Cities: Skylines and SimCity have been the games you thought of whenever you imagined a city builder game. Both of them perfected their craft, becoming some of the most played titles in the whole genre. Cities: Skylines and SimCity may seem like a classic city building simulation-type-of-game, but there is much more to explore. With a vast modding community of city builders, you can create many modular buildings with your unique visual styles and have a lot of fun in this complex game! Both SimCity and City Skylines emphasize creativity. 

With plenty of expansions and fantastic core games – those city simulation games are something on a completely different level! Well then, it’s time to find our once and for all – which one is better! Let’s dive in!

Which city specialization mechanic works best? Which game can provide you with even more exciting mechanics to have fun with? Let’s find out!

SimCity

Let’s start with SimCity, a game that created the genre, to be honest. The latest edition from 2012, with the 2014 SimCity BuildIt add-on, has a long history, with the original game being released in the 1980s! So, how do they handle the mechanics? Here, you can build cities with much creative freedom and focus on balancing the roads and city development to keep the citizens happy. It’s all about the Sims content. You can manage their lives more, create zoning, budgeting for different parts of the city. It’s all a part of a smooth and responsive experience.

Cities: Skylines

On the other hand, Paradox Interactive Cities: Skylines created a much more detailed simulation that allows you to better understand and plan your city. One of the critical elements was the mods that allowed the game to live longer and build even bigger districts. That way, the player can create their own personalized experience. Additionally, Cities: Skylines do not have that many limitations like SimCity, with a more relaxed difficulty and restrictions on how big a city can be.

Verdict

Although we can appreciate the charm of caring for individual citizens in SimCity. Cities: Skylines just offers more when it comes to sheer gameplay and city building. It has little to no restrictions regarding creating the size of your town and expanding your reign. Both games are excellent when it comes to creating and managing a city. Thus – Cities: Skylines is a clear winner, in our opinion.

Next, we have the community clash between these games. Here, we will focus on the people who play the game, how they can help the players, what they do to enhance the gameplay further and – whether it is a toxic community or not. Let’s see for ourselves!

Sim City

Let’s start with SimCity. Thanks to the long run of the series, the community around this game is loyal and rather significant. Many people appreciate the feel of this game and what kind of nostalgia it evokes in it. It’s a welcoming community of people who enjoy the game and what the creators try to achieve. You can even play with people online, with different regions influencing each other and sharing resources.

Cities: Skylines

Cities: Skylines, on the other hand, can also provide you with a massive community of people helping out other players and modding the game to make it even more immersive and exciting. Additionally, Cities: Skylines has extremely responsive developers who are helping out with the problems players' problems; they provide extensive support for all the mods they are creating and are pretty good at what they do!

Verdict

Although both games have some good and bad about their community, Cities: Skylines is smaller.

Ultimately, while both games have their loyal followings, Cities: Skylines' robust modding support and responsive development team have contributed significantly to fostering a vibrant and engaged community around the game.

Following round – game modes. How can you exactly play those games? What are some significant distinctions between them? Which one offers more options? Well, as both of these titles offer a variety of possibilities, it’s time to decide which one did it better. So, let’s find out and see!

Sim City

Let’s start with SimCity. Here, you have many scenarios that allow players to tackle many challenges. Sometimes, a disaster will hit the city; sometimes, you must create public transportation options, loosen the crowded streets, or manage the budget. Those situations are significant to have fun with, as they allow you to have something to tackle, not just safely roam around, building the city.

Cities: Skylines

Next up, we have the modding aspect of those games. It’s essential, as those games allow you to create the world you want to live in. Whether it’s a traffic simulation, getting new buildings to the game, or even new characters, both games have attractive modding opportunities that you can utilize when creating your towns. So, let’s see which one did it better!

Cities: Skylines

Conversely, let’s start with Cities: Skylines. Here, the modding was the concept of this game from the get-go. There are lots of modding tools, outstanding support from the developers, and plenty of fantastic scenarios to go through. The community is all about it, with thousands of people creating new models daily, sharing it on their Reddit forums and other places. Generally, – there’s a lot of emphasis on this aspect of the game.

Additionally, you can find some of the biggest modding libraries in the gaming industry, with gameplay enhancements, some visual changes, and many customization options. Some of the most popular concepts are the real-life landmarks that present wonderful new worlds to implement into the game. It's definitely top of the top when it comes to the modding community.

Sim City

On the other side of the spectrum, we have SimCity. And let’s be frank, it has a much smaller modding community, as there are not many possibilities to modify the game as with Cities: Skylines. The tools gamers were allowed are pretty limited and are not comparable to what you can do in Cities: Skylines. Unfortunately, as the game seems ready for this approach, the developer has decided to keep it closed.

Verdict

There can only be one winner in this round. Cities Skylines has one of the most incredible modding communities in gaming history. Plenty of people are constantly adding new elements to the game, changing things up, and creating new and improved graphics or mechanics. This game was clearly built with this concept in mind, and we cannot wait to see more from them.

The final round actually changes nothing when it comes to the verdict, but it may be an interesting addition – complexity. The city-building games are expected to have many layers and should be treated as difficult games. Whether or not it’s a thing that makes people like the game more is totally circumstantial. Nevertheless, let’s see how our titles tackle the complexity aspect of those games.

Sim City

SimCity is definitely the accessible one in the family. It has nice visuals; everything is easy to understand and comprehend; the city-building experience is a lot of fun, and overall – it’s user-friendly, not that problematic city builder. The most important aspects of the games are managing budgets, urban planning, and taking care of all city services.

Cities: Skylines

Cities: Skylines, on the other hand, is the kind of game that you open up and have no idea what is going on, why it is like that, and you love every second of it. From tax deals through sewer systems to ending up with some zoning regulations, everything in this game can be divided into even smaller parts and even more complex situations. It’s a real in-depth look at what makes those games fascinating.

Verdict

So, what’s our verdict? Well, you can do whatever you like. Whether it’s something easy you would like to invest your time into, or you strive for something more complex – both games allow you to have fun in different ways. With SimCity, you can count on a more simplistic approach, and with Cities: Skylines – you have everything you could ever want in a city builder. Both games excel at what they’re trying to accomplish, so in our opinion – it’s definitely a draw.

And we have the winner! As it turns out, Cities Skylines offers you more in most cases. It has a huge modding community, but the core game allows you to build districts, create the whole world from scratch, and overall – have a much greater scope. You can have great fun creating the city and managing it, with lots of possibilities to use the modding tools. It’s just a much bigger game overall, and you can count on a fantastic community to always help you out if necessary. 

It’s one of the more interesting titles, not only when it comes to city-building games but also simulators overall. Of course, that does not mean that SimCity is a terrible game that offers little to nothing regarding gameplay and possibilities. It’s a much more linear game, but it grants you easier access and a more understandable UI. It’s up to you which one is better for you.

That’s it for today; we hope that you enjoyed this article. Find more on our site! Thanks for stopping, and we will see you in the next one!