Paradox and Colossal Order have been revealing plenty of flashy construction and management aspects of Cities: Skylines 2 in recent months. The latest development diary, however, focuses on the masses of people who live in the cities that players construct, detailing their lives, the choices they make, and how city development affect them.
Citizens in Cities: Skylines 2 are all dynamically living their lives in the simulation, per the studio, which include going to school or work, studying, shopping, being hospitalized, enjoying retirement, or participating in a range of other activities. Some citizens can even turn to a life of crime if the city's economic situation hasn't been too kind to them.
Keeping citizens happy is described as not being difficult. Having easy and reliable access to electricity, drinkable water, and plumbing will fill up most neighborhoods. But also making sure things like garbage collection is on time, pollution is low, internet is fast, and city services are readily available will make them stay and even thrive in player cities.
Players can also directly follow citizens to keep track of their lives from their birth to death, with every major decision and life change (called Lifepaths), as well as their Chirper feed, being reported live via a new UI screen. Speaking of Chirper, this universe's most popular social media platform is back and has upgrades in the sequel too.
"The chirps relate to actual events and looking at the “likes”, you can see just how important the subject matter is to the chirp sender and other citizens," details the studio. "Citizens can inform you about the lack of city services and congratulate you when their various service and leisure needs have been met."
Some citizens can even own pets, which show up beside them when out and about on sidewalks. This is purely cosmetic unfortunately, and doesn't affect citizen happiness or their household budgets.
Read the full dev diary from Colossal Order by heading here, which goes into detail on various conditions that can befall citizens, education and employment mechanics, and even about how tourists function when they visit.
There are two more of these deep dives left for Cities: Skylines 2. The next developer update, coming next week, will be looking into the title's sound and music aspects. The city builder will launch across PC, Xbox Series X|S, and PlayStation 5 on October 24, 2023. Xbox Game Pass and PC Game Pass subscribers are gaining gain access on day one for no extra cost as well.
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