To many, Cities: Skylines is the premier city-building simulation. When the PC launched in 2015, it quickly became a fan-favorite release for those who felt let down by modern SimCity titles. When the sim title arrived on consoles two years later, the less-intuitive controls didn’t detract too much from the experience, enabling it to still deliver a terrific city-building experience. Now, developer Colossal Order and publisher Paradox Interview have announced Cities: Skylines Remastered, which improves the experience for console players in myriad ways.
This new version of Cities: Skylines aims to let players create bigger and better metropolises than ever before. In addition to the obvious graphical and performance upgrades enabled by the newer hardware, players can take their city-planning skills to the next level with up to 25 buildable tiles instead the 9 on PS4 and Xbox One versions. Additionally, players can look forward to a quick-selection tool, user-experience improvements like precision placements and updated snapping options, a new environmental control panel, a map editor, and the ability to place structures freely.
Perhaps most importantly, anyone who owns the PlayStation 4 or Xbox One version and its DLC will receive Cities: Skylines Remastered and DLC (up to the Airports expansion) for free on their respective console family. Those who don’t already own the last-gen console version can grab Cities: Skylines Remastered for $40.
You can see a very brief teaser rattling off some of the improvements the team made for this new version below.
Cities: Skylines Remastered arrives on PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X/S on February 15. The remastered versions of the DLC will become available in the coming months. For more on Cities: Skylines, read our 2015 review of the PC version here and the 2017 console version here. You can also read our 2021 interview with the CEO of Colossal Order on the enduring success of Cities: Skylines here.