Cities: Skylines
BANGER · Strategy · 2015
Steam Deck PlayableThe verdict
WAIT.
A BANGER today. The Winter Sale opens Dec 17, and it was discounted in 8 of its last 8 seasonal sales; 70% in the Winter Sale 2025.
Today
$29.99BANGER
Typical seasonal cut
$8.9970% offBANGER
- Cost per hourS
- $1.08/hr
- ReviewsS
- 93% of 290,860
- Critics
- 85 players 8 higher
- Genre rank
- Top 1% Strategy
Watch this gameOne alert at $8.99 or less.
Time and effort
- Main story
- 27.7h
- To 100%
- 180.9h 6.5x the story
- Achievements
- 135
Price and sales
- Sales
- 87 on record
- Typical cut
- 75% off
- Steam low
- $2.99 November 2024
- Sale every
- 42d last October 2026
Players and genre
- Online
- 7,684 now
- Cheaper than
- 3% of its genre
- Better reviewed
- 98% of its genre
Price and player charts
The drop-off
74% start to <1% rarestThis site could not identify an ending achievement for this game, so there is no finish rate. Steam global achievements
The value story
The value story
87 discounts in the 12 years on record, a median of 75 percent off across all of them, roughly 6 weeks apart. Today it is at full price, and its last discount ended about 4 weeks ago.
Its score puts it in the top 1 percent of the games it competes with. It is pricier than 97 percent of its genre, and better reviewed than 98 percent. Among the games closest to it, Transport Fever 2 ($39.99, scores 80) and Blacksmith Master ($19.99, scores 55) both come in lower.
More about Cities: Skylines
Critics scored it 85. Players sit 8 points higher at 93 percent, which usually means a game that plays better than it reviews.
This site sampled 800 of its Steam-purchase reviews; 9 were written by buyers who refunded it, sampled from reviews written April 2026 to September 2026. That is fewer refunded reviewers than 7 in 10 paid games this site has sampled to the same depth, and among the 2,604 games in its genre sampled this deeply, 2,148 have a larger share. Inside the two-hour refund window, 67 percent of the 7,470 reviews written there were positive, against 93 percent overall, and those are 3 percent of everything written about it.
The main story runs 27.7 hours. Doing everything runs 181, 6.5 times as long.
290,860 reviews stand behind that percentage.
Buy now or wait
Buy now or wait
Last discount ended 31 days ago.
Sources: IsThereAnyDeal, Valve.
What drives the score
Grades: S best, D weakest
S is the best grade and D the weakest, judged as a buyer. ▲ raises the score, ▼ lowers it, ? is an input we do not have, • is a fact this genre's score does not use. How the grades work
What players say
Instead of spending lots of money of Cities: Skylines II, the original game is 4 times cheaper and is decently fun. It's slightly upsetting that the DLCs are kind of expensive, but I recommend getting a few.
2 more reviews, 1 not recommended
Even years after its release, Cities: Skylines remains the absolute gold standard for city-building and traffic management simulation, easily outclassing newer alternatives in stability and content. Traffic Simulation & Infrastructure: At its core, this is a masterclass in urban planning and logistics. Balancing highway intersections, roundabouts, cargo trains, and public transit systems is both a brutal challenge...
The man they call a racist and genocidal figure is none other than Mustafa Kemal Atatürk, to whom our entire nation is deeply grateful. These slanderous claims and accusations are a direct insult to the Turkish community. If you remain silent and fail to take action against this, do not expect any revenue, player base, or support from Türkiye.
Steam reviews, mixed to its ratio and rotated daily. Opinions are theirs.
About the game
Cities: Skylines is a modern take on the classic city simulation. The game introduces new game play elements to realize the thrill and hardships of creating and maintaining a real city whilst expanding on some well-established tropes of the city building experience.
Minimum specs
Minimum on the Steam store: 8 GB of memory, 4 GB of storage. Runs on Windows, macOS, Linux.
Cite this score
Cities: Skylines scores 89/100 on the BANG Score (a BANGER) as of Nov 8, 2026. The BANG Score rates what a game is worth for the money. Via Steam BANGERS. https://steambangers.com/game/255710/cities-skylinesReviews set the ceiling, and price against real length moves the BANG Score inside it. How it works, and where it is weak → Steam reviews as of Nov 3, price as of Nov 8. A number here look wrong? Tell me and I will check the inputs.