Cities: Skylines II

Cities: Skylines II is a city-building simulation that extends the first game's revival of detailed and ambitious urban planning of the Sim City games. You zone buildings, place roads, set taxation and provide public services and public transportation. The aim is to do this while also maintaining your budget, health, employment, and pollution levels.

CONTENT RATING

PLATFORMS

PlayStation 5

Xbox Series X|S

POSITIVE GAMEPLAY

Construction

Finances

Good Challenge

Non-Violent

Planning

Work With Systems

Over 30 hours

PLAY STYLE

The game offers a more detailed simulation than the previous game. The realism of this simulation is increased, particularly in the area of commerce and resources. You can now manage the resources you need to build, power and feed the city which not only adds farming aspects to the game but bases your ambitions on the reality of limited materials.

As you progress, you can take advantage of the more powerful tools to lay out roads and trains. Through stats, dashboards and infographics you can see realistic traffic congestion, pollution, electric and water supply. There are also new systems to make the seasons change over time in your city and the citizens also behave differently depending on the time of day. Other nice touches this time around are mixed-use buildings that offer commercial at street level with housing in the apartments above.

The result is a game that creates the child-like joy of a toy city but then scales that to huge proportions of adult ambition and complexity. It offers an open world that can host the daily routines of nearly a million unique citizens while presenting this to the player via an understandable interface.

GAMEPLAY TRAILER

Good to know

Insights to ensure your child's gaming experience remains safe and enjoyable

Develop strategic thinking

Strategy games promote strategic thinking, problem-solving skills, and creativity. They encourage planning ahead and considering consequences. Develop these skills by asking children to talk through their choices and explain how they came to that decision.

Match skill level

Strategy games vary in complexity. Choose games that match your child's skill level to provide an enjoyable yet challenging experience.

Improve life skills

These games often ask players to make choices like in business, such as managing money and resources. This can help improve these skills in real life.

Skill level age

Suggested by Family Gaming Database

10+

Younger players need to be proficient navigators of relatively complex interfaces. They also need to have the skill to plan ahead and assess multiple systems at the same time. Many very young players enjoy this with just a bit of occasional help from a parent.