Colossal Order delivered a fantastic city builder with Cities: Skylines and anticipation for the sequel is definitely high. In a recent interview with PC Gamer, the developer has shed some more light on the development of the game and how the sequel has incorporated fan feedback.
According to game designers Aura Laurila and Henri Haimakainen, Cities: Skylines 2 has been built while keeping in mind the feedback provided by fans. For instance, the road tool has been altered to allow players to have increased flexibility when designing their virtual cityscapes. In a similar vein, the developer has implemented traffic AI and mixed-zone buildings among a slew of other features.
“We’ve learned a lot from the feedback from the community and the wishes from the fans,” Haimakainen says. “People wanted to have a new traffic AI, and people really wanted to have mixed-zone buildings, as well as roundabouts.”
Furthermore, the developer also shed some light on the new economy system which is designed to be easy to pick up but difficult to master. The first few attempts at building a fully functioning city won’t be penalised in a harsh manner, but that doesn’t mean that the system wouldn’t be any less complex.
“The economics has probably been one of the most challenging things in the game to get just right,” says Haimakainen, “because we wanted the game to be, in a sense, that you can be a beginner and still feel good playing the game—so the game supports your first goes and you don’t bankrupt your cities, but we also wanted to have a complex system running underneath it.”
Cities: Skylines 2 will release on PC on October 24, with a console version coming next year.