Cities in Motion 2

This game makes you question “Why is my entire city stuck behind ONE bus?!” So you boot up Cities in Motion 2 thinking you’re gonna casually draw some cute lines and boom—perfect transport empire. Nope. This game grabs your hand, slaps it, and goes: “Place. Every. Single. Stop. Individually. You lazy gremlin.” You don’t build a network here—you babysit it like it owes you money. Every stop, every line, every tweak… micromanagement level: corporate middle manager with trust issues. You want a chill city builder? Go play Cities: Skylines and vibe. You want something that makes you question your life choices while staring at a traffic jam you personally created? Welcome home. Because when this game hits… oh it hits HARD. Watching your perfectly timed tram glide through a clean route like it’s the main character? Chef’s kiss. Absolute dopamine. But getting there? You’re gonna build your first bus route and watch it turn into a metal snake of suffering, stuck behind 3 cars, 2 bad decisions, and your own optimism. And don’t even get me started on the “learning curve.” This isn’t a curve. This is a vertical slap to the face. Pricing? Weird. Zones? Confusing. Stops? Fiddly as hell. You…

Still Holds Up in 2026 Even in 2026, I still think Cities in Motion 2 achieves more than a lot of modern transport simulation games. The transport planning system is incredibly detailed, but it's presented in a way that remains easy and user-friendly. You can get into the game without feeling completely overwhelmed, while still having plenty of depth to dig into once you start building and expanding your network. Graphically, it also holds up surprisingly well after all these years. I recently picked this game up again after a long time and had a great time revisiting it. Sometimes going back to an older game reminds you just how good it was in the first place. A fantastic transport sim that I really enjoyed playing through again.

THE CITIES ARE IN MOTION... AGAIN!

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Recommended... but with caution. It won't run fullscreen on anything but the number 1 monitor, and doesn't handle borderless well, so you'll end up windowed if you have multiple. Many core mechanics aren't intutive (and not the same as most modern games of simlar style), and tutorials only cover the most basic "how to move the camera, make your first lines, ok done". Its missing the slow introduction to advanced systems in the first few story missions, things like what the colors of pricing mean, why you'd choose one or the other, when to use a train vs a bus, how fare evasion works, what causes the city to grow ect basically all need a lot of hours trial and error, or to find a wiki online. In this manner note the attached game manual, read it before firing up the game, its dry as sawdust but in this rare case it is needed. And many of these mechanics aren't even needed, why do I need to move the actual price every day because the economy changed? Just let me choose a realitive offset that floats with market (ie +10cents or -20cents, instead of exactly $1.30). Same for staff pay, its cool on paper you have the granularity, but its basically a time waste to constantly adjust…

I really loved the AI, I loved how it can transfer between nearby bus stops instead of acting like there's no nearby connection just because all buses are not stopping at the same stop. The road building system is a bit finnicky but it's great once you get how it works. I recommend this game if you like planning public transport.