Highrise City
EARLY ACCESS PREVIEW
46
It promises a ‘modern take on thegenre’,
which I hope involves ray tracing and
postmodernism rather thanNFTs and
lockdowns,Highrisecomes fromFourexo
Entertainment, aGerman team looking to
merge citybuilding and tycoon games
into an economy-focused title rather
than just acompetition about
building the biggestskyscrapers.
Running onthe Unreal engine,
there’s a lot to like about Highrise’s
presentation.We’re promised voxel-based
terrain, enormous maps of almost 200
square kilometres, andcustom path-
finding algorithms that make traffic a little
less dumbin the face of multiple routes to
its goal. And while there is a ray tracing
button on the options screen, it’sgreyed
out in the preview code. Also notable by
their absence are many placesto builda
city.Only Rio and Cape Town are available
as starting locations, but naturally they’re
empty whenyou begin.
If anything, the game is reminiscent of
Total Warin the way you soar above the
battlefield...er, city streets, and spin the
camera around. There’s a nice effect when
you dip thecameraunderwater, and ahugely in-depth tutorial that takesyou
through everything you need toknow.It’s
a lot to take in,but again like Total War
once you’ve mastered the tools, they
become second nature.
Building your cityis a case of zoning,
setting tax rates, connectingup water and
power supplies, andeven making sure
someone is there totake the garbage
away.Resources suchas woodhave to be
collectedand a portbuilt to initiate trade.
The shadows of planes crossthe ground,
and enormous container shipscome in
close to the coastline looking for
somewhere to put in. There’s anoverall
feeling of a whole industrialised world out
there, and you’re stuck in themiddle ages.CITY LIMITS
There’s only one way out,and that’sto
build. Youstartwith a road, adding
residential and office zones, power and
water. Citizensarrive out of nowhere, and
soon they’re bustling up and down in
trucks andcars that musthave been
airlifted in ordrivencross-country, as the
town has no connections to the outside
world. Ina neat twist, youcan put a
vehicle down and drive around your
city,safely passing through any
roadside advertsand pedestrians
you happen to run into.
It’sperhapschurlish to mention it
as the game’s inEarly Access,but it’s not
the best-looking Unreal game I’veseen.
This, evidenced by that ray tracingbutton
on the options screen, is clearly in hand,
but running in 4Kat Epic quality, I was
rewarded with waving grass,Vs of flying
geese, painterly clouds, and a lot of
identical trees andpedestrians. There’s
something boxy about the buildings too- for a game with a photo mode, theway
road names show through buildings isn’t
going to show it offin the right light.
Highrise Cityis a complex game that
will repayrepeated play and learning of its
systems, and doesn’t suffer those who
skip the tutorial gladly.Its economic
approach to the city builder is refreshing,
however, bringing abigger slice of
resource managementthan we’ve seenin
other games. Your eventual megalopolis
should be a soaringtriumph of shining
steel and glass, and as it stands, the game
is on the right road to achieving that.
Ian Evenden
I
t’s been a long time since Cities XXL or
Cities: Skylines, and even longer since
SimCity 4. The wave of city building
games from indie developers continues,
however, with Frostpunk and its upcoming sequel
as the spearhead. Highrise City doesn’t promise the
ability to send children to the coal mines, but
intrigues nonetheless.
Bringing excitement to Dullsville
HIGHRISE CITY
RESOURCES SUCH AS WOOD
HAVE TO BE COLLECTED AND A
PORT BUILT TO INITIATETRADE
EXPET TO PAY
£ 20
DEVELOPER
FourexoEntertainmentPUBLISHER
Deck 13LINK
highrisecitygame.com