Cities: VR, a virtual reality adaptation of the hit city-builder Cities: Skylines, is now set to release on 28th April 2022 for Meta Quest 2 headsets. Developer Fast Travel Games has shared a gameplay walkthrough to show how they’ve adapted Colossal Order’s original work for the headset.
I think the first takeaway from this is that the visuals have taken a significant hit from the PC and console version of the game to the mobile chipset that powers the Meta Quest 2. The game’s graphics are brighter and more colourful, but also much more simplistic and stylised to get across the cityscape, but ensure that frame rates are kept nice and high – an absolute necessity for a pleasant VR experience. Cities: VR also scales back the size of the city you can create, for what they describe as a more “intimate” experience on a smaller scale.
However, despite that, you have the same style of city building and management, with traffic management, water flow for sewage management, power and keeping the populace happy. Floating pop up menus and dialogues will get across all the details you need, while the act of placing roads, electric networks, water pumping, and zoning are all handled with motion controls in what looks to be a nice and intuitive fashion.
At launch, some features like terrain editing and natural disasters are not included in Cities: VR at launch, but Fast Travel Games aim to take inspiration from the expansions and additions to the original game for where to go next.
“When we got the opportunity to reimagine Cities: Skylines for VR, we knew we had to jump at the opportunity,” said Erik Odeldahl, Creative Director of Fast Travel Games. “We’ve taken heavy inspiration from what the teams at Colossal Order and Paradox Interactive have created over the last seven years. We think that Cities: VR will be a great introduction to this franchise for new players, as well as a compelling new interpretation for Cities: Skylines veterans.”
The game is up for pre-order on the Meta Quest Store, with a 10% discount on its £22.99 price point.
Source: press release
