Skip to main content
PC Gamer PC Gamer THE GLOBAL AUTHORITY ON PC GAMES
flag of UK
UK
flag of US
US
flag of Canada
Canada
flag of Australia
Australia
Sign in
  • View Profile
  • Sign out
  • Games
  • Hardware
  • News
  • Reviews
  • Guides
  • Video
  • Forum
  • More
    • PC Gaming Show
    • Software
    • Movies & TV
    • Coupons
    • Magazine
    • Newsletter
    • Community guidelines
    • Affiliate links
    • Meet the team
    • About PC Gamer
PC Gamer Magazine Subscription
PC Gamer Magazine Subscription
Why subscribe?
  • Subscribe to the world's #1 PC gaming mag
  • Try a single issue or save on a subscription
  • Issues delivered straight to your door or device
From$32.49
Subscribe now
Popular
  • Essential Hardware
  • Battlefield 6
  • Helldivers 2
  • PC Gamer quizzes!
  • AI
Don't miss these
Aela the Huntress overhauled by the BloodMoon mod
RPG The best Skyrim Special Edition mods
Nocturnal, the Mistress of Shadows, surrounded by her birds
The Elder Scrolls The best Skyrim mods: Everything from beautiful vegetables to huge expansions
A cyberpunk city with the PC Gamer logo
City Builder This brilliant dark and moody cyberpunk city builder is my kind of cosy game—and for less than $7 you might as well see if it's yours too
Stellar Blade salute
Action Gooner game of the year Stellar Blade's mods are 41% smut, ensuring gamers will never see the light of heaven
Beach front properties at sunset.
City Builder Cities: Skylines 2's latest patch has introduced quays and piers after seeing players using makeshift substitutes: 'We know how challenging they can be to build'
Minecraft mods - Terralith shows off one of its biomes
Survival & Crafting The best Minecraft mods for glorious new worlds
A building in Bravil, absolutely shattered.
The Elder Scrolls Oblivion Remastered lets you shatter whole buildings like Fabergé eggs with mod that resurrects spirit of Mercenaries: Playground of Destruction
Cyberpunk person fighting alongside drones
RPG The best Cyberpunk 2077 mods
Hirtel, an elf, looks shocked
The Elder Scrolls Who needs Bethesda? Oblivion Remastered modders have cooked up FO4-style settlement placing even without official support
Withers Big Naturals mod image - Withers with big naturals
Baldur's Gate The official mod support of Baldur's Gate 3 is a heaving success with over 265 million downloads, 250,000 of which are Withers Big Naturals
Thomas the Aerostat mod for Stalker 2
FPS Stalker 2 artist kickstarts the Zone Kit modding scene with a flood of glorious nonsense mods featuring Shrek, CJ, and—you guessed it—Thomas the Tank Engine
The Sims 4 - a woman with red hair and a purple top exclaims with excitement
The Sims The best Sims 4 mods to expand your life sandbox
peak multiplayer mod
Adventure 'Hi modders <3': Peak devs know we're using mods to break past the 4-player limit, and they're so cool with it they're even fixing mod-specific bugs
Baldur's Gate 3 - a half drow character holds up their hand which is covered by a glowing mark of the Absolute
Baldur's Gate The best Baldur's Gate 3 mods
Stellar Blade
Action Stellar Blade's director throws down the gauntlet at modders, whose 'firepower is still weak'—all the sexy costumes are cool, he just also wants mods that 'expand the user’s play experience'
  1. Games
  2. Sim
  3. Cities: Skylines

The most delightfully inessential Cities: Skylines mods

Features
By Wes Fenlon published 9 November 2016

Here are a bunch of weird mods you have no reason to ever use. Or do you? (You don't.)

When you purchase through links on our site, we may earn an affiliate commission. Here’s how it works.

Cities: Skylines mods let us do amazing things. We've customized our cities with pieces from the 17,000+ props and 20,000+ maps on the Steam Workshop. We've driven around on street level and walked the sidewalks in first person. We've celebrated some of the most inspiring mods and creations the community has to offer.

But out of those thousands and thousands of mods, there have to be some that just aren't quite amazing, right? Some mods that make you tilt your head and wrinkle up your nose and go, "Huh." We decided to go on a hunt for these unsung props and maps, and this is what we found: 11 Cities: Skylines mods that you absolutely don't need, and will probably never, ever install. 

Page 1 of 12
Page 1 of 12
Yellow Curve 3

Yellow Curve 3

Why would you click this download link

Yellow Curve 1 was a good curve, and it was yellow. But was it yellow enough, and curve enough? It seems not. It seems we needed another curve to fill that role. Thus Yellow Curve 2 was born, just as yellow, and yet even more curve. But still, modder Beardmonkey was not satisfied. And lo: Yellow Curve 3, the most yellow curve of them all.

Page 2 of 12
Page 2 of 12
Clown Head Remover

Clown Head Remover

Why would click this download link

Jumbo ice cream cones? Wanna eat 'em up. Giant doughnuts? Delightful! Clown heads? Whoa whoa whoa. Hold the damn phone. Not in this city, pal. Unlike more general prop remover mods, this one has a singular and pure vendetta against red-nosed busts. If you really hate clowns, even tiny ones scattered around a digital city have to go. 

Page 3 of 12
Page 3 of 12
No On-Street Parking

No On-Street Parking

Why would you click this download link

No one really likes to parallel park, but this seems a bit extreme. 

Page 4 of 12
Page 4 of 12
2ch for Chirpy

2ch for Chirpy

Why would you click this download link

Hm, what would make Chirpy less annoying? How about making it post messages from Japan's 2ch message board? Yeah, that'll definitely solve the problem.

Page 5 of 12
Page 5 of 12
No Tree Dirt & Remove Dirt

No Tree Dirt & Remove Dirt

Why would you click this download link

Trees in Cities: Skylines just have this yucky natural thing to them. There's, like, dirt and stuff when you place them, as if to show that they grow out of the soil. This mod is having none of that, and removes any sign of dirt for pristine ground across your entire city. Another mod goes even farther, removing dirt from around picnic benches and other objects, too. Begone, foul peat. 

Page 6 of 12
Page 6 of 12
No Seagulls

No Seagulls

Why would you click this download link

Fuck birds.

Page 7 of 12
Page 7 of 12
Hipster Music Pack

Hipster Music Pack

Why would you click this download link

Listen, I want to add some more music to Cities: Skylines, but I don't want it to be music you've ever heard of. I've never even heard of it. I found them by typing random letters into Soundcloud URLs and throwing out any album results that didn't sound like a brand of organic air freshener. Install this mod, and you are now cool.

Page 8 of 12
Page 8 of 12
45 variations of the Urban Working Class house

45 variations of the Urban Working Class house

Why would you click this download link

This is either a damning commentary on the sameness of urban housing, or modder Jimbobbedyjobob is obsessed with populating a Skylines city with almost-but-not-quite identical houses. 45 variations, to be exact. If you need 45 copies of a small brick house with different colored windows, you've come to the right place. Var212a or bust! 

Page 9 of 12
Page 9 of 12
Trash

Trash

Why would you click this download link

"What does this mod?" asks DaHamper97. What does this mod indeed, DaHamper97. The world may never know. 

Page 10 of 12
Page 10 of 12
Water Tower With Advertisement

Water Tower With Advertisement

Why would you click this download link

For when a water tower without an advertisement just looks fake. As if any easily visible surface could possibly be left free of branding! With this mod, our suspension of disbelief in Cities: Skylines remains intact.

Page 11 of 12
Page 11 of 12
Unuseful theme

Unuseful theme

Why would you click this download link

"It's a unuseful theme! I hope you'll have fun. Or not." writes modder 1schiffer4.  This feels like a trick. This mod has only had 2 unique visitors on its page, ever, and I'm pretty sure they're both from me on different computers.

Page 12 of 12
Page 12 of 12
Wes Fenlon
Wes Fenlon
Social Links Navigation
Senior Editor

Wes has been covering games and hardware for more than 10 years, first at tech sites like The Wirecutter and Tested before joining the PC Gamer team in 2014. Wes plays a little bit of everything, but he'll always jump at the chance to cover emulation and Japanese games.


When he's not obsessively optimizing and re-optimizing a tangle of conveyor belts in Satisfactory (it's really becoming a problem), he's probably playing a 20-year-old Final Fantasy or some opaque ASCII roguelike. With a focus on writing and editing features, he seeks out personal stories and in-depth histories from the corners of PC gaming and its niche communities. 50% pizza by volume (deep dish, to be specific).

Read more
Aela the Huntress overhauled by the BloodMoon mod
The best Skyrim Special Edition mods
Nocturnal, the Mistress of Shadows, surrounded by her birds
The best Skyrim mods: Everything from beautiful vegetables to huge expansions
A cyberpunk city with the PC Gamer logo
This brilliant dark and moody cyberpunk city builder is my kind of cosy game—and for less than $7 you might as well see if it's yours too
Stellar Blade salute
Gooner game of the year Stellar Blade's mods are 41% smut, ensuring gamers will never see the light of heaven
Beach front properties at sunset.
Cities: Skylines 2's latest patch has introduced quays and piers after seeing players using makeshift substitutes: 'We know how challenging they can be to build'
Minecraft mods - Terralith shows off one of its biomes
The best Minecraft mods for glorious new worlds
Latest in Sim
Star Citizen Squadron 42 - Gillian Anderson in a sci fi uniform on a ship
Chris Roberts hopes Star Citizen's Squadron 42 launch will be 'almost as big an event' as Grand Theft Auto 6, still targeting 2026 for release
Story of Seasons Grand Bazaar
How to catch bugs in Story of Seasons: Grand Bazaar
Crusader Kings 3 Best Mods
Crusader Kings 3's new DLC has a release date and even more opportunities to be murdered spectacularly by your vassals
Story of Seasons Grand Bazaar
Where to buy farm animals in Story of Seasons: Grand Bazaar
Story of Seasons Grand Bazaar
How to unlock new recipes in Story of Seasons: Grand Bazaar
Story of Seasons Grand Bazaar
Where to buy pets in Story of Seasons: Grand Bazaar
Latest in Features
Promotional screenshot of Toxic Commando, showing dozens of zombies attacking a group of players.
The new John Carpenter game will absolutely stuff your screen with zombies
Terrorist and Counter-Terrorist from CS2
How well do you know the most-played games on Steam? Take our timed quiz and put your knowledge to the test
Outer Worlds moon man looking villainous
The Outer Worlds 2 feels like a much more ambitious RPG than its predecessor: I played its prologue three times with different builds, and each run felt unique
A screenshot of the PC version of Gears of War: Reloaded
Gears of War: Reloaded PC performance: The updated graphics are easy work for any desktop GPU from the past six years but they're still enough to give handhelds grief
A sniper in front of a wall of fire.
The best way to wait for Battlefield 6 is to finally play Battlefield 5, an underappreciated gem
Lost Soul Aside
Inside the Chinese PC gaming industry as it gets ready to dominate the next decade: 'We have to work harder, we have to make the games even better'
  1. Two of the best Hall effect keyboards on a blue background with the PC Gamer recommends logo in the top right.
    1
    Best Hall effect keyboards in 2025: the fastest, most customizable keyboards for competitive gaming
  2. 2
    Best PCIe 5.0 SSD for gaming in 2025: the only Gen 5 drives I will allow in my PC
  3. 3
    Best graphics cards in 2025: I've tested pretty much every AMD and Nvidia GPU of the past 20 years and these are today's top cards
  4. 4
    Best gaming laptop in 2025: I've put the best of this new generation head-to-head and we have a winner
  5. 5
    Best gaming chair in 2025: I've tested a ton of gaming chairs and these are the seats I'd suggest for any PC gamer
  1. Herdling screenshot
    1
    Herdling review
  2. 2
    The Rogue Prince of Persia review
  3. 3
    Corsair Xeneon Edge review
  4. 4
    KTC H27T22C-3 gaming monitor review
  5. 5
    Metal Gear Solid Delta: Snake Eater review

PC Gamer is part of Future US Inc, an international media group and leading digital publisher. Visit our corporate site.

  • About Us
  • Contact Future's experts
  • Terms and conditions
  • Privacy policy
  • Cookies policy
  • Advertise with us
  • Accessibility Statement
  • Careers

© Future US, Inc. Full 7th Floor, 130 West 42nd Street, New York, NY 10036.

Please login or signup to comment

Please wait...