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$32.49
Subscribe now
Popular
  • Essential Hardware
  • Top 100
  • PC Gaming Show
  • Arc Raiders
  • BF6
  • Quizzes
Don't miss these
A woman in a suit stands against a backdrop of blood spatters
Games The best cyberpunk games on PC
A low-res city
City Builder This 'brutally honest' city builder features greedy landlords, cutthroat corporations, and a newspaper that gives you 'a constant reminder that your citizens' bad luck is perhaps your fault'
An image of a 3D map of Manhattan, including highlighted subway routes.
City Builder The sleeper hit of the Fall might be this mad lad's hyper realistic traffic management sim that uses real census data and a 'distance-based gravity model' to produce millions of NPC commuters
Windmills
City Builder Cities: Skylines 2 latest region pack heads to the Netherlands, 'the land of windmills, clogs, and stroopwafel,' and includes new hospitals, fire stations, and hyperrealistic cemeteries
A medieval city
City Builder Farthest Frontier review: Crate Entertainment's survival city builder is both challenging and chill
A Mediterranean city
City Builder September is absolutely stacked with city builders: Here's 8 releasing this month
A player house in Dune Awakening with a flat roof, foor same-sized walls, and a single door.
Survival & Crafting I'm sick of the survival crafting 'Cube' and calling the gamer HOA on all of you
Cities: Skylines 2 Bridges and Ports expansion screenshot - drawbridge standing open
Sim After more than a year of delays, Cities: Skylines 2's big Bridges and Ports expansion is finally almost here
Humus walking around
Strategy I jumped into the management god game Sintopia, only to have all my devil workers go on strike because I spent too much money on punishing sinners
A first person view of a power drill badly damaging a wall during use from videogame Low-Budget Repairs.
Sim Low-Budget Repairs is like House Flipper but you're trying to cut every corner you can as the scummiest handyman in '90s Poland
A flying turtle with a pallet of packages strapped to its back flies alongisde a gigantic tower of buildings.
Strategy Stario: Haven Tower is yet another vertical city-builder, but this one has magic, space whales and flying delivery turtles
A medieval town
City Builder One of my favorite survival city builders is leaving early access this month, so here's your chance to buy it before the price goes up
D-topia screenshot
Puzzle D-topia is about a city where 'life is curated by artificial intelligence to maximize happiness,' which actually sounds like something the tech industry is on the verge of pitching
Crusader Kings 3: Corornations key art - dude getting coronationed
Strategy Paradox apologizes for botching yet another DLC release: 'It hurts so much when we f**k up like this'
Man holding a gun at the protagonist
MMO Upcoming tactical FPS MMO Cinder City has maps that are so detailed you can tour Seoul and visit NCsoft's office full of 'Zombie workers with name tags'
  1. Games
  2. Sim
  3. Cities: Skylines

The worst places to live in Cities: Skylines

Features
By Christopher Livingston published 6 April 2015

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

City of Fright

City of Fright

We've seen some of the best things the players of Cities: Skylines have to offer, but not every city is a paradise on earth. We scoured the game's Steam community page and subreddit to find cities run by most dubious and irresponsible mayors around. Here are some of the worst places to live in Cities: Skylines.

Page 1 of 15
Page 1 of 15
Rollercoaster City

Rollercoaster City

There's a time and place for the fun and excitement of a roller coaster, and Mayor MaxC has decreed that the time is always and the place is everywhere. The citizens of Rollercoaster City might want to bring a barf bag along on their morning commute.

Page 2 of 15
Page 2 of 15
Hullchester

Hullchester

The demise of poor Hullchester has been well documented, but I return to it often to stare in horror, because a city being completely buried in poop-water holds a certain fascination. When Mayor Filsketeer presides over a disaster, he doesn't mess around. Except when it comes to the mess. You can read part 1 and part 2.

Page 3 of 15
Page 3 of 15
Poo-power

Poo-power

Not every mayor buries his city in sewage. Mayor 5463728190 actually, literally, powers his city with poo. It's actually a pretty novel system of feeding sewage, and only sewage, into a network of dams. It really works! The city really does run on poo. But the smell, mayor! The smell!

Page 4 of 15
Page 4 of 15
Cruise control

Cruise control

We know cruise lines have been getting a lot of bad press lately, and in Mayor Turtlegains' city, they're taking some drastic steps to attract new customers, such as driving right up onto land to find them. Mayor AdvLeon is having similar issues, which you can see it in action here. Those sitting in the first few avenues might get wet.

Page 5 of 15
Page 5 of 15
Paving the way

Paving the way

I don't want to make accusations without evidence, but I think Mayor _Ganonmight be accepting bribes from a local paving company. Luckily, the citizens are so dizzy from asphalt fumes they didn't find it strange when their town was awarded "Most Attractive City."

Page 6 of 15
Page 6 of 15
Bus, stop!

Bus, stop!

Mayor Repost Research had good intentions. The city's bus lines were a problem, so he tried to delete them all and start from scratch. The buses had their own ideas, though, and quickly began breaking the laws of nature. Buses ain't care.

Page 7 of 15
Page 7 of 15
Send help

Send help

Building a working road system isn't easy, and we've all been frustrated from time to time. You shouldn't take it out on your citizens, though, but making them live in a giant message of your failure, like Mayor Stumpyoftheshire did.

Page 8 of 15
Page 8 of 15
Folks, we're looking at a slight delay

Folks, we're looking at a slight delay

Mayor HeyRevolver might want to do something about the air traffic controller strike. Just look at this air traffic nightmare in action. Hope they brought a lot of extra peanuts.

Page 9 of 15
Page 9 of 15
Stock up on gauze

Stock up on gauze

Speaking of delays, if you're a citizen of Mayor Deblobman's city, you may want to get some first-aid training because the ambulances are gonna take a looooong time to reach you if you've had an accident.

Page 10 of 15
Page 10 of 15
You had one job

You had one job

We're not sure if this is due to a lack of proper training or just an overworked and underfunded fire department, but if you live in the ironically named Mayor SomeoneWaterMyPlants' city, you might want to take fire prevention into your own hands.

Page 11 of 15
Page 11 of 15
The moving park

The moving park

It's great to build parks for your citizens: it makes them happy and gives them a chance to get some exercise. Mayor Leeisamoron might be pushing it, though, as you can see in the following animated link, by making his residents, uh... work a little too hard for some relaxation.

Page 12 of 15
Page 12 of 15
Don't settle here

Don't settle here

We love Settlers of Catan, but would we really want to live there? Mayor YeppImNaked sure thought so, designing a road system of hexes. I admit it looks cool, but imagine giving directions. "Make a right, then a right, then a left, then a right, then a left, then a left, then a right, then a left, and bingo, you're 1/10th of the way there."

Page 13 of 15
Page 13 of 15
Bad dog

Bad dog

People aren't the only ones who live in a city: there's also pets. Mayor Tuerwox's town doesn't put up with any doggone nonsense, though. They've even got a special doghouse for any misbehaving mutts. Poor Rover!

Page 14 of 15
Page 14 of 15
Now He's Bouncing in Heaven

Now He's Bouncing in Heaven

This is nobody's fault, really. But the unlucky kid who thought it would be a great day for a bouncy adventure... let's just hope Mayor Mmseng built a therapist's office right down the street.

Page 15 of 15
Page 15 of 15
TOPICS
Best of
Christopher Livingston
Christopher Livingston
Social Links Navigation
Senior Editor

Chris started playing PC games in the 1980s, started writing about them in the early 2000s, and (finally) started getting paid to write about them in the late 2000s. Following a few years as a regular freelancer, PC Gamer hired him in 2014, probably so he'd stop emailing them asking for more work. Chris has a love-hate relationship with survival games and an unhealthy fascination with the inner lives of NPCs. He's also a fan of offbeat simulation games, mods, and ignoring storylines in RPGs so he can make up his own.

Read more
A low-res city
This 'brutally honest' city builder features greedy landlords, cutthroat corporations, and a newspaper that gives you 'a constant reminder that your citizens' bad luck is perhaps your fault'
 
 
An image of a 3D map of Manhattan, including highlighted subway routes.
The sleeper hit of the Fall might be this mad lad's hyper realistic traffic management sim that uses real census data and a 'distance-based gravity model' to produce millions of NPC commuters
 
 
Windmills
Cities: Skylines 2 latest region pack heads to the Netherlands, 'the land of windmills, clogs, and stroopwafel,' and includes new hospitals, fire stations, and hyperrealistic cemeteries
 
 
A medieval city
Farthest Frontier review: Crate Entertainment's survival city builder is both challenging and chill
 
 
A Mediterranean city
September is absolutely stacked with city builders: Here's 8 releasing this month
 
 
A player house in Dune Awakening with a flat roof, foor same-sized walls, and a single door.
I'm sick of the survival crafting 'Cube' and calling the gamer HOA on all of you
 
 
Latest in Sim
A player wearing a green plastic suit and facemask with a blue wash gun in PowerWash Simulator 2
PowerWash Simulator 2 review
 
 
Scritchy Scratchy an assortment of scratchcards scattered across a table.
Like scratching scratchers but don't actually want to blow money on the lotto? Try the demo for Scritchy Scratchy, a ridiculously moreish clicker game
 
 
A group of herbivore dinosaurs in Jurassic World Evolution 3.
Jurassic World Evolution 3 feels like it forgets that you're raising dinosaurs, not zoo animals
 
 
A shirtless man kneels, handcuffed, with the word 'LIAR' written in red paint across his chest.
A Polish LARP event will let you live out Frostpunk in real life for a few hundred euros: 'Drag injured teammates through volcanic fumes… comfort the dying while your own fingers go numb'
 
 
In 911 Operator, the player fields an incoming emergency call about downed power lines near a school.
Emergency dispatch simulator 911 Operator is free on Steam for a limited time
 
 
A billboard from PowerWash Simulator 2 with bright colored animals on it and a bit of dirt
PowerWash Simulator 2 introduces a new tool that makes washing mud from a billboard more enjoyable than ever
 
 
Latest in Features
Dragon Quest HD art
This year's JRPG remakes keep proving that old games don't just get by on nostalgia: They're still just really good games
 
 
A promotional image for Samsung's 12 nm-class DDR5-DRAM production, showing multiple DRAM modules on a UDIMM circuit board.
RAM and storage is ridiculously expensive right now because of *drumroll* AI, of course, and there's little reason to think prices will drop any time soon
 
 
A cool robo-dude wearing sunglasses
Arc Raiders review in progress: An extraction shooter for the masses
 
 
Battlefield 6: An official image of the Blackwell Fields map, showing a vast oil field at sunset.
Why is Battlefield 6 so afraid of big maps?
 
 
FEAR is turning 20, but Monolith's terrifying shooter hasn't lost its touch
 
 
Jonesy and Hope drawn in the Simpsons style with guns drawn at Kang and Kodos.
What I want from Fortnite's Simpsons mini season: a decent sniper rifle, a flying skateboard, and proper comms from Epic
 
 
  1. Two of the best PC cases with the PC Gamer Recommended badge in the top right.
    1
    The best fish tank PC case in 2025: I've tested heaps of stylish chassis but only a few have earned my recommendation
  2. 2
    Best gaming laptop 2025: I've tested the best laptops for gaming of this generation and here are the ones I recommend
  3. 3
    Best Hall effect keyboards in 2025: the fastest, most customizable keyboards for competitive gaming
  4. 4
    Best PCIe 5.0 SSD for gaming in 2025: the only Gen 5 drives I will allow in my PC
  5. 5
    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
  1. A player wearing a green plastic suit and facemask with a blue wash gun in PowerWash Simulator 2
    1
    PowerWash Simulator 2 review
  2. 2
    Razer HyperFlux V2 Wireless Charging System review
  3. 3
    8BitDo Pro 3 review
  4. 4
    Edifier G2000 Pro review
  5. 5
    Razer Raiju V3 Pro wireless controller 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...