City building games have a Soul Problem pt.2

City building games like Cities: Skylines 2 suffer from a lack of visual authenticity because their aesthetics are overly sanitized and geometrically uniform, with everything rendered in flat, square surfaces that fail to capture the organic, weathered character of real cities. The author argues that without spending dozens of hours manually adding mods and details, players can't experience the natural charm found in real urban environments—such as worn textures, stairs, graffiti, cables, and signs of age—which are essential to creating cities that feel alive rather than sterile and lifeless.