City Building Games Have a Soul Problem: Part 2

By Alex Lingris | October 3rd, 2026

Despite my lingering frustrations with Cities: Skylines 2, I find myself returning to it repeatedly. There is a primal pull to the genre that transcends specific game flaws.

When we were children, we spent hours gliding toy cars across felt mats printed with miniature city grids. For those of us with more "industrial" inclinations, we headed outdoors to carve tunnels and erect bridges in the dirt, right beside the family rose bushes. Some of us were lucky enough to have an uncle who converted a spare room into a sprawling miniature world of model trains and stations.

I believe a remnant of those childhood fantasies fuels my current compulsion to launch Cities: Skylines and attempt to breathe life into a digital metropolis.

In my [previous installment], I focused on the broader mechanics of the genre, sparking some fascinating debates (particularly on Reddit) regarding simulation depth. However, that discussion was technical. Today, I want to pivot away from the "how it works" and focus on the aesthetics—specifically, why the visual experience leaves me feeling empty every time I survey my creation.

The Tyranny of the Right Angle

One of the most jarring aspects of the current experience is that everything feels unnaturally rigid. Surfaces are relentlessly square and flat.

When analyzing a random sector of my city to understand why it looks "ugly," I noticed the intersection where the sidewalk, building tiles, and grass meet. It is a harsh, clinical seam.

In-game screenshot of Cities: Skylines 2 showing rigid, perfectly straight square seams where sidewalk, grass, and building tiles meet.

The Contrast: Edited visual concept showing organic, blended transitions and natural edge detailing where grass meets paved surfaces.

While power users can utilize mods and decals to achieve a more organic look, the average player cannot be expected to spend $\approx 40$ hours micro-managing every single curb and corner. If you don't invest that grueling amount of manual labor, the city feels lifeless.

Furthermore, a core joy of these games is the "observation phase"—simply watching the algorithms generate a living world. If I have to hand-paint every detail to make it look real, the magic of the simulation is effectively deleted.

The Problem of "Neurotic Cleanliness"

I love wandering through the downtown streets of Athens, searching for those charming, weathered corners. These spots aren't "beautiful" in a traditional sense, nor are they clean, but they tell a story.

In Cities: Skylines 2, the world is sanitized to a neurotic degree.

Comparison: Sterile vs. Soulful

Feature	The "Game" Version	The "Real World" Version
Pavements	Perfectly smooth, uniform grey	Cracked, stained, weathered
Edges	Sharp 90-degree angles	Overgrown grass, eroded soil
Atmosphere	A sterile architectural render	A lived-in, breathing organism
Detail	Minimalist/Empty	Cluttered/Complex

Default Cities: Skylines 2 street view showing a plain, sterile urban corner lacking surface detail. Proposed visual improvement for a street corner, adding procedural detail, ground clutter, and realistic texture blending.

If I were directing the design, I would study 100 photos of actual cities and catalog the "imperfections" that create character.

The "Soul" Checklist:

Potholes and pavement cracks
Overflowing trash and litter
Tangled overhead cables
Graffiti and street art
Active construction sites & scaffolding
Utility poles
$\text{Traces of the Past}$ (repurposed buildings/spaces)
Fallen leaves and organic debris
Non-linear, organic shapes

In-game view of a pristine, perfectly clean urban street in Cities: Skylines 2 with no visible wear or grime. Mockup of the urban street with added surface wear, subtle dirt, and realistic pavement weathering.

In my own neighborhood, perhaps 1 in 50 homes is as pristine as the ones in the game. Most have damp patches on the walls, weeds in the driveway, or laundry hanging from a balcony. Even the most manicured lawns eventually surrender to nature in the corners.

Visual Feedback and Urban Decay

Real cities are not monolithic; they contain pockets of poverty and abandoned structures. This isn't just about "grit"—it's about functional feedback.

Currently, to find a problem area, you must open a statistics panel. Instead, the landscape should communicate the city's health visually. ~~You shouldn't need a menu to see poverty.~~ You should see it in the peeling paint and the boarded-up windows.

Default Cities: Skylines 2 cityscape scene featuring spotless, uniform architecture and sterile public space. Enhanced visual concept showing character-filled urban space with lived-in details and subtle atmospheric grit.

In-game screenshot showing awkward elevation changes and steep ground slopes without pedestrian stairs in Cities: Skylines 2. Conceptual mockup showing outdoor stairs and terraced steps smoothly connecting elevated terrain.

The "Soul" Equation

We can think of the aesthetic quality of a city as: $\text{City Soul} = (\text{Organic Geometry} + \text{Environmental Grit} + \text{Historical Layering}) - \text{Sterility}$

Summary of the "Soul Problem"

The disconnect can be visualized as a loop of expectation versus reality:

To fix this, developers could implement a "grunge" or "character" system. In pseudo-code, it might look like this:

{
  "environmental_assets": {
    "procedural_dirt": true,
    "dynamic_weathering": "enabled",
    "urban_clutter": [
      "trash_bags",
      "graffiti_tags",
      "potholes",
      "hanging_wires"
    ],
    "socio_economic_visuals": {
      "low_wealth_area": "peeling_paint, overgrown_yards",
      "high_wealth_area": "manicured_hedges, polished_stone"
    }
  }
}

I sincerely hope that future updates or DLCs for CS2—and the next generation of city builders—prioritize adding this missing soul.

Further Reading:

Showing up in your dad's Ferrari (March 11th, 2026)
Discussions on r/CitiesSkylines, r/CityBuilders, and Hacker News.

AI Disclosure: Artificial intelligence was utilized solely for proofreading, generating alt-text for images, and refining visual concepts.