A New Contender for the City-Building Throne

While Steam is flooded with countless city-building titles, few have dared to challenge the established dominance of the genre's king. For over a decade, building vast, modern metropolises with complex traffic simulations and three distinct zoning types has meant choosing between Cities: Skylines or its troubled sequel. Now, however, that landscape might be shifting as Paradox Interactive faces potential competition for the title of de-facto mayor of city sims. Enter City Masterplan, a newly announced metropolis simulator that is filing its zoning permit request squarely in the home turf of the long-running franchise.

Realism Meets Control in City Masterplan

Developed by 1:1 Studio, this "highly realistic" title aims to strike "the perfect balance between 'ultimate realism' and 'smooth control'," according to its Steam page. The game offers massive environmental canvases spanning 24x24km, allowing players to construct cities ranging from traditional American metropolises to unique "Chinese-style" urban environments.

The developers promise several key features designed to set it apart while staying true to the core gameplay loop:

  • Freeform road building tools that are decoupled from typical grid-based construction constraints.
  • "True-to-scale" iconic buildings drawn from an extensive architectural library.
  • "Advanced" procedural content generation ensuring cities evolve organically over time.

Visually, the trailer suggests a game similar in style to Cities: Skylines 2, with a heavy emphasis on realistic skies, dynamic lighting, and complex weather conditions. However, there is hope that it can avoid the performance pitfalls that plagued Skylines 2 at launch. It remains uncertain whether its foundation in Unreal Engine 5 rather than Unity will prove more or less stable, given the mixed track record of UE5 titles on PC hardware so far.

Can City Masterplan Revive the Genre?

There is undoubtedly room for a game like City Masterplan to enter the market. The original Skylines is now twelve years old, and its sequel has not yet met the high hopes of fans. While recent reviews have improved since Iceflake Studios took over development duties from Colossal Order, the general consensus remains decidedly mixed.

The big question remains: Could City Masterplan do to Skylines what Skylines did to SimCity? The early footage is certainly promising, but as we learned with Skylines 2, the true proof lies in the actual gameplay experience. Currently, there is no official release date for City Masterplan, though a launch before 2027 seems unlikely given the current development timeline. Until then, players will have to wait and see if this new contender can truly dethrone the veteran leader.