Although the quality of Cities: Skylines 2 is improving at last, it's still not up to par, so the classic city-builder aficionado may be searching for their next romantic interest elsewhere. Is Metropolis 1998 the culprit, maybe?
In actuality, despite the fact that Metropolis 1998 and Cities: Skylines 2 belong to the same niche and genre, in terms of gameplay, the two games are quite unlike. This is a really nostalgic and absurdly fun vintage pixel city builder that has a strong emphasis on customisation and individualisation. You may be thinking that this is simply another work-in-progress project to add to your Steam wishlist and forget about since there is no release date in sight, but be ready for a brand-new demo that will drop shortly.
A new demo for Metropolis 1998 is scheduled to release soon
In actuality, Yesbox Studios has been working on Metropolis 1998 actively for a good amount of time. Last year, a playable sample of the game was published, and those who had a chance to play it gave it positive reviews. Though this demo hasn't been available for a while, according to Yesbox Studios' most recent production update, the company plans to "try to push out an updated demo this month," which would imply that it will be available sometime in July 2024. Because of this, we should be able to play a more thorough vertical slice of the game in a reasonably short amount of time. If you like city-building, you should also play Metropolis 1998.
This game isn't afraid to show off its nostalgia. It was essentially designed with the traditional SimCity population in mind, and it has some amazing pixel graphics to keep things fresh. The feature that elevates Metropolis 1998 beyond mere nostalgia-bait (and, in a sense, counters Skylines) is the player's ability to construct their own buildings via the use of the Blueprint system, in addition to interacting with the comprehensive citizen-level simulation systems.
Theoretically speaking, this should make Metropolis 1998 the most customisable city-builder we've seen to yet, but we'll have to wait to see for ourselves in the demo. Please keep checking back, as the demo could release in the next weeks. Fans of the genre won't want to miss this one, in my opinion.
It should be noted that in addition to having no release timetable set for Metropolis 1998, the game will also launch via Steam Early Access, meaning that a finished product is still a long way off. But my goodness, the screenshots make it seem awesome.