We’ve got two Cities Skylines 2 trailers. The first trailer came when Cities Skylines 2 was announced and the second one with the official gameplay. After the video, we will take a look at each important frame and recap why they are so important to us.
In the following article you can see all the trailers analyses, which I will ass as they become available. And there are also some of my observations. All things are speculations until we see a gameplay. So I’m hoping that some of my wishes will come true at least from 15% and that I will at least hit on something.
Official Gameplay Trailer for Cities Skylines 2
A gameplay trailer has now been released with information on the official release date. If you look more at it, you will see a lot of details that will be fleshed out in the coming months via developer diaries. Below you can read about the individual frames from the trailer.
Here you should see the main features that are shown in the current trailer:
Another feature we will get are the upgradable buildings that SimCity 5 has, which look like the will extend our current main service buildings. This is a feature I’ve missed a lot in the current Cities Skylines.
In the lower left corner you can see a gas station. This may be a sample of the new city services that will be available in the game.
Traffic and intersections in general seem smoother to me. Overall, more intersections are crossing in more places and that looks truly realistic.
The networking looks simple and if you look at the details in the bottom panel with the other road types you can see that there are “pipes”. These should mean that there will be more emphasis on such features. However, I don’t see any roads with trees there. Won’t that be missed? Moreover, you can see in the next picture that the paths over the grid will rather distort it. Now let’s see what it looks like.
We should also see that zones will work differently and we will be able to choose the types of zones. There will be a “mixed zone” that has a commercial zone on the bottom layer, or it could just be the “hover” state of that icon.
We will see. To be clear, I honestly love this change. I will eventually have control how we evolve, and I think it will be great. The question is how the buildings will improve. We’ll see that soon enough. Also look at the “theme” on the left side of the tab. I think it will be a great feature as well.
From screen where the player is building a tram depo, we should see that there will be a lot of public transportation in the base version of the game. There will be “public cargo”, which should mean that we have more things to work with in the matter of transportation.
In the picture above, there is a new overview of public transport lines. As messy as it looked in the previous version, it looks simple and clean in this version. Good for us!
As we can see, specialized industry is still a part of the game, just as are industry types. This will be good for more distinct game features. The developers promise that Cities Skylines 2 will be a deeper and more sophisticated simulation. This can’t be denied them, as here too it looks like there will be more options for the industry to take – great!
Announcement trailer I.
Before the analysis, we will start with an announcement trailer to remind you the basics.
0:12 – Trailer launch in the underground
The trailer starts underground and we can see that there are cables running underground that gradually start to rise and turn into a lamp. This should indicate a new level of detail in the services. As the seed grows in the first seconds, some additional maintenance may be more important.
0:14 – It’s time to start from the beginning
It’s time to start from beginning
This should mean the announcement of new the game. Or it could lead to speculation of a new game engine, that the developers of Colossal Order will relaunch the game from the engine.
0:21 – Unreal Engine 5 speculation
At 0:21, we could see the lamp light up, and we could see the information that the trailer is “not actual gameplay”, so Cities Skylines 2 will look different than the current version of the trailer. The important part, however, is the gas station in the middle of this footage…
… this gas station sparked a wave of speculations when Youtube City Planner Plays revealed that it was one of the assets for Unreal Engine 5. (actualization > We were fooled with this. Colossal Order has confirmed that Cities Skylines 2 will be Unity based. )This screen could also indicate that the maps will be large. In fact, the city is in the distance.
0:25 – Traffic on the highway
On the next screen, there is traffic in multiple rows. We can also spot maintenance on the highway. Gradually our camera passes a fire truck and then the camera continues under a bridge that is under construction. We should see realistic directional signs. The whole theme is American.
This could mean that traffic will be similar to the traffic in Cities Skylines 1. There will probably be more details such as maintenance and in-build / programmatically generated decorations (?)
0:32 – Neat and decorated roundabout
This part of the video is quiet and very calm for me. Traffic is very smooth here. This frame may indicate there will be more details around buildings that won’t be in grids and that the city will look much more realistic. Also, did I mention in the pervious frame that there should be programmatically generated decorations?
0:35 – This city has a story
This city has a story
In another shot, we can see a living city and a quote. This can mean a lot. The first thing I imagine is that each person in the game may have their own unique story. At least on some more general level… that would be incredible! This can also mean that each person in the city would have their own routine. And that would be a huge change. But back to the frame.
In the shot, there are buildings that relate to each other better. The question is how this will translate into the game, nevertheless, multi-zones are something we players would really like to see. These details could bring something the first version didn’t have – the variety. So hopefully they will implement it well.
0:38 – Differences between districts?
In this frame we can see lively streets. There are some details that suggest that there will be better connections between districts + different styles of these districts. On the left side you can see more old buildings, but on the other side there are modern buildings with green trees. I am very much looking forward to seeing how these details will be handled in the European style, for example. But again, we will see this more of that in the next trailer.
0:44 – Realistic models
Down the road there is a shot of a skyscraper and perfect reflections. Again, this could be one of the features of the Unreal Engine that this trailer was shot in, but perhaps this is some sort of teaser for the engine that Cities Skylines 2 made. It can also mean that the city will be sophisticated and enjoyable at first sight.
0:53 – Realistic weather and detailed streets.
Another great detail is the weather, which looks great. There will probably be more climate details to confirm other images showing the changing seasons (below). There are also hydrants which we have seen several times before.
We also see that cars parked on the sidewalk (realistic parking system 🤔 ), bike lanes (so this traffic will be in the base game?) and more detailed directional signs. Moreover, there is a full garbage can. Another indication of a greater attention to detail.
1:00 – Complex buildings / economic multiplayer
Another important part is this rich harbour, which is full of cargo ships. This would suggest that trade will be more important and and will support asynchronous multiplayer in which our cities will be connected by cargo routes and will make trades with each other. Hence, multiplayers will be on an economic level.
Or it could mean that we will see more complex buildings for services, like in the last SimCity. Imagine a game feature with which you could upgrade your services to large buildings. This would be simply awesome.
1:13 – Changes of seasons
After the harbor there is a view on a park. Some people say these pictures are “in-game” because they are on the Steam page, and one of the rule of Steam is that you have to have in-game photos. But the important thing is that there will be dynamic changes in the seasons that will affect our cities. This should lead to new challenges for us players.
1:18 – Will there be a more realistic and slower process of building?
In the next frame, there is a slow process of building. These could be elements just for the trailer or they could mean that we will be waiting for the buildings to be built. We could also see taller skylines, so could this mean that our downtown will have larges building than the previous Cities Skylines?
1:25 – Unique buildings
Right after “flying” through the construction site, we see a completely different building than the other. We know from achievements that the developers call some of the new buildings as “signature buildings” => So I think they will make the new unique buildings a game feature. They will probably be more customizable as well.
1:28 – Living streets
But back to the streets. In this case, I have to remind you again that we are looking at a trailer and not gameplay footage. If this was what the game looked like, it would be amazing – I know.
In this frame, we can see different streets as I mentioned above. There are yellow cars (so there will be taxis?) and also more types of cars (more realistic according to the standard of living and the needs of the population ???). On the left there is an entrance to an underground garage. On the right, there is a mixed zone.
1:33 – Airplanes
After the full street of life we can see airplanes, which in my opinion may again refer to the connection with other players that I mentioned above. Perhaps more detailed airport management is already built into the base game. But it’s more indicative of the economic multiplayer. It could also refer to the travel systems, and should mean that your people will need more services and attention from your side.
1:46 – Construction workers
After a shot of slowly rising skyscrapers, change comes again. A bridge and a gradual move away from the city. We should see lively traffic, construction workers and scenery of a city with tall skyscrapers. These simulations could be interesting. I’m looking forward seeing the results!
1:48 – Huge city at the end
One of the last shots of the city is this one. After that, a building grows up to block the view. We can see skylines and other smaller and natural buildings. This may indicate a greater diversity of buildings – I hope so! There are also middle buildings on the right side. Because of that I hope that there will be more building heights because “small” and “big” were not as good as they looked. In the picture you can see what I think a real city looks like, and I wish to see similar scenery in Cities Skylines 2.
What was missing in the first trailer?
I definitely miss the public transportation in the first trailer. Buses, taxis and planes were there but what about subways/trams/trains. Also we only see some parts of city and we don’t get any information about the countryside. This could be what the new Cities Skylines 2 misses. I also didn’t see much industrial zones. Also there won’t be many basic services (according to the trailer).
I would like to see more game features from the community wishlist. We will probably see more trailers in the future I think and that will show other parts of the cities so nicely. But much more we will look forward to the gameplay trailer. So fingers crossed for Colossal. I’m looking forward to more content!
More about Cities Skylines 2 in our articles: All we know about Cities Skylines 2, All leaks about Cities Skylines 2, Gameplay snippets, Release date of Cities Skylines 2, System requirements, Price details for Cities Skylines 2 etc.
