Cities XL
Cities XL is a city-building simulation game developed by Focus Home Interactive and Monte Cristo. The first version of the game was released in 2009, with several expansions released later.
The goal of the game is to build and manage a city, zoning residential, commercial and industrial areas and providing services like roads, power, water, emergency services, and public transportation. As the city grows, traffic and pollution must be managed to keep citizens happy.
The game allows for very large cities, with maps of up to 1024 square kilometers and population sizes in the millions. The large map sizes and numbers of buildings allow players to build truly massive urban sprawls and metropolises. This is one of the distinguishing features of the game compared to other city builders.
However, the game has drawbacks that detract from the experience. The economy and simulation of services is rather simplistic. Building placement can be tedious due to the snapping system. The game also suffers from issues like pathfinding problems, bad AI, and memory leaks that can cause performance issues for large cities.
Cities XL has some interesting ideas like the huge maps and populations, but the execution and attention to detail does not match the ambition. City planning enthusiasts may enjoy building huge sprawling metropolises for a while, but flaws in the simulation and gameplay ultimately limit the experience.
There are likely better city-building games available like SimCity 4, Cities Skylines, or even some of the older SimCity titles if you prefer a more polished and balanced city simulation experience. However, for those looking for a “bigger is better” city builder, Cities XL may still have some appeal if you can overlook its issues.