As Colossal Order gears up for the release of Cities: Skylines 2 later this year, they’ve started sharing what’s new and improved within the city building sequel. The second video focuses in on the totally overhauled traffic AI, a much maligned aspect of the original game.
Traffic in Cities: Skyline 2 will feature smarter and more nuanced pathfinding that should help to alleviate many of the impossible to solve traffic jams of the first game. Where that title would have a simple shortest route form of pathfinding that would lead to M25-like traffic jams, Cities: Skylines 2 gives each AI vehicle pathfinding based on four key elements.
Time (the quickest route) will still be one of the most important pathfinding “costs” that the AI weighs up, but that comes alongside “comfort”, which is about traffic, tricky intersections and a smooth journey. Availability, convenience and cost of parking is another factor in whether or not the AI citizens even go – they might pick public transport over a car journey if it’s better value for money.
The final factor is behaviour, which is the more dynamic actions of the AI to switch lanes, pull of U-turns to reverse course and more. These actions will be taken if they get caught behind a traffic accident, see an off-ramp that’s already full of traffic, and so on.
That’s right, there can be traffic accidents, losing control if there’s wet roads, extreme weather or tricky times of day increasing the risk. Poor road condition from not keeping on top of maintenance will also make things worse, so you’ll need to dispatch (and fund) the road maintenance crew to fix things.
All of this should help to make large cities more feasible in Cities: Skylines 2, where before they might get stuck in a perpetual logjam.
This all builds on top of the tweaks and changes made to the road tools in the game, with a variety of new and returning options for players. For example, roads automatically carry water, electricity and sewage, removing one fussy aspect of the original, and you can quickly drop multiple blocks of roads in just a few clicks.
It all looks like a wonderfully reconsidered take on the city builder, and I’m keen to see more.
Cities: Skylines 2 is coming out on 23rd October across PC, PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X|S. It will be in Xbox Game Pass as well.
