Road tools
Draw roads the way real towns grow: at any angle, curved, in circles or as ready-made grids. Lift highways onto raised decks so through traffic passes over your streets, and join them up with on and off ramps.
- Streets, one-way roads, avenues, boulevards and highways
- Curves, circles and roundabouts, with the angle shown as you draw
- A mirror tool that builds both halves of a symmetrical town at once
Junctions and lane rules
Every junction is yours to tune. Add lights, stop and yield signs, ban turns, and decide which lane may go left, ahead or right. Drivers read the arrows you paint and pick their lane to match.
- Traffic lights with a real amber phase
- No U-turn, no left and no right turn signs
- Auto fix smooths awkward junctions for you
Zones and growth
Zone homes, shops, offices and industry, and the city builds itself. Lots become fenced building sites with cranes, houses are rebuilt bigger as families prosper, and a happy, growing city earns its towers.
- Low, medium and high density, up to 136-floor towers
- Seven lot sizes, from a tiny corner plot to a site eight lots wide
- Offices that only grow where people have diplomas and degrees
Landmarks and big builds
Place the buildings that make a city famous. Stadiums fill on game night, airports bring visitors and new residents, and a race track, theme park and observation tower draw tourists who pay the city.
- Football, baseball and soccer stadiums with named teams
- Two airports, train stations and a nuclear power station
- Set ticket and parking prices at every attraction
Every resident is a person
Nobody in The City is a number. Each resident has a name, a home, a job, savings, a car or not, and opinions. Click anyone in the street to follow their day, see their tickets, or find out what is bothering them.
- People walk, drive, park, take the bus or sit in your jams
- Children go to school, adults study for degrees and change jobs
- Unhappy people stop paying their full tax, and eventually leave
Traffic that behaves
Cars queue, keep to their lane, wait for gaps and give way to people crossing. Nobody drives through anyone else, so a bad junction really jams, and fixing it really works.
- Crashes close lanes until the police and tow truck clear them
- Emergency vehicles weave through as cars pull over
- Drivers who cannot park look further away and walk the rest
Buses and getting around
Build a depot, place the stops and draw each route stop by stop. Buses pull into their own lay-bys, run from early morning to late at night, and carry people who would otherwise drive.
- Route colours drawn on the map while you plan
- Garages from 80 to 1,200 spaces, and prices you set
- Walking paths that people use when they are shorter
Fire, police and health
Services need a building, a budget and staff from your own residents. Fire engines race through traffic, crews run out hoses, police patrol and pull drivers over, and ambulances answer every crash.
- Write the road rules and set every fine
- Post a patrol at any junction that keeps causing trouble
- Clinics, hospitals and a medical center with real reach
Power, water and sewers
Utilities run along your roads. Build a plant beside any road and everything joined to it is served, up to what the plant can make, from wind turbines to a nuclear station with steaming cooling towers.
- Nothing is built without electricity and water
- Plants short of staff drop to half output
- Coloured markers show what any building is missing
Snow, rubbish and public works
One depot keeps the city clean and moving. Ploughs go out after every snowfall, widest roads first, and garbage trucks work the streets that have waited longest.
- Snowy roads slow cars and cause more crashes
- Uncollected rubbish makes a neighbourhood unhappy
- Bigger cities need more than one depot
Climate and seasons
Spring blossom and rain, full summer green, red and gold in the fall, and snow that settles on roofs and roads in winter. Every tree changes, a few at a time, as each season arrives.
- Rain showers and snowfalls
- Frozen ponds, icicles and snow on the buildings
- Switch seasons off if you prefer endless summer
Winter on the roads
Snow settles on every lane, and the city has to deal with it. Traffic wears the busy roads back to wet asphalt within a couple of hours, quiet streets stay white for half a day, and your ploughs head out after every snowfall, widest roads first.
- Cars slow down and crash more on deep snow
- Signals, stop lines and crossings stay readable under the snow
- Uncleared streets make the people on them unhappy
Day and night
Dusk turns the sky red, the street lamps come on, and office windows light up floor by floor under a pale moon. The city keeps running all night, and its people keep their own hours.
- A game day lasts about an hour at normal speed
- Stadium games every evening
- Buses and garbage trucks work their own shifts
A working economy (new in 1.9)
Every resident is simulated for real: their own job and working hours, their own paycheck, the taxes taken out of it, and the rent, bills, groceries, car loan, gas and insurance they pay. Prices are real US prices by the month, and each game day is charged a thirtieth of the month. Open any family's household window to see where every dollar goes.
- Owned homes, landlords who live in your city, and real estate offices that sell houses
- Car loans priced by each resident's credit score, plus insurance, fuel and repairs
- Set the taxes and charges for power, water, tuition, bus fares and parking: the city is paid at midnight
Play with a friend
Invite a friend through Steam and build the same city together, on one budget. The host's game runs the city while you both lay roads, zone and place buildings.
- Steam achievements to earn
- Your city on your own player page and the leaderboards
- Help and guides in the game, one key away
Built with its players
Press F8 anywhere in the game to ask for a feature or report a bug, with a picture of your city attached. Good ideas go on a public list, and players vote on what we build next.