Someone Created A Replica Of Chicago In 'Cities: Skyline,' An Urban Planning Video Game

By Justin Freeman in Arts & Entertainment on May 21, 2015 7:35PM

Cities: Skyline, a new urban planning simulation computer game, is a spiritual successor to such classic urban planning games as SimCity. As SimCity tries, increasingly in vain, to figure out its place in a world where they’ve been dethroned and the default educational game is Minecraft, Cities: Skyline has arguably emerged as the urban planning game of choice.



photo: Reddit

Unsurprisingly, Cites has a rather large following online of urban planning enthusiasts sharing their designs on Youtube and Twitch. Some are crap and some are just mediocre, but every so often you’ll come across something special. A week ago, someone on Reddit named dbFabio created a replica of the city of Chicago within the game and posted photos of it on Reddit.



photo: Reddit

dbFabio, who apparently isn’t even from Chicago, says it took around 20 to 30 hours to create the replica of the city. It looks really good and we’re quite impressed by his attention to detail. If you have a copy of Cities, the save file has been uploaded to Steam if you want to poke around. Check out a full photo gallery here.



photo: Reddit

This isn't the first time an idiosyncratic simulation game has heavily featured Chicago. About a decade ago, Railfan: Chicago Transit Authority Brown Line was released for the Playstation 3. It’s pretty much what you’re probably envisioning in your head: a simulation game where you pilot a Brown Line train through the city.

It only came out in Japan and is currently out of print, making it slightly obscure. It’s kind of strange. Railfan is a game that was designed for a Japanese audience that features three railway systems: the Chūō Main Line of Tokyo, the Keihan Main Line running between Kyoto and Osaka and the Brown Line here in Chicago—where I can almost see the place where I sometimes grab coffee in the morning near the Armitage station. That is just beautifully random.

If you need a moment of workday zen, check out this gameplay video of the Brown Line on Railfan.