Cities: Skylines, the critically acclaimed city builder, released by Paradox Interactive and Colossal Order, will be released for Windows 10 and the Xbox One respectively.
With Microsoft’s support, Cities: Skylines will transfer to Windows 10 and, of greater importance, to the Xbox One. There’s a twofold issue with bringing Cities to the Xbox One: how to properly overlay the strategic keyboard and mouse controls onto a fixed controller, and properly melding into the console world — which will only be the second outing for Paradox, after Magicka was released on the PS4 earlier this year.
Paradox Interactive recently made a statement on their news blog,
“Optimized for play on a controller, Cities: Skylines for Xbox One will introduce the creativity and strategy of Colossal Order’s hit game to a new audience. Gamers on both Xbox One and Windows 10 will have the chance to lay down roads, zone districts and services, and fall madly in love with Chirper
While it’s true that Cities: Skylines is one of the best city building games to come out since Simcity 4, the problems of console adaptation are too numerous to count. Are strategy and management games inherently bound to the traditional PC setup? From a marketing standpoint, releasing one of the modern standards for city management on a home console could reap huge rewards if Cities is optimized properly. If not… well, we all remember Universe at War: Earth Assault, right? No?
