If you’ve ever dabbled in city-building sims, you know the thrill of watching your dream metropolis spring to life. But if you’ve played “Cities: Skylines II” recently, you might also know the frustration of sky-high rents making your virtual citizens just as miserable as real ones. For months, players have been grappling with housing costs so steep that it’s almost as if their avatars were living in New York or London. But now, developer Colossal Order has pulled a move that real-world city planners can only dream of: they’ve completely abolished landlords.
Let’s back up a bit. “Cities: Skylines II,” released by Colossal Order in 2023, is a city-building simulation game where players can design and manage their own urban utopias. However, many players found themselves stuck in a dystopian nightmare as rents soared and their virtual citizens struggled to make ends meet. Subreddits dedicated to the game were flooded with posts from frustrated mayors-in-training who couldn’t seem to fix the housing crisis no matter what they tried.
One player lamented in April, “For the love of God I cannot fix high rent. Anything I do — re-zone, de-zone, more jobs, fewer jobs, taxes high or low, wait time in-game — nothing works. It seems anything I try does nothing.”
The problem felt all too real. As housing costs skyrocketed in their virtual cities, players couldn’t help but draw comparisons to the real world, where rent increases often outpace wage growth. From major metropolises like New York City to smaller cities like Columbia, SC, and Rochester, NY, tenants are feeling the financial strain.According to the latest data from the Harvard Joint Center for Housing Studies, released in January, half of all renters nationwide spent more than 30% of their income on rent in 2022. Landlords frequently become the easiest targets for their frustration. While real-world solutions are complex and slow-moving, Colossal Order took a more radical approach.
In a June update, the developers announced they were kicking landlords to the curb. In a blog post on the game’s Steam page, they explained, “First of all, we removed the virtual landlord so a building’s upkeep is now paid equally by all renters. Second, we changed the way rent is calculated.” Instead of a fixed amount, rent would now be based on a household’s income. Even if a family didn’t have enough money to cover rent at the moment, they wouldn’t complain — though they might cut back on other expenses.
This in-game adjustment might sound like a drastic measure, but it highlights a significant difference between managing a digital city and a real one. In real life, rent is influenced by a myriad of factors: housing supply, demand, location, amenities, and yes, the landlord’s own financial goals. In the game, however, Colossal Order could simply remove one of these variables entirely.
Before the update, players noticed that the game’s simulation of high rents was almost too accurate, reflecting real-world issues that city planners are constantly battling. One player noted how the game’s logic seemed to create a hyper-capitalist scenario where speculative landlords drove people out of their homes for profit. In reality, while landlords play a role, other factors like zoning laws, economic policies, and market dynamics also significantly impact housing costs.
Interestingly, the update didn’t entirely eliminate rent complaints. Colossal Order clarified that if household incomes were too low to cover rent, tenants would still grumble and potentially move out of the city. This tweak ensures that the game remains challenging and realistic, without reducing it to an unmanageable frustration fest.
The situation in “Cities: Skylines II” offers a fascinating reflection on real-world housing issues. Take Vienna, for example, often cited as a “renters’ utopia.” The city itself acts as the landlord, owning about 220,000 apartments and keeping rents affordable for its residents. This model contrasts sharply with places where private landlords dominate the market, driving up prices as they compete for profits.
Colossal Order’s virtual solution might be extreme, but it’s a thought-provoking experiment in urban planning. What if we could solve housing crises by simply removing the profit motive? What if rents were based on what people could actually afford? These are the kinds of questions that “Cities: Skylines II” raises, even if only in a simulated environment.
The game’s developers have warned that the transition period following the update might bring some unpredictability, especially for those using mods. But the core issue — making housing affordable — seems to be well on its way to being resolved. Players can now focus on other aspects of city-building, like improving public transportation, managing environmental concerns, and keeping their citizens happy and healthy.
“Cities: Skylines II” continues to captivate gamers with its intricate simulations and the ability to tackle real-world issues in a controlled, virtual environment. By removing landlords, the game doesn’t just offer a solution to high rents; it sparks conversations about the complexities of housing and the potential for innovative solutions.
