Game Progression Has Been Reworked In Cities: Skylines 2

Colossal Order has released its new feature highlight dev diary, unveiling how game progression works.

Unlike in the original game where milestones were unlocked by population, the 20 milestones in Cities: Skylines 2 are instead unlocked via an XP system.

While playing the game, you’ll earn XP passively as population and citizen happiness increases, up to 16 times in each in-game day. You’ll also earn active XP by making investments in your city, such as adding a signature building or building roads and other infrastructure.

Collecting enough XP upgrades you to the next milestone, rewarding you with cash, new tools like policies, the district creation tool, and more, as well as new zoning.

Milestones also award Expansion Permits – used to add new map tiles to your city – and Development Points, which are used to add services to your city.

Each city service in Cities: Skylines comes with a development tree, with several nodes each that unlock advanced buildings that level up the service in different ways.

For example, the transportation tree starts with buses and taxis, but the following nodes unlock train, air, and water transportation. Trains unlock trams and subway, and air unlocks the space centre and an international airport.

For roads, you’ll start with basic infrastructure before unlocking nodes for roundabouts, advanced road services, parking areas, larger roads and highways, intersections, bridges, and more.

All of the nodes are unlocked via Development Points, and the game provides you with the freedom to invest in what services you prefer and want your city to have.

This week’s Feature Highlight is the ninth episode and follows other videos that offered a deeper look into the game’s economy, seasons and natural disasters, maps, water and electricity, city services, zoning, public transportation, traffic AI, and road construction.