Cities in Motion 1 and 2 Collection

This collection pairs two transit-planning sims from Colossal Order, the studio that would later build Cities: Skylines, and it is worth understanding what you are actually getting with each half before you spend a session fighting with a tram-track placement tool. Cities in Motion 1 is the more immediately rewarding entry. Its campaign spans real European cities, including Amsterdam, Vienna, Berlin, and Helsinki, and progresses through historical scenarios running from the 1930s all the way past 2010. Vehicle rosters change with the era, the music is well-regarded, and a scenario set around the construction of the Berlin Wall gives the campaign a sense of narrative texture you rarely see in transit sims. The core loop, placing bus stops, laying tram rails, plotting routes, and tuning fares, hits a reasonable balance between accessibility and complexity. A community-favourite mod that doubles vehicle capacity helps correct the slightly unrealistic default passenger numbers, and that is the kind of small fix that makes CiM 1 a game worth sitting with for a long weekend. Cities in Motion 2 is a harder case to argue. On paper, the additions are compelling: a full day and night cycle with real rush-hour demand spikes, timetable management per route, fare zones you can paint onto the map, dynamic city growth that responds to your transit investments, bus lanes you can lay into existing roads, cooperative and competitive multiplayer for up to six players, a sandbox mode, plus a scenario editor and map editor both linked to Steam Workshop. On paper, that reads like a deep strategy layer finally bolted onto the CiM formula. In practice, the interface is widely regarded as the sequel's single biggest problem, cramming too many overlapping control boxes onto the screen and making track placement, especially for metro lines and trams in specific road lanes, a frustrating exercise in misclicks. The campaign's mission design also regressed: instead of CiM 1's structured scenario unlocks, CiM 2 drops you into maps with minimal existing infrastructure and a short list of loosely connected objectives, making sandbox mode the more honest way to engage with it. For a sim specialist, though, the depth is genuinely there if you are patient. The dynamic city growth mechanic, where running affordable buses downtown builds middle-class housing while a well-placed metro line can accelerate an entire district, is an emergent design challenge that keeps late-game sessions interesting. The Steam Workshop content, including new maps, custom scenarios, and vehicle models, extends the lifespan meaningfully. The collection's 27-item DLC scope, covering real-world cities like Tokyo, Paris, London, New York, and St. Petersburg for CiM 1, plus vehicle packs and additional maps for CiM 2, means there is no shortage of scenarios once you are fluent with both games. Just treat the tutorial in CiM 2 as a brief orientation, not a real teacher, and look up a route-profitability guide before your first campaign mission or you will spend three hours not making a single dollar. This bundle is best approached as: play CiM 1 first to build your intuitions, then graduate to CiM 2 once the route-building logic is in your muscle memory. The sequel never fully delivers on what it promises, but the combination of both games, given their shared heritage as the direct predecessor to Cities: Skylines, makes the collection a legitimate historical artefact of the transit-sim genre and a worthwhile purchase for anyone serious about the genre.

Diego · Scout Team

Strategy & simulation

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