A gamer has embarked on an ambitious project to recreate Aberdeen in a popular city-building game – and will even use it to examine how the AWPR will affect traffic in the city.

Youtuber RazorKillBen, real name Ben Shewan, is planning to painstakingly rebuild the Granite City in Cities: Skylines.

Using a combination of height maps, ordnance survey map overlays, reference images and a good deal of his knowledge and experience of living in Aberdeen to tackle the mammoth project.

In a video posted on social media by the Essex-born gamer, who now lives in Aberdeen, details Aberdeen’s rich heritage and explains why the city will be such a fun build to tackle.

The project, still a work in progress – including a number of placeholder buildings and vehicles – will eventually include the entire city.

Early screenshots show the recognisable profile of Torry, the area around the harbour and Aberdeen Beach.

Ben hopes, once complete, he will be able to model the benefits of the completed AWPR, as well as looking into the affect of changing bus routes across the city and introducing a tram network.

He said: “I think it would be interesting to test how the city responds to building the AWPR introducing trams or bus routes.

“I hope that it encourages residents and visitors of Aberdeen to be proud of the city we live in, and hopefully encourage others that see and play it, to want to come and visit the unique city.”

However, it hasn’t been without it’s challenges, as the YouTuber explains.

“There has been significant work to design the terrain by hand, build custom models and assets (for Aberdeen and the UK) and force road users onto the left.

“It’s starting to take shape quite nicely and when it’s done, I plan to upload it to Steam for anyone to use and download for free.”

City: Skylines, released in 2015, quickly over took similar titles – including SimCity – in becoming the most popular city-building game.

The ability for fans and amateur games developers to create their own mods for the game, everything from new cars and lorries all the way up to buildings, road networks and even entire landscapes and scenery has prolonged the longevity of the title.