Once you start on Cities Skylines, say a heartfelt farewell to your free time. Loved SimCity 4? Buy this. You won't regret it.

This game has two sides.
Out of the box it is a fun, but somewhat repetitive after 100 hours, city simulation game. It'll still take up months of your time, but eventually all your cities will look the same.
The mods is where the game truly becomes a masterpiece. Once you get the right mods, it truly becomes a giant sandbox. You'll be able to do everything from combine buildings to creating parks to the tiniest details, to combining thousands of props to create your own buildings from scratch right inside the game. Take a stroll around the city, hop on a bus... You can dream it, you can probably do it.

Pro's:
- Various play styles. The developers included mods to enable Sandbox mode and Hard Mode, so you can choose how you wish to play. Want to play without money first, then turn money back on? Sure, just turn off the Unlimited Money mod!
- MODS. No, seriously, the mods make this game what it is. Between Move It, Plop The Growables, RICO, More Beautification, Anarchy mods and TMPE, this becomes a completely different game. You can do pretty much anything.
- Assets. The workshop is full of extraordinary assets, and it grows larger every day.
- The community is amazing.

Con's:
- The game is build on the Unity Engine. This engine was not meant for simulation games, especially of this size. It doesn't support lazy loading, meaning all 81 tiles are all loaded and rendered at all time, and all assets (vanilla and custom) are loaded into the RAM for the entire duration of the game, whether you use them or not. As such you'll need a decent amount of RAM and a decent CPU to run the game.
- Traffic takes some thinking. Cims are abysmal drivers, and so just slapping down a few roads is not enough. You'll have to start learning a bit about how traffic works. There are Traffic AI mods that improve things, but they are quite CPU heavy.

Yes if:
- You're looking for a sandbox city builder where you can build whatever city you like. Grab a few mods and it becomes a virtual sandbox for you to play around in.
- You want a sequel to SimCity 4.

No if:
- You're looking for an in-depth socio-economic, demographic city management game. There is no political system.
- You own a system with an IntelHD GPU. Just don't, it clearly says it's incompatible. Stop complaining the game doesn't work.

Once you start on Cities Skylines, say a heartfelt farewell to your free time. Loved SimCity 4? Buy this. You won't regret it. This game has two sides. Out of the box it is a fun, but somewhat repetitive after 100 hours, city simulation game. It'll still take up months of your time, but eventually all your cities will look the same. The mods is where the game truly becomes a masterpiece. Once you get the right mods, it truly becomes a giant sandbox. You'll be able to do everything from combine buildings to creating parks to the tiniest details, to combining thousands of props to create your own buildings from scratch right inside the game. Take a stroll around the city, hop on a bus... You can dream it, you can probably do it. Pro's: - Various play styles. The developers included mods to enable Sandbox mode and Hard Mode, so you can choose how you wish to play. Want to play without money first, then turn money back on? Sure, just turn off the Unlimited Money mod! - MODS. No, seriously, the mods make this game what it is. Between Move It, Plop The Growables, RICO, More Beautification, Anarchy mods and TMPE, this becomes a completely different game. You can do pretty much anything. - Assets. The workshop is full of extraordinary assets, and it grows larger every day. - The community is amazing. Con's: - The game is build on the Unity Engine. This engine was not meant for simulation games, especially of this size. It doesn't support lazy loading, meaning all 81 tiles are all loaded and rendered at all time, and all assets (vanilla and custom) are loaded into the RAM for the entire duration of the game, whether you use them or not. As such you'll need a decent amount of RAM and a decent CPU to run the game. - Traffic takes some thinking. Cims are abysmal drivers, and so just slapping down a few roads is not enough. You'll have to start learning a bit about how traffic works. There are Traffic AI mods that improve things, but they are quite CPU heavy. Yes if: - You're looking for a sandbox city builder where you can build whatever city you like. Grab a few mods and it becomes a virtual sandbox for you to play around in. - You want a sequel to SimCity 4. No if: - You're looking for an in-depth socio-economic, demographic city management game. There is no political system. - You own a system with an IntelHD GPU. Just don't, it clearly says it's incompatible. Stop complaining the game doesn't work.