Cities: Skylines has one of the most thriving modding scenes out there, especially on the Steam Workshop. The most beloved city-builder of the past decade, the game's player base is extremely dedicated to allowing players all the freedom they could possibly imagine, especially compared to its predecessor, Sim City.
RELATED: Best Games To Play If You Liked Cities: Skylines
The game has some highly accessible modding tools, and they allow skilled modders to customize just about anything in Cities: Skylines. From creating their own custom buildings, custom map scenarios, or even tweaking the game's core mechanics. There are a whole host of mods that even players brand new to the game are encouraged to install to improve their experience.
Updated June 23rd, 2022 by Russ Boswell: Cities: Skylines continues to be a beloved classic among simulation fans well after its release. Players are still creating mod content for it in 2022 and although there are other options and more projects on the horizon, Cities: Skylines continues to captivate fans thanks to its awesome gameplay. Those that are looking to squeeze even more from the well-designed simulator can turn to the active mod community to find some truly engrossing add-ons that can completely revitalize the game for those that have taken a hiatus or those that simply want more out of their experience. To better showcase some of the best mods for Cities: Skylines, the following list has been updated with more entries.
11 CSL Music Mod
Created By: mrnotsoevil
There are a lot of great Cities: Skylines mods out there that change many of the visual aspects sprinkled throughout the game. Players can download custom models or even finetune graphical settings to make their experience look however they want. But there are also some pretty great mods that change things that have absolutely nothing to do with visuals. A great example is the CSL Music Mod, which will allow players to import their own custom tracks and songs, mixing their own radio stations to use throughout their maps and cities.
Players will have complete free-reign to add whatever types of music they see fit, which can completely change how certain cities and locations feel.
10 Surface Painter
Created By: BloodyPenguin
The Surface Painter will allow players to further customize their landscapes by painting areas with things like pavement, gravel, fields, and other textures. Since these textures already exist in the game (but require players to actually place specific objects or paths), it's incredibly easy to create custom looks without having to go through the extensive process of adding new textures. The Surface Painter can really elevate certain cities by letting players place textures in areas they wouldn't be able to otherwise, creating the illusion of far-off places, or making things look much more realistic by adding gravel and other materials to specific zones within their city.
This is a must-have mod for players that want complete immersion in their cityscape.
9 Tree And Vehicle Props 2
Created By: sway2020
There are tons of buildings, items, road types, and other things that players can place down in Cities: Skylines, but modders are always hard at work adding more to the game. The Tree And Vehicle Props 2 package is a culmination of mods that adds a wide array of different cars and trees that players can add to their cityscape to make it feel more "alive." These static items can really add another layer of customization and visual detail by making certain areas look and feel more "lived in."
Players can fill parking spaces, so things look more natural, and add trees to parks and other areas. It's a small boost to the already robust amount of items found within the game.
8 Achieve It!
Created By: Keallu
One of the biggest downsides to playing Cities: Skylines with mods is that it disables the game's achievement system. To many players, they won't care, but plenty of players hunger to see as many attained as possible. With over 100 achievements in the game, players don't want to be completely locked out.
This mod simply re-enables achievements and allows those with modded games to still get them. Although there are plenty of cheat mods out there, the majority of the most popular are simply quality of life improvements or custom buildings. Players shouldn't be punished for mods that don't give them any major advantage, and so achievement re-enablers are needed.
Created By: BloodyPenguin
Whether it's for a city of their own creation, or for a map scenario they're looking to create, players have plenty of reasons to want to majorly distort the game's terrain. In Cities: Skylines, however, it goes further than just wrapping the land to look a bit weird.
The game's official map editor has loads of weird and fun tools, including the ability to add and remove water/change the water level. Players can even add or remove resources from areas on the map. The default terrain tools are also made entirely configurable, so players who really know what their doing can put a fine touch on all their work.
6 Traffic Manager
Created By: FireController#1847
One of the biggest problems new players are likely to run into is their city is traffic problems. Every car on the road has their own AI and places they need to go, and queues can quickly pile up if players aren't very careful. One of the reasons this can be such a challenge is there aren't enough tools to properly manage it.
RELATED: Pro-Tips For Cities: Skylines - Airports
This mod looks to change that, by giving full customization to the rules of each individual road in the game. With it, players can add real-world road rules, such as one-way, stop and priority signs to their city. There are even several presets that players can use, such as implementing all the correct rules of a roundabout, which the default AI doesn't handle well.
5 Roundabout Builder
Created By: Strad
Roads can be a pain to manage in Cities: Skylines, and making major changes to junctions can cause major problems. On top of that, the way road-snapping works by default in the game can stop things from working properly, and even when they do, the game's traffic doesn't handle it well.
This mod takes out all the mess from the process and allows players to implement it in a simple menu. By clicking it down and choosing their settings, the mod will clear any roads in the way, and connect them up to a brand-new roundabout, which cars can immediately start gliding through. It means players can set them up with one click of a button, rather than 50.
4 Fine Road Anarchy
Created By: Klyte45
When creating many roads to alleviate traffic problems, finding the right ways in which to place them around the city can be difficult. There are plenty of restrictions as to what terrain roads can be placed on, how steep they can be, or how close they can get other things.
Road Anarchy does what it says on the tin and allows players to completely remove any and all restrictions surrounding road placement. Roads will be able to directly up cliff-faces, directly through buildings and contort in all manner of weird ways. Players not looking to go crazy with it can also use it to remove some the minor frustration surrounding road placement, and make a city exactly how they want it.
3 Timboh's Interchange Collection
Created By: Timboh
Not just one mod, but a collection of many mods, all made by Timboh, a wizard when it comes to creating road layouts. The top-rated Cities: Skylines mod are stuffed with loads of various cool-looking interchanges build by the same person, and they can fulfill just about any purpose imaginable.
RELATED: Red Dead 2's World Recreated In Cities: Skylines
Rather than having to sort out efficient ways for cars to change highways themselves, players can instead connect one of these up to the road and let it ride. Along with being cool-looking, they are efficient, and will minimize traffic buildup from cars transferring from one road to another.
2 Precision Engineering
Created By: Simie
Those who want to create the perfect city in Cities: Skylines will usually like to have as much information as possible when building something. In even more ideal circ*mstances, they can have complete control over this information, to get everything exactly as they want it.
Precision Engineering is a mod that allows exactly that to happen. When building things like roads, train line or power lines, this mod gives players all the information they'd need. This includes the angle of the road, how high it is off the ground, and even the height difference between the start and end point. Additionally, there are angle snapping tools for if players have something specific in mind, but can't do it by hand.
1 Move It
Created By: Quboid
Sometime in Cities: Skylines, the expansive tools for organizing a city are just a bit too restrictive. They can make some impressive looking landscapes, but often the way the road system works only allows for one type of city. Mainly, a metropolitan American city, where everything is built in neat squares.
A mod like Move It allows players to capture the messy beauty of something like an old European city, by giving them the tools to move places buildings, and roads around freely. It keeps the city functional, while removing many of the restrictions the vanilla game holds surrounding where buildings pop up and develop.
Cities: Skylines is available now on PC, PS4, Switch, and Xbox One.
MORE: Cities Skylines: Must Have Mods For a Cyberpunk City
