LEGO Skylines Lets You Build the City You Always Wanted, Click by Click

LEGO bricks and city building now share the same sandbox. LEGO Skylines was revealed by Paradox Interactive, Iceflake Studios, and the LEGO Group during Gamescom Opening Nite Live, and the timing appears to be perfect. A cozy customized city builder is on its way to PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X|S, Nintendo Switch 2, and PC via Steam. There is no specific launch date, but the wishlist is already available.

You start with an empty plot of ground and add one house to it. From there, the neighborhood just expands outwards based on your decisions: roads begin to crumble, power and water come, and food production commences. Citizens begin to arrive as happy yellow minifigures who are simply waiting for a job, a park, a hospital, or somewhere to get stuff. Garbage trucks begin to pass, and sewage systems keep the streets clean; yet, in order to improve the city’s rating and unlock additional structures, everything must work flawlessly.

Freedom is the key to the entire experience, as there are no instruction manuals or hard space bounds that limit what you can and cannot do. You can live in a thriving metropolis with various museums and sporting venues, or you can unwind in a tranquil seaside town with a bakery on every corner. Those bakers can make donuts with wheat from the farms you marked on the map. Homes can be as ornate or as simple as you want, parks can simply fill in any gaps in the design, and with all of the decorations and building parts available, you can know that the finished result was created by you and only you.


According to Iceflake Studios co-founder and game director Lasse Liljedhal, the team has a lengthy history with LEGO bricks, which is now being combined with their extensive experience working on deep management games. What people truly want is a more relaxed and personal approach to city development, one that allows your imagination to drive the end result rather than a checklist. That’s what Freddy Löving of the LEGO Group meant when he said they never wanted to just add bricks to an existing game formula. They actually want a game that can compete with the best in its category, whether you’re building enormous skyscrapers or creating something entirely new that no one else has attempted to draw.


Day-to-day living in the metropolis is usually busy but not overwhelming. Citizens are returning home to the homes you designed, strolling through green spaces, and visiting quirky tiny shops that genuinely sell what they want. Hospitals keep them healthy, and despite the fact that all of the systems that keep everything functioning are visible and totally customizable, the general ambiance of the game remains quite relaxed. Which is fantastic because before you realize it, you’re churning out session after session that begin as fast small checks and then turn into a full day.


Screenshots and the introduction trailer show how the LEGO appearance is converted into a genuine breathing world, with buildings snapping together just as you’d expect from the bricks, vehicles rolling by in perfect scale, and even the grass and pavement looking just right. Even when the city grows from a handful of little plots to a full-on skyscraper, the visual language never changes, remaining constant and seamless throughout.