Skip to main content
PC Gamer PC Gamer THE GLOBAL AUTHORITY ON PC GAMES
UK EditionUK US EditionUS CA EditionCanada AU EditionAustralia
Sign in
  • View Profile
  • Sign out
  • Games
  • Hardware
  • News
  • Reviews
  • Guides
  • Video
  • Forum
  • More
    • PC Gaming Show
    • Software
    • Movies & TV
    • Codes
    • Coupons
    • Magazine
    • Newsletter
    • Affiliate links
    • Meet the team
    • Community guidelines
    • 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$1
Subscribe now
Don't miss these
The Sims 4
The Sims The Sims 4's most notorious sex mod gets launched 400,000 times a day, which is more people than I realized were even playing The Sims every day
An NPC stands in front of a door, A-posing and lit up in the Before shot, posed normally and in shadow After
The Elder Scrolls I didn't even know I was bothered by how bad Skyrim's NPCs look during the split second they're opening doors, and now a modder's pointed it out the mod to fix it has become essential
A screenshot of a newspaper generated in Microlandia, with the headline "Petty Thieves Go Big" and an image of a police car.
City Builder 'Brutally honest' city builder Microlandia gets brutally honest crime simulation: 'It's a spectrum of consequences that can become a death spiral every single day'
GTA5 V4EVER mod
Grand Theft Auto A mega-mod is kicking GTA 5 into 2026 thanks to one hobbyist creator and roughly 20,000 aggressively placed trees and street props
A vampire holds an ace of hearts
Games The best sex games on PC that aren't garbage
Counter-Strike 2 header image
Games The best free PC games
An Average Day At The Cat Cafe
Games The best browser games
Disgraced Yakuza lieutenant Michizane Sugawara crosses a waterway in his modified Kei truck/boat while his severed toe mascot partner sits in the back.
Games My 5 favorite 'cozy' games that don't actually look like cozy games
The game contained within an old CRT monitor
Horror This horror game built from the bones of an abandoned FPS server and an accidental ARPG might be one of the strangest puzzlers I've ever played
Games The best free games on Steam
Once Upon a Katamari screens
Games The 20 best cozy games on PC that aren't farm sims
Fallout: New Vegas
Fallout The best mods for Fallout: New Vegas
Poco and a little elephant friend in a garden in Poco
Games I played 31 new cozy games this year, and my top 6 picks are all completely different
A Stardew Valley farmer and her horse standing outside of a red and green farmhouse. It's spring, and there are a few texture mods to the surrounding assets in place.
Sim The best Stardew Valley mods
Two superheroes drink at a bar
Games The best indie games on PC
Popular
  • CES 2026
  • GOTY Awards
  • Best PC gear
  • Arc Raiders
  • PC Gamer Quizzes!
  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).

  • Facebook
  • X
  • Whatsapp
  • Reddit
  • Pinterest
  • Flipboard
  • Email
Share this article
Join the conversation
Follow us
Add us as a preferred source on Google
PC Gamer
Get the PC Gamer Newsletter

Keep up to date with the most important stories and the best deals, as picked by the PC Gamer team.


By submitting your information you agree to the Terms & Conditions and Privacy Policy and are aged 16 or over.

You are now subscribed

Your newsletter sign-up was successful


Want to add more newsletters?

GamesRadar+

Every Friday

GamesRadar+

Your weekly update on everything you could ever want to know about the games you already love, games we know you're going to love in the near future, and tales from the communities that surround them.

GTA 6 O'clock

Every Thursday

GTA 6 O'clock

Our special GTA 6 newsletter, with breaking news, insider info, and rumor analysis from the award-winning GTA 6 O'clock experts.

Knowledge

Every Friday

Knowledge

From the creators of Edge: A weekly videogame industry newsletter with analysis from expert writers, guidance from professionals, and insight into what's on the horizon.

The Setup

Every Thursday

The Setup

Hardware nerds unite, sign up to our free tech newsletter for a weekly digest of the hottest new tech, the latest gadgets on the test bench, and much more.

Switch 2 Spotlight

Every Wednesday

Switch 2 Spotlight

Sign up to our new Switch 2 newsletter, where we bring you the latest talking points on Nintendo's new console each week, bring you up to date on the news, and recommend what games to play.

The Watchlist

Every Saturday

The Watchlist

Subscribe for a weekly digest of the movie and TV news that matters, direct to your inbox. From first-look trailers, interviews, reviews and explainers, we've got you covered.

SFX

Once a month

SFX

Get sneak previews, exclusive competitions and details of special events each month!


An account already exists for this email address, please log in.
Subscribe to our newsletter
Read more
Doom Christmas mods
Celebrate the holidays the way Saint Nick intended, by blasting through hordes of enemies in the best Christmas-themed FPS mods
 
 
Fallout: New Vegas
The best mods for Fallout: New Vegas
 
 
Disgraced Yakuza lieutenant Michizane Sugawara crosses a waterway in his modified Kei truck/boat while his severed toe mascot partner sits in the back.
My 5 favorite 'cozy' games that don't actually look like cozy games
 
 
A screenshot of a newspaper generated in Microlandia, with the headline "Petty Thieves Go Big" and an image of a police car.
'Brutally honest' city builder Microlandia gets brutally honest crime simulation: 'It's a spectrum of consequences that can become a death spiral every single day'
 
 
RPG Maker MZ cover art
6 of the most popular apps on Steam that aren't games
 
 
Kowloon Walled City recreated in Minecraft
This Minecraft map that recreates one of history's most notorious slums made me reconsider what's important in 3D level design
 
 
Latest in Sim
A spaceship races through the cosmos while being shot at by other ships.
Thirty years after launch, this classic space combat sim just got updated to work on modern systems and released for free
 
 
Guy in a spacesuit
This obsessively detailed rocket flight sim finally lets me cause historic spaceflight disasters from the comfort of my own home
 
 
Medieval combat
One of Steam's most wishlisted games announces it's launching next week with a song so unhinged you've got to hear it for yourself
 
 
Finally, a game other than War Thunder may have led to the release of classified military information
 
 
A space rover driving across a planet in Star Birds.
Dinner is served in Star Birds' latest early access update, adding bakeries and restaurants to the Dorfromantik devs' factory management sim: 'Ever fed an alien pizza?'
 
 
Hozy screenshots
One of my most anticipated games for 2026 is a little sandbox puzzle game that plays like the lovechild of Unpacking and PowerWash Simulator
 
 
Latest in Features
Steam Controller
Steam Controller re-review: A fresh look at Valve's flawed but influential 10-year-old controller
 
 
Leon Kennedy in Resident 9: Requiem trailer as he stands outside in the dark and looking older
The PC game releases we're most excited about in February
 
 
A screenshot from Don't Stop, Girlypop! showing a translucent human figure suspended in mid air
Five new Steam games you probably missed (February 2, 2026)
 
 
Civilization 7 screenshot
Moroccan pirate queen Sayyida al-Hurra was largely omitted from history books, but now she's in Civilization 7 thanks to a professor's curiosity and years of research
 
 
Project Genie screenshot showing a pink balloon animal walking toward a cabin among a field of wildflowers.
Google's new AI 'world model' has seemingly spooked videogame investors, but it's hard to know what it will actually lead to
 
 
Markiplier in a sub
I watched Markiplier play Iron Lung for 45 minutes before watching Markiplier star in the Iron Lung movie for 2+ hours. Which was better?
 
 
  1. MSI and Asus gaming monitors on a green background with the PC Gamer recommended logo in the top right
    1
    Best gaming monitors in 2026: the pixel-perfect panels I'd buy myself
  2. 2
    The best fish tank PC case in 2026: I've tested heaps of stylish chassis but only a few have earned my recommendation
  3. 3
    Best gaming laptop 2026: I've tested the best laptops for gaming of this generation and here are the ones I recommend
  4. 4
    Best Hall effect keyboards in 2026: the fastest, most customizable keyboards for competitive gaming
  5. 5
    Best PCIe 5.0 SSD for gaming in 2026: the only Gen 5 drives I will allow in my PC
  1. Be Quiet! Dark Perk Ergo
    1
    Be Quiet! Dark Perk Ergo review
  2. 2
    Terra Invicta review
  3. 3
    Cairn review
  4. 4
    Code Vein 2 review
  5. 5
    AMD Ryzen 7 9850X3D review

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

Add as a preferred source on Google
  • 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...