The City

The City is a city-building game in which you plan streets and neighborhoods, provide services, manage public finances and respond to residents’ needs. You can let zoning fill areas with buildings or place them yourself, then watch construction unfold on site. Residents’ happiness shapes the city’s overall mood, which affects whether homes upgrade, businesses open and new people move in.

Residents and the city

Each household has a profile showing its family, bank account and statement, monthly bills and cars. Adults earn hourly wages based on their education and jobs, pay taxes, and spend money on rent, groceries, daycare, insurance, fuel and fines. Their happiness reflects around 70 visible factors, including commute times, nearby shops and factories, break-ins, dark roads, high bills and snowbound homes.

Unhappy residents pursue changes that could help them, such as finding a job, getting a better one, going to school or moving to a nicer home. If rent takes too much of their pay, they may move somewhere cheaper, end up in a camp or leave the city. Every adult has a credit score from 300 to 850: steady work, savings and timely bill payments raise it, while missed payments, unemployment, jail time and a run-down neighborhood lower it. The five credit tiers—Excellent, Good, Fair, Poor and Bad—have different car-loan interest rates.

Residents buy cars from your dealerships and finance them over 60 months. Bad credit rules out a new-car loan, and two missed payments lead to repossession. The city has a credit score too, and can borrow up to $250,000; missed payments make later loans more expensive.

Streets and transport

You can draw 22 road types, from quiet streets to eight-lane highways, including roads with medians, turn lanes, bus lanes and one-ways of up to six lanes. Draw straight or curved roads, freeform layouts, circles and grids, either at ground level or raised. Ready-made junctions include diamond, cloverleaf, trumpet and dumbbell interchanges, as well as roundabouts. Drivers follow North American road rules, including traffic lights, stop and yield signs, speed limits from 15 to 85 mph, lane arrows, turn bans and crosswalks.

Cars park in lots, garages and on streets rather than disappearing into buildings, and you set parking prices. You can draw bus routes stop by stop and watch passengers board and leave; park-and-ride facilities and e-scooters give residents other ways to travel. Roads wear from new to cracked to potholed, and road crews patch and rebuild them. Accidents cause queues until cleared, with police, an ambulance and a tow truck sent to every crash.

Police and crime

The six police buildings are small and large stations, a headquarters tower, a jail, a prison gatehouse and an intelligence agency. Their street coverage is visible when you place them. Patrol cars drive the roads, and you choose whether they focus on balanced coverage, traffic, neighborhoods or downtown. You can hire additional officers, who train at the academy first.

You can enable or disable each of 13 traffic laws and set its fine; offenses include running red lights or stop signs, speeding, illegal U-turns, ignoring lane arrows, jaywalking and parking in a bus stop. Fines bring income to the city. When a patrol car spots a violation, it switches on its lights and both cars pull over. The driver receives a ticket or, for the worst offenses, is arrested. Drivers who have just been ticketed drive more carefully.

Break-ins happen at night and take residents’ savings, while patrols can catch burglars in the act. Dark streets, unhappy homes and poor neighborhoods attract crime. You can build a prison with cell wings, an exercise yard, mess hall, workshop, infirmary, visiting hall, guard towers and walls, then set its rules and daily schedule. Poor management can lead to fights, riots and escapes, with inmates in orange running through the streets.

Fire and public services

The city has seven fire stations, ranging from a free volunteer station to a heavy rescue station with ladder trucks, as well as a fire headquarters and fire academy. You place fire hydrants: after a fire, an engine without a nearby hydrant must return to refill its tank, while one with access can go straight to the next call. Unattended fires spread to neighboring buildings, and black smoke drifts with the wind.

Health services include clinics, urgent care, hospitals, ambulance stations, trauma centers and a medical center with a helipad. Death care includes funeral homes, hearses, cemeteries and crematoriums; if capacity is insufficient, the dead wait in their homes.

You provide utilities with wind, solar, coal, natural gas or nuclear power; water towers and pumping stations; sewage treatment; and garbage collection by trucks. The city also needs mail, phone and internet services. Water mains can break, and overloaded power grids can brown out until your crews make repairs.

Seasons and snow

The city has four seasons, each with its own look, and winter brings snow. Snow accumulates on roads, from flurries to blizzards, and traffic wears it down. Deep snow closes streets until plows clear them, so you need public works depots and working plow fleets. News forecasts blizzards; when one hits, schools, parks and attractions close for a snow day. Snow also makes crashes more likely, making road clearing important.

Homes, shops and attractions

You can zone residential, commercial, office, industrial and mixed-use areas at low, medium or high density. Mixed zones can put homes above shops or offices above shops. Happy families who save up can rebuild their homes through five grades, while wealthy residents can live in up to five mansions, villas and a Mayor’s house. Buildings are constructed on site with cranes and materials before they open.

There are 38 businesses you can place, including grocery stores, banks, gyms, gas stations, car dealerships, electronics and appliance stores, department stores, a supercenter, truck stops, EV chargers, real estate offices, daycares and a large furniture store. Food options include pizzerias, diners, taquerias, sushi bars, drive-throughs with working lanes and a French bistro. Residents have favorite cuisines and go out to eat. You can also build an amusement park, race track, go-kart track where visitors drive the karts, cinemas, museums, a hotel, an observation tower and arcades. Attractions charge ticket prices you set.

A modular zoo lets you lay out an entrance, exhibits, an aquarium and paths. Its animals walk, swim, fly and climb, and a wider range of species brings more visitors. The 21 parks give residents places to picnic, walk dogs, jog, play chess, feed ducks and skate. Holidays include Halloween, Thanksgiving, Christmas and the 4th of July, with decorations, trick-or-treaters, carolers and fireworks. Stadiums can host your named baseball, soccer or arena team; you set ticket prices, and attendance depends on the city’s size and what you charge.

Industry and city finances

You can mark trees for forestry crews to fell, haul and replant, dig quarries layer by layer with excavators, haul trucks and a rock crusher, and run farms growing wheat, corn and vegetables, as well as orchards, pasture and greenhouses. Tractors and combines work the farms. Stone, coal, oil and natural gas deposits vary between cities. Mines, oil fields and a refinery let you produce resources, with the refinery halving the price of gas.

Thirteen kinds of industry use supply chains. You can make their supplies in the city or import them, then sell surplus to other cities. You set residential, commercial, office and industrial tax rates, review a detailed budget and fund police, fire, education, health and utilities at levels from 50% to 150%. You can also set prices for power, water, sewer services, bus fares, tuition, parking and attractions. Fourteen district policies include rent control, neighborhood watch, quiet nights, free smoke alarms, recycling and street parking meters; you can paint districts yourself.

Education and city life

Education services include elementary, middle and high schools, school buses and school zones, a community college and a modular university you build piece by piece. Educated workers fill office jobs. You can address homelessness, spreading run-down neighborhoods and crime with shelters, city housing and police policies.

The game includes seven radio stations with original music. The Block, a hip-hop station, and Trance FM have their own DJs, who talk between songs and deliver city news in their own styles. A spoken city advisor warns you about fires, crashes, blizzards and other problems, while City Radio reports on events actually happening in your city. You can walk through the streets at eye level or get into any car and drive it.

Game modes

Campaign mode has ten timed challenges, from Practice Town to The City, each with population and happiness goals. Buildings unlock as your city grows. Sandbox mode keeps everyone happy and removes crime, fires and deaths, leaving you free to build.

In two-player multiplayer, one player hosts and invites a friend through Steam, and the other joins. You build side by side and can chat. The game also has 24 Steam achievements.