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The recently released Fourexo Entertainment game Highrise City brings a new city builder to players. Currently, in Early Access, Highrise City is built on Unreal Engine 4 and was awarded a MegaGrant by Epic games. Combining the city-building genre with traditional economy and resource management sim, Highrise City will be a new challenge in the genre. Currently, Highrise City is available for $24.99 on Steam and GoG.
Story: Your city is your story
Like many other city-building games out there, there is not much of a story to be found here. Instead, players will become engrossed in their city’s design, function, and maintenance. By intertwining the two genres, players will have further control over the fat of their cities and the citizens there.
Gameplay: A challenging economic city builder
You’ll find many of the same trimmings that you can enjoy in other city builders. In addition, players are offered various tools to help create their ideal cities. Starting players will have access to a fully customizable set of terraforming tools with advanced placement tools for roads.
Setting up your city in Highrise City operates the same as others in the genre, allowing players to build in zones. Building the residential and commercial zones in your city will increase the population and engineers. The players must also place industrial buildings for woodcutting, coal, clay, and iron. Each zone has its requirements, which will require specific map placement. Here is where Highrise City changes up the genre.
In Highrise City, added economic systems will add more significant challenges to players. The player will need to build a functioning economy to grow their cities. Planning becomes paramount in Highrise City as you need specific resources to expand your city. You’ll need to set up extraction, processing, and transportation systems across your city.
Highrise City does have its weak points within its design. Some of the systems within Highrise City need more development. For example, road placement can sometimes be bothersome, even with the added freedom of placement. There is also a difficulty that will come with Highrise City that is not meant for all players. Getting your city to thrive can be challenging.
Constructing something within your city can take time, waiting for the materials to be processed and delivered to where it needs to be. In addition, some might find Highrise City less desirable due to the deeper and more complicated economic system.
Highrise City does offer an interesting feature that many other city builders do not. During the process of building their city, the player can spawn down into their city in a vehicle and drive around the city they’ve created. Highrise City offers a great new viewpoint to a city builder, getting to drive around and city their city alive.
Graphic/Audio: Slight glitches in Highrise City, but offers nice features
Using Unreal Engine 4, The graphics of Highrise City are not half bad. They’re nothing you’d find from a AAA studio, and the flaws will show up when zoomed in. Roads don’t line up with buildings, so driving around can be difficult. The game also needs more optimization due to unstable frames during play, especially when zoomed in.
The cities themselves aren’t relatively great to look at. The buildings within are rather plain, with only slight variation between them. In Highrise City, you might be able to build a massive metropolis, but it’ll look pretty drab with the massive concrete jungle. With time there may be more customization of how your buildings will look, but it leaves more desired.
The camera in Highrise City is undoubtedly one of the shining points compared to other city-building games. Here you can get a god’s eye view of your city, allowing you to plan and draw out your plans the way you want them. In Highrise City, you also can zoom in close and check out the citizens of your city, watching their daily activities. Watching them hang out on rooftops or out on the street, watching all the various vehicles zoom in by making their way across the city.
The audio is simplistic, nothing that will blow your mind. Here you find clean and simple audio, muzak for the background music, and simple clicks as you move around the screen across the various tabs. If you’ve ever played any other city builder out there, you probably already know what to expect.
Conclusion: Needs more, but still worth checking out
Highrise City will scratch that itch if you are out looking for your next city-building game, with a fairly deep economic simulator that offers a new experience with some great features that improve upon the genre. As of right now, being early access Highrise City still needs a bit more updates and content additions, but don’t let that stop you from picking up this indie city-building game. Even with the lack of polish, Highrise City looks to have a lot of potential.
For those interested in picking up the Fourexo Entertainment early access game Highrise City, it’s now available on Steam and GoG. For more information about Highrise City, check out the product page for the game, and the developer Fourexo Entertainment can be found on their Twitter page. Lastly, If you are interested in checking out any of the other Deck13 releases, check out their publisher page.