot of special, custom content from other users. Personally, I’m hoping to see people roll-out a wide variety of architectural styles, so that cities can be a little more visually distinct rather than the generic, post-industrial cityscapes that have become commonplace in city builders.