Despite the fact that it has been a number of years because the sequel got here out, the unique Cities Skylines stays the king of metropolis constructing video games for now. A decade of DLC and mod assist would have been exhausting to beat even when Cities Skylines 2 had labored the best way it was speculated to when it launched–but it definitely didn’t. Fortuitously, the unique nonetheless delivers the products in 2026, and modders are nonetheless making new mods for it.
The issue, nonetheless, is that after over a decade of oldsters making stuff, the Steam Workshop for Cities Skylines is huge, with greater than 358,000 mods, maps, buildings, autos, props, and different stuff to kind via, and navigating all that ain’t straightforward. However that is what we’re right here for. Beneath you may discover a number of a number of the greatest Cities Skylines mods to get you began in your journey.
Visitors Supervisor: President Version
One of many greatest points with Cities Skylines has all the time been traffic–it’s very straightforward to unintentionally create new visitors jams as soon as your inhabitants has ramped up, and you may spend quite a lot of your time with this sport smoothing these jams out. Fortuitously, this Visitors Supervisor mod has all of the instruments you may must micromanage all facets of your metropolis’s visitors move.
Transfer it
This mod merely lets you choose any object on the map and transfer it nonetheless you need, which regularly makes life simpler than it might be if you happen to needed to delete and substitute each constructing you plopped in barely the improper place. It is an extremely great tool in lots of small methods, fixing a ton of minor irritations.
81 Tiles
For some cause, Cities Skylines doesn’t allow you to use the total map by default–and unlocking all of the accessible tiles nonetheless solely provides you a couple of third of the accessible area. This mod solves that downside, providing you with entry to your complete map so you’ll be able to construct as a lot as you are ready.
Community Anarchy
Community Anarchy is a mixture of a pile of various highway mods that can allow you to do no matter you need whenever you’re constructing your metropolis’s streets, like forcing the bottom to observe the elevation of the highway or eradicating all limitations concerning slope angles.
Sport Anarchy
Sport Anarchy is basically a cheat mod that lets you management the basics of your city–you can eradicate air pollution, make your total populace educated, unlock all of the distinctive buildings and place as many of every as you need, give your self cash, and on and on. Even if you happen to do not need to cheat, Sport Anarchy is critical for serving to take care of a few of Cities Skylines weirder quirks, like its “loss of life waves” that always overwhelm your crematoriums and cemeteries.
Tree Management
To make your digital metropolis really feel like an actual one, you are going to want to brighten it with foliage like timber and bushes–this mod permits you to take away the restrictions on tree placement so you’ll be able to place them on roads or on a constructing lot and make your city far more immersive.
Prop Management
That is basically the identical mod as Tree Management, however for different kinds of ploppable “props,” akin to statues, lightposts and different comparable issues.
Community Multitool
This mod is just like Community Anarchy, however it’s obtained a really particular focus: enabling new kinds of highway junctions so you’ll be able to far more simply design complicated roadways. Whereas no mod will make road-building as intuitive as it’s in Cities Skylines 2, the Community Multitool will allow you to come pretty shut.
Loading Display screen Mod Revisited
One of many extra annoying issues about Cities Skylines is that its load occasions are inclined to get all the best way uncontrolled if you happen to’re utilizing quite a lot of mods and have a big city–we’re speaking 10+ minutes of loading right here. The Loading Display screen Mod streamlines the loading course of to make it a lot sooner and extra environment friendly.
Parallel highway instrument
It is not overly troublesome to position roads in parallel in Cities Skylines by default, however it does require some effort. Fortuitously, this mod takes quite a lot of the hassle out of it by letting you place as many parallel community paths as you want–roads, practice tracks, strolling paths, and so forth.
First Particular person Digital camera
You will spend most of your time your metropolis from above, however a giant a part of the enjoyable of constructing a metropolis in Cities Skylines is looking at it from the bottom each as soon as in a while–and this mod makes doing a lot simpler. You may merely click on on any citizen or car in your metropolis, and you will have a brand new choice to tackle their standpoint, following an individual as they stroll round, or a bus because it drives its route.
IOperate It Revisited
That is really an add-on for the First Particular person Digital camera mod above which lets you really drive autos reasonably than simply view their perspective. It is not the smoothest driving expertise, in fact, since Cities Skylines doesn’t even have mechanics for this, however it works higher than you’d most likely anticipate and is fairly amusing.
Take away Chirper
No one likes Chirper, the goofy fake Twitter that your residents will use to complain when their energy goes out or no matter. This mod fully removes Chirper from the sport so you’ll be able to ignore it absolutely, however needless to say you could miss out on some issues that the folks of your metropolis are having as a result–but actually Chirper is so irritating that it is a honest commerce.
Node Controller Renewal
While you create an intersection to a roadway, it provides a node that this mod can customise extensively in any method you choose–when used at the side of Community Anarchy and Community Multitool, you may have virtually full granular management over how your metropolis’s roads function.
Intersection Marking Device
As soon as you’ve got manipulated your roads and intersections to make them perform the best way you want, you might also want to alter how they give the impression of being. This mod, which is only aesthetic and doesn’t affect visitors move, will let you paint fancy strains in your roads to match your fancy intersections.
Precision Engineering
Should you’re the type of one who needs their roads to go precisely the place you plan them to, Precision Engineering will likely be a godsend. With this mod you may have new tooltips for angles and size on the sections of highway you are constructing, in addition to new constructing choices, like the power to snap an intersection in five-degree increments. That won’t sound like a lot on paper, however these are extraordinarily helpful quality-of-life options.
Improved Public transit
This mod provides various new granular choices for managing your public transit strains, together with the power to alter car sorts on the fly–very useful if you happen to’ve downloaded customized trains or monorail automobiles. And you can too edit car sorts themselves and alter their capability or velocity, which you may most likely must do if you happen to use the following mod.
Practical Inhabitants
By default, Cities Skylines inhabitants numbers do not work on a standard human scale–it’s fairly foolish, for instance, that there are residential skyscrapers that solely have a pair dozen residences in them. This mod rescales and rebalances the sport’s inhabitants calculations to generate inhabitants numbers that resemble the true world’s. Simply needless to say utilizing this mod will add vital complexity to the gameplay.
Superior Car Choices
That is similar to Improved Public Transit, however for automobiles, vans, and airplanes. You’d use this for, say, growing the capability of cargo autos to allow them to ship extra gadgets out of your industrial areas to your business zones, or permitting your hearses to hold extra lifeless our bodies earlier than returning to the cemetery.
ACME Digital camera Mod
The usual digicam view for Cities Skylines is admittedly irritating in a bunch of how, like the way it simply won’t allow you to pull again far sufficient to see your complete metropolis without delay. ACME Digital camera Mod solves that and mainly every other challenge you may need had with the best way the digicam works by default, providing you with granular management over its motion so you can also make it do just about something you need to.
Limitless Outdoors Connections Revisited
Cities Skylines maps have built-in connections to neighboring cities, however this mod will let you add a bunch extra just by connecting your personal roads, practice tracks, and ship paths to the sting of the map (you may want each the 81 Tiles and Community Anarchy mods listed right here to try this). With much more neighbors to work together with, the transportation facets of Cities Skylines open up in some fascinating new methods.
FPS Booster
You may by no means go improper with further frames in Cities: Skylines. The FPS Booster grants you additional frames per second, and the additional quantity you get relies in your PC’s {hardware}. When you have a system that meets the minimal or really helpful specs, although, you may see a noticeable improve.
Undo It!
We have all misplaced an object or highway in Cities: Skylines earlier than, and it may be troublesome to take away the item after it is already been positioned. With the Undo It! mod, although, you’ll be able to seamlessly undo and even redo constructing placements with the press of a button proper after they’ve occurred. This mod works at the side of the Transfer It mod, which we listed earlier.
Theme Mixer 2
Among the finest elements about Cities: Skylines are the varied map themes you’ll be able to mess around with. Nevertheless, within the vanilla model of the sport, you’ll be able to’t combine and match these themes on a single map. That every one modifications with the Theme Mixer 2 mod, which lets you simply use all kinds of various themes all through one map. You may even change your themes straight whereas in a sport, providing you with loads of freedom to experiment with completely different themes on the go.
Community Highlighter
This mod is a visible tweak that lets you spotlight every sort of network–meaning roads and practice tracks and different pathways–with no matter colours you wish to make it simpler to tell apart them from one another at a look. That won’t sound that spectacular, however it’s the type of sensible little quality-of-life enchancment that you simply will not be capable of think about dwelling with out as soon as you’ve got used it for some time.
Inhabitants Demographics
Should you’re a nerd for data–and there is a respectable likelihood you might be if you happen to’re enjoying simulation video games like this one–then Inhabitants Demographics by racav8tr is an absolute must-have. This can be a mod that can allow you to get to know your cities in additional depth than ever earlier than because it breaks down your inhabitants by age, training, employment, well being, and many different classes. You may even find out about folks in particular districts. It is an addictive new wrinkle.
