Highrise City, developed by Fourexo Entertainment and published by Deck13, enters the crowded city-building scene with the ambition to offer something new. It’s exclusive to PC right now, and we checked it out to see if they succeeded.
Drawing obvious parallels with Cities Skylines, Highrise City seeks to carve its own niche by emphasizing the intricate dance between city development and economic simulation. Set in real-world locations like New York City, Rio De Janeiro, and Vancouver, players must navigate diverse resource yields, with water playing a pivotal role in the city’s economy.
Before you embark on your urban design adventure, Highrise City offers a range of difficulty settings and even a sandbox mode, providing ample options for players of all levels. There’s a tutorial as well, which is fairly comprehensive and should get newcomers up and running.
The game relies heavily on road networks as the foundation for construction, with housing, utilities, and industry following all thrown into the mix as well. However, there are quirks in utility management, particularly concerning water distribution, which could be more intuitively handled and which we can imagine getting an overhaul in a future update.
Strategic planning is crucial as you progress, with considerations for factors like resource procurement, population satisfaction, and infrastructure scalability. The game encourages forward thinking, as expanding your territory can be both a costly investment and a means to access more resources – though this can be risky when it doesn’t pay off.
While Highrise City’s gameplay mechanics are commendable, the lack of deeper citizen engagement and events leaves room for improvement. The narrator, albeit providing some character, could also use refinement to align better with the on-screen prompts. At the same time, an intriguing feature is the option to traverse your city in a pickup truck, adding a unique layer of immersion though it’s a little floaty in its implementation – a bit like a demo mode.
Visually, Highrise City presents a decent depiction of a bustling cityscape that comes more and more alive as you progress further. However, performance hiccups and small glitches are things that we wish had been fixed during the game’s Early Access stage, and those with lower-end PCs might want to hold off for a bit. Luckily, Fourexo Entertainment’s already indicated that there’s a post-launch roadmap with new features, so we’re assuming the core experience will also be refined over time.
In conclusion, Highrise City stands out as a promising addition to the city-building genre, offering a fresh take on familiar mechanics. Its attention to detail and diverse building options create a vivid, engaging environment for players to explore and develop. For those seeking a new city builder with depth, Highrise City certainly merits consideration.
Score: 7.8/10
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