Lego Skylines, the upcoming city builder from publisher Paradox and developer Iceflake Studios, promises a delightful fusion of the beloved brick toy and the established Cities: Skylines franchise. While initially appearing as an accessible entry point into the genre, hands-on previews suggest a game with surprising depth and complexity, targeting a more mature audience.
The game begins with players arriving on an untouched island as a Master Builder. Early tasks involve constructing basic housing prefabs, which then assemble themselves brick by brick. This initial phase emphasizes a micro-level approach to city building, driven by requests from the cheerful Lego inhabitants. Players can then enter an edit mode to personalize homes and gardens with a variety of Lego decorations, plants, and accessories.
Progression involves placing essential infrastructure like roads and farms, which generate goods and tax income for the growing town. Players can lay out streets, add parks and decorative elements to improve citizen appeal, and tailor their creations to match the specific 'Flavour' preferences of their Lego citizens. Close-up views reveal charming incidental details, such as Lego people playing on a basketball court or police officers enjoying doughnuts.
Shifting Scale and Complexity
However, Lego Skylines rapidly expands beyond its intimate beginnings. A later-stage map demonstration revealed a vast, bustling metropolis filled with emergency vehicles and towering skyscrapers, indicating a significant shift in scale. Despite its colorful and charming facade, Iceflake Studios game designer Lasse Liljedahl stressed that "This is a cosy city builder, but for adults. This is not a game for kids, the complexity is too high." While not excluding younger players from collaborative building, the core design aims for a more intricate simulation.
The game incorporates a range of management challenges, including waste collection, recycling, and managing ground and noise pollution. Players will need to provide higher education for certain industries, childcare, and elder care facilities, while also ensuring citizens have ample leisure activities. City specialization options in culture, sport, or science are available, alongside larger end-game structures like stadiums. Transportation networks, including buses and railroads, and communication systems such as radio towers, are also integral parts of the simulation.
Progression is milestone-based, unlocking new buildings and features as players accumulate experience through completing tasks. Other in-game currencies are tied to later-game opportunities. Iceflake aims to maintain the charm and personality of the early game by keeping citizen desires central to the experience, even as the simulation scales.
Players have the flexibility to keep their towns small and focus on customization, or to develop multiple smaller towns for increased scale without committing to a full metropolis. While many features are tied to citizen count, the game is designed to provide core amenities regardless of player choice. Liljedahl noted that a player could "keep things cosy and never go beyond a small-scale town, choosing to focus on finessing and customisation rather than furious expansion."
Unveiling Deeper Customization
Despite the impressive scope and personality demonstrated in a 45-minute preview, questions remain about the depth of customization. The potential for players to design their own buildings, factories, vehicles, and other assets from scratch, and to share these creations, was a point of curiosity. Liljedahl remained coy on the specifics, stating, "This is a Lego game and this is a Paradox game. So it's very natural that there's a lot of ability to customise your own city. But there's a lot we're not yet showing, so we will come back to those a little bit later."
This hint suggests that more extensive creation tools may be a significant part of Lego Skylines, potentially elevating it beyond a typical city builder into a more deeply personalizable experience. The game aims to capture the essence of Lego's creative potential within a robust city-building framework.