Don't Miss the Game Changing Sound & Music in Cities Skylines 2! (Dev Diary Deep Dive #12)

[@bobblebardsley]

Love those detailed pedestrians, I'm very much looking forward to seeing 2,000 of them sprint to the nearest bus stop when you delete a Metro line 😜

[@dycedargselderbrother5353]

I sure do hope they bring back the incessant beeping of commercial buildings.

[@Ens_the1]

That would be.. annoying, to say the least.

[@BiffaPlaysCitiesSkylines]

:P

[@terrellrogers7645]

😂😂😂

[@mjm3091]

Remember the development video - that had constant beeping any time you got XP notification... Which also visibly happened when you built a road rising your development value. I can already see what types of mods will be produced first, if sounds won't be properly addressed in menus.

[@CosmicFurFace]

A pox on all y'all's houses! 🪄

[@dissuxx7422]

Can't wait for the gameplay footage Biffa! Working on getting the funds to pre-order the ultimate edition! 😁

[@BiffaPlaysCitiesSkylines]

Hope you enjoy it!

[@dissuxx7422]

​@@BiffaPlaysCitiesSkylines Not a chance that I won't!

[@stromfelix]

if you can't afford the game then you're not gonna afford a system to play it on

[@dissuxx7422]

​@@stromfelix You got first hand knowledge of my life now? Weird comment.

[@Jamano1201]

@@dissuxx7422don’t worry he’s probably a toxic ark player

[@japes7]

One of the most overlooked areas of CS1. The main theme song was pretty repetitive, was never updated. And then the ambient sounds were never as detailed and nice to hear. This one definitely seems like a much needed upgrade. So I'm glad because I actually enjoy the sounds

[@jayrizzo1454]

Cant wait to see your city designs and traffic fixes. How you manage the bus/trolly/monorail systems. Excited! Thanks for doing these vids Biffa! Nice break from the chaos of life.

[@BiffaPlaysCitiesSkylines]

Thanks! :-)

[@jayrizzo1454]

You sir, are welcome! Remember: "Don't Have A Good Day, Have A Great Day!"

[@user-wq9mw2xz3j]

bus yes, trolly and monorail dont exist

[@k_chyx]

Seems like Biffa is the only one left still uploading these deep dives

[@fubarpie]

Many creators are in the US, and it is a national holiday today. So maybe they will upload tomorrow?

[@hellothere813]

they are usually pre-recorded, but audio isnt as interesting as gameplay features so most probably wont do a proper video for it@@fubarpie

[@heathsterk1978]

Starfield mania has taken over for now.

[@jeremy_logan]

​@@heathsterk1978I wonder why. That game looks terrible

[@alexanderlow919]

@@jeremy_logan definitely，its also poorly optimized as well.

[@Zoe_C95]

I love the addition of different radio stations with news and updates! After years of playing CS1 and listening to the same songs over and over, I started to mute my game and play my own music instead. So excited for your video on the 8th!

[@Viqer_Fell]

i am as excited for this as I was Baldur's Gate 3 and Starfield. CS:2 is going to be amazing. Paradox have a proven track record so I don't feel worried about pre-ordering. All onboard the hype train and ready for biffa's first gameplay videos

[@Bamamarama]

Yea I was a bit disappointed with Starfield, but I'm not worried about this at all. We have seen so much of it, and creators have gotten access so early, I think its going to shape up to be a really really good sequel.

[@101Waylander]

Really looking forward to this game. I’ve even built a new system with the Ryzen 9 7000 series cpu and a 4070 gpu in anticipation. Everything else runs butter smooth with ultra settings so hopefully this game will, too.

[@Mrs.Tim.]

i'm loving the background music, it's so relaxing and i can see it pulling me into the "zone" lol

[@Owner101Acc]

I'm here just because I wanted to tell you that while watching you build Biffalo Countea I feel like your voice has such a soothing, pleasing effect I'm actually listening to it doing dishes and stuff. You're something like the Bob Ross of city building :)

[@nicholasorr6051]

Look up Colonel Failure, that does some Transport Fever stuff. If you like listening to Biffa you'll REALLY like him lol...

[@Helluscus]

I like the extra attention to sound given, CS1 eventually all just sorta morphed together unless you reeaally paid attention

[@oxxyy4009]

This is off topic but I noticed some of the apartment buildings had solar panels on their roof. Do you think this was apart of an upgrade (due to excess cashflow) to the building? Would this decrease the power draw/bill needed for these buildings or is it purely cosmetic? The way they talk about the complexity of the micro economy amongst the Sims, I would think this was an upgrade to decrease power costs? This was 3:45

[@jeromeruest-qp3pv]

Yes I think ur assumption is good

[@Novers]

It makes me happy that yall are getting the game early, i hope the modders also get some ammount of early access, then we will get to hit the ground running

[@Pakulia]

It's a shame nobody mentions the trailer music, by Two Steps From Hell. I was really hoping they would do more music for CS2, but maaaybe in the future?

[@BiffaPlaysCitiesSkylines]

Yeah love that song!

[@nekotranslates]

Knowing the first Cities Skylines, they added new music later on, so same could happen for this game

[@mr_kamaMG]

I appreciate you not ignoring this feature highlight like some other creators did. Sounds and music are such an important part of this game that it blows my mind when some youtubers choose to simply not talk about this. Anyhow, keep up the good work good Sir!

[@RRhoads27]

I have never ever seen seen hearses collect bodies from a disaster in the real world. With mass casualty events, they are usually collected by vans or trucks. Here I live, no dead people are collected by hearses. They are collected by ambulances usually. I think the game is too hearse dependant.

[@SoDakJason]

I wish they had set it up that you could pull CS1 radio stations into CS2. Because it's going to seem pretty barebones on that score for now.

[@TheDeadmanTT]

The blurrieness of the cars and at 12:12 might be an upscaling issue. AMDs FSR 1 and some older DLSS methods do that.

[@MrAdrianSW]

Biffa: The shadows and the lighting, just makes everything look brilliant! Me: Soccer fields in Vanilla!!!

[@TheMcScrooge]

Thats sounds "great", that building fires and collapses now actually have an real effect. It was always weird people just ignoring that their building is on fire. Just like with homelessnes. It gets more real. Changes the conpletely upbeat feeling of CS1, but I think it is worth it.

[@e30farmer85]

The graphics are getting much better over time. I was hard on the graphics, but it looks like much better now.

[@mernisch8307]

The lighting has been really great from the start but textures were a but underwhelming

[@NoDecaf7]

Awesome! I love the detail that a good sound track adds to a game. It really sucks you into the world you're creating!

[@BiffaPlaysCitiesSkylines]

100%

[@gulgir2850]

If i remember correctly then pets like dogs is also new a detail... loving it!

[@Clavichordist]

The citizen walk cycle definitely has improved. They no longer walk like mean zombies. I can read that score shown in the video. I am an accomplished pianist and was once a music major in college. I'll have to listen to the score though to hear if they take the tempo as indicated with the quarter-note = 128 Metronome marking. I definitely need to take a look at the dev diary on that. There's a lot of work that goes into performing and recording music like that. Music performance needs to be 100% always 100% of the time. This makes not only the prep work so arduous but also the final recording and editing process very long, and definitely very expensive. I'm glad the object and ambient sounds have been improved. The issue with many games is the sounds are looped and zoned so that they cut out when a specific distance away from an object then start up suddenly when close and this has always annoyed me with many games. What's worse is the zoning configuration for some audio loops. In one game I use, some content creators erroneously chose ambient instead of local for the audio for their assets. There's nothing like hearing dogs bark clear across the map many, many kilometers or miles away from where the dogs are supposed to be located. To add insult to injury, the sounds are way too loud to boot, making them even worse. When I've come across these assets, I edit the map and remove them rather than hearing them not only way too loud but also over and over again.

[@chinolewin3335]

they did this! amazing work done! i cant wait to watch you play on the 8!!

[@BiffaPlaysCitiesSkylines]

Can't wait!

[@drummonkeystuffuk1875]

@@BiffaPlaysCitiesSkylines The only thing that worries me is if my PC will handle it now lol, got a feeling itll bring my 3900x to its knees, not so worried about ram or gpu though

[@devttyUSB0]

cant wait to see you play this game! i was so hoping you'd be in that crane or whatever it was a few weeks ago. ;)

[@TrenUluxo]

gotta love that beatuh gameplay 🤣

[@raikitsune]

How is it still nearly 2 months before this comes out 😫

[@farfidnugn69]

I'm going to selfishly need a 10 hour video to start with. Thank you in advance Biffa lol

[@munchaking1896]

2:47 I like that picture

[@williamsrdan]

I hope the ads are like Streets Of Sim City: humorous

[@menotyou8169]

Please, sir Biffa…thank you for letting me enjoy your CS: streams…I appreciate you.

[@SeanLamb-I-Am]

The comment at 13:25 about us players being able to like a chirp I think is the first time in all of the dev diaries and insights and previews that the word "mayor" has been used.

[@unkl115]

Is it just me me, or are trees starting to look better in some shots? I think maybe they have started to add LUTS and or sorted any level of detail issues they may have had... i swear the sound video looked better than the in depth dive one!

[@realDonaIdTruck]

I wonder if they will put the lights on the emergency vehicles, or if next to them is good enough 😅

[@bjroo]

I noticed this, the building names might correspond to the street names which I think is really cool

[@WizzardofOdds]

I think it's great how each week they have worked on a different feature of the game to improve it. I am hoping that with all of this, when the game is released that most of the bugs will have been worked out. Far better than other game releases that are plagued from release date for several months after release. They are doing it right.

[@LeverActionLarry]

Thanks for the content! Looking forward to seeing some gameplay. Cheers

[@californiapizzaninja]

Banhammer Bank…heh. 6:59

[@BootedTech]

I am concerned about the FPS ?> I noticed between 3:17 - 3:24. the FPS increased a lot when the camera got past those lovely looking trees, I know they stated the use of multicore CPU usage, but that drop in FPS on those trees is a worry, I might be wrong thou..

[@BiffaPlaysCitiesSkylines]

beta gameplay

[@Possibly_A_Drummer]

The town in that thumbnail looks beautiful. Also at 0:37, look at the reflections on that red car to the left!

[@josesalvador9118]

I'm hoping for an improved version of the sunset harbor's radio, that radio is fun as hell to listen to

[@craftyyounglady]

I hope the Ads are good, one of my favorite things in GTA was always the Ads.

[@Amarouq2]

14:10 SNAFU Insurance, I love the company names in this game.

[@CaptainMauzer]

Good audio design is often an unappreciated labor. When it’s done wrong, it’s IMMEDIATELY noticeable, but done well, it isn’t noticed, unless it wants to be (e.g. sirens/horns etc). Edit: also that “smearing” is telltale DLSS artifacting. Hopefully Nvidia will have a driver for the game that updates the model to minimize this.

[@jodinsan]

Still hoping for a Biffa Radio station some time after CS2 release.

[@a564-c3q]

14:33 I'm a little bit disappointed to see a pretty big skyscraper or at least very high office building still having only 120 workplaces. That building looks like what, some 40 stories? Even if we say it hasn't got the largest footprint, there should still be an average of at least 10 - 20 employees per story. That would make it a 400 - 800 workplaces office building. Of course I understand that you'd get only very few if any skyscrapers in a city of 100,000, 200,000 or even 300,000 inhabitants. But that's exactly how it's like in real life. In the vast majority of cases you don't get a downtown with a significant number of skyscrapers or very high buildings unless the city has 500,000 - 1,000,000 inhabitants or more. (At least if it's true that CS2 is in fact able to fully utilize all cores/threads of a modern multi core CPU.) So this makes me think that CS2 is still downscaled in terms of agent numbers compared to real life. Downscaled at least in some aspects. Judging by this office building it seems to be downscaled significantly, not just 50% or so, but more like 5x, so 500%. I was hoping for no more than 50% downscaling, but oh well. I guess it was developed with the thought that some people still have 4 core/8 thread CPUs and many 6 core/12 thread CPUs. The consoles the game will run on should all have 8 core/16 thread CPUs. I would assume that a state of the art CPU with 8 cores/16 threads should be able to process 500,000 - 1,000,000 agents even with the simulation being more complex. That should allow for significantly less than 500% downscaling. Imho the devs should think less about the people with currently low end CPUs and more about the long term perspective of the game, because obviously this game will be supported and money will be earned with it for years to come, easily 6 - 8 years. Meanwhile average CPU core count and processing power will increase each year. In a few years time the most widespread gaming CPUs will very likely have 8 cores/16 threads instead of the currently 6 cores/12 threads. Meanwhile all console players as well as a good part of PC gamers already have 8 core/16 thread CPUs or even more. The 4 core people should just have to deal with the fact that their CPUs aren't capable enough to run a brand new city building simulation to its full potential. I mean, when it comes to game graphics then game devs aren't thinking much about people with older GPUs either and way less compromises are made, especially in case of blockbuster games.

[@WizzardofOdds]

I like that the citizens are actually walking with feet contacting pavement rather than hovering as they slide down the street in the original game.

[@troller9838]

I noticed that the ages don't make any sense, like apparently someone born in 2027 is an adult even though the current year in the game is 2031 lol.

[@Robert-pl1gd]

One sound that was really annoying in CS1 was the constant emergency vehicle sirens. Especially in traffic. Wish those could be silenced

[@adam-qp3tj]

Love your vids biffaaaa❤️

[@BiffaPlaysCitiesSkylines]

Thank you @adam-qp3tj :-)

[@joshgellock]

Hello, @Biffa! Why don't the dogs have leashes?! Also, again, at 10:38, the "wear" on the streets needs to be adjusted. It looks kind of weird at that marker. And, look at the wonkiness going on with the parking pad at 12:55. The corner goes off the cliff. I was hoping CO would have some of these issues sorted out by now. Low-hanging fruit! At 14:19, same thing. Look at the ground to the right of the high-rises. Cliffs! Or as CPP would say, "lumpies and bumpies"

[@nova72asu]

@11:40 noticed alot of the driveways have street lights right in the middle of them. Numerous spots in the video, still bugging me that there dont seem to be curb breaks at driveways with roads with sidewalks.

[@johnrobinson523]

Love all of the changes... but why do the trees always look like there is a hurricane. :P

[@MickdeRaad]

Great deep dive as usual, very nicely done. Great work! Very excited for the game, having played cs1 since it came out.

[@nicholasorr6051]

The soundscape stuff is interesting but I'm just finding it hard to get excited about the music soundtrack. Which I know is weird, because I'm a musician and a BIG music nerd, but that's precisely why I just game with my own Spotify playlists. (Although for that reason, watching Biffa show off a pro music studio and a snippet of an orchestral score was a weird crossover moment for me!) The new radio stations are an interesting addition but I can't help wondering if the main motivation for including them is to maintain that income stream for Paradox. I eventually bought all the DLCs and most CCPs for the first game, but never wasted my money on the radio stations, and can't see that changing with CS:2.

[@stevekirkby6570]

Some of the animation makes the cims look either constipated or as if they have had a pantie accident. :) Also, the kids still seem to hold their arms as though they have a brick upder their armpits. I thought with motion capture files this would be a thing of the past....?

[@tylerd5515]

Biffa: the fastest city man on KZbin

[@martinholden6214]

Cant wait to play, loved watching ur vids on skylines aswell as crafting my own horrific in comparison cities. Is it going to be perfect? No. Will there be bugs? 100%. Will it have as many assets? Probably not. 7 years of dlc will not transfer across to a new game. However its shaping up to be an amazing game. A vast improvement on the OG and with extra complexities to keep us entertained. So hyped for it.

[@Draco.Invictus]

As a streamer and content creator, I never paid attention to the radio stations because I wasn't about to have a video get demonitized. Unless there are assurances of this not happening with CS2, I still won't be using radio stations.

[@johnboughton7451]

I just hope that the vehicles still lean when they negotiate corners just made it for me The Wobble

[@SPR_NAPALM]

I love the base game music in CS1. It's relaxing and reminds me of the Elder Scrolls music. I tried listening to some of the radio stations but I didn't like them. I also turned off Chirper. I found it to be really annoying.

[@tonyzed6831]

The emergency vehicles light up things around them but we don't see the lights on them, this is not good.

[@goodbooggaming6126]

On following citizens. Do you get a notice or a chirp when a followed citizen has an incident or life change? Or do you need to click on them from your list to see if there any life events going on with them?

[@BiffaPlaysCitiesSkylines]

You need to check in yourself, maybe a future feature?

[@craftyyounglady]

FYI, every time I see a Buffalo in my CS1 games I rename them to Biffalos! 😂

[@JeromeRuest-q9b]

I think I’ll name my first cs2 city biffalo haha

[@perkyraid9089]

the audio mods are gonna be crazy

[@Konrad-z9w]

Do American style cities come with soul crushing medical debts when citizens are struck by desasters?

[@carriegarrisonvos4433]

It's really exciting all the changes!! I wonder if there will be a courthouse or prison for the arresting of people breaking the law? Rather jaw dropping everything they are doing! 😍 Few things had me giggling 😄 the kids walking is a bit too adult like! I'm wondering also if they are going to have Autumn season? Really haven't seen any tree color changing and such.

[@joshuam.6027]

My biggest expectation for CS:2 is sound design and BGM since in my opinion is the weakest part of CS:1. I loved SimCity 2013's sound design and music so I have high expectations for this.

[@a564-c3q]

I wonder if my good old watercooled Vega 56 bios modded to Vega 64 can handle the game at 1080p. Like, 50 - 60 fps is all I need to be happy, at least if they're consistent.

[@MegaLokopo]

It probably will. That card is still far newer than the cards people used when cities skylines 1 came out.

[@Archman155]

well in this dev diary the game is running abysmally and theyll have rtx 3090s and stuff. really hope its old footage and optimisation has been done. i wont be buying it if it runs that bad since ive still got a gtx 1080

[@MegaLokopo]

@@Archman155 They still have a long time to work on optimizations, and they probably are using whatever specs they put on the minimum and recommended list. The minimum is a Gtx 780, and they could easily be using that for the footage.

[@Archman155]

@@MegaLokopo highly doubt that, what company makes their employees develop a game on a ten year old gpu? game dev is extremely intensive. and a month and a half isnt really a long time but ill keep my fingers crossed

[@MegaLokopo]

@@Archman155 Why wouldn't they test their game on an older card if they use it as a minimum? They probably built the game on more common cards most of the time, and then used higher end cards when they were necessary. You only need a high end card, when you are building the lighting and rendering systems, the rest of the time, you simply dumb down the graphics and run on whatever system you already have. A game studio isn't going to make a game with such low minimum specs but then build and test it using 4090's.

[@albertotognoni4819]

first suggestion for your first gameplay of cities skylines II: a left hand drive city like UK

[@sarahthompson2636]

its not only hard to hear with the voices over the top, but even harder with it being paused every 15 seconds

[@munchaking1896]

in CS1 I HATED the "bep bep bep bep bep bep bep bep bep BEEEEEP BEEEEEP BEEEEEP BEEEEEEP bep bep bep bep bep bep bep" sound

[@paulboswellracing6549]

Definitely looking forward to playing CS2! I am wondering though, are the "ads" that we can disable on the radio like radio commercials from the companies in our city? I'm hoping so.

[@TCR_TheKnulk]

Fair enough, gonna give it a go, but i'll probably be back on spotify pretty fast..

[@MegaLokopo]

I hope they add one song from c418 just for the meme.

[@indigogeelen6993]

at 2:54 we see the forest in the back. Is the left side burned away in a forrest fire? or is it a rendering thing? or maby just less tree's?

[@RN-du8wr]

I've been building a giant robot in csl1, I think it'd be cool if we had some kind of kaiju event added to disasters. It takes away from realism, sure, but think about it, you're just following a cim as they go to work or meet someone for a blind date when suddenly a giant lizard comes out of the sea and our cim is contacted and ordered to come back to the military air base that he works at . 😅 I don't really expect to see it in base game but how fun would it be as an april fools/ halloween/ some kind of national monster day(which actually exists! August 14 and cookie monster day is nov 2) dlc . lol

[@stevengalloway8052]

Very crisp, pleasant sounding game, Biffa... 😏

[@boojackanol]

Just noticed its fall but there is no fall color, kinda disappointed tbh.

[@Macwelshman]

“What we’ve got in England?” Come on Biffa, you knew I’d not like that.

[@TheTrendMagnet]

Starting a city in cs1 worried me.

[@ap9970]

I never have the sound turned on, maybe I should unmute

[@Anne5440_]

I usually keep the music turned off. It interferes with TV a lot.

[@rhuntington3]

Which is fun as my brother in law's Lab is named Stella. ♥

[@Yay295]

3:00 tree on road

[@samcyyu]

Can somebody let me know on this as I’ve only been to the UK and France-isn’t the European siren a high-low tone? The European siren in the video sounds more like a variant of American sirens to me

[@pbilk]

True. It doesn't sound like the EU siren that I have heard.

[@matsv201]

In real life typically collage do grade 1-3 or 4 of a profesional education and university do 3-5 as well as phd 1-4. But due to how it works uni have to do grade 1-3 as well because its part of phd traning to educate student at that grade. So at least in real life, uni does everything collage do. The flip side of this is that uni typicallt is a bit narrower. But practically, collage is not needed. But whst collage does do is educate a larger volume of nurses and teachers.

[@naphilasyahfa4345]

This giant gaming for perfectionist

[@1988DanielJ]

I appreciate the deep dive. Seems other creatives have blown off this week.

[@BiffaPlaysCitiesSkylines]

You're welcome :-)

[@KaitouKaiju]

It's a holiday, lots of people are taking time for their families

[@pbilk]

Yes. So true. Especially when they could have looked at the video clips if they didn't want to talk or couldn't add anything to say about the sound and music.

[@WeyounSix]

you saying you havent noticed it is actually good, that means its very likely not annoying at all

[@e1123581321345589144]

gods, I certainly hope they fixed the " *astrologers* warn of meteor impact" thing in CS. That always annoys the heck out of me.

[@amandadeloff4278]

Are the ads on the radio for the businesses and services in your actual city or are they generic ads?

[@MegaLokopo]

I hope somebody makes a real life mod where all the businesses are real life businesses, and then you can hear real relevant ads.

[@amandadeloff4278]

@MegaLokopo I hope the ads get specific, "Petro-Mart, on the corner of Sunflower Rd and Maple Ave, is having a sale! Get your cheap gas while you can!" You click it and it goes to the spot, maybe see if the ad works and more cims stop by.

[@Azareatth]

Friday 8th! Friday 8th! Friday 8th! Friday 8th! Friday 8th! Let's goooooooooo! Can't wait!

[@MrChriselicious]

it looks like so low trafic in most vids, how is the actually gameplay?

[@BiffaPlaysCitiesSkylines]

You'll get traffic eventually and plenty of it :-)

[@Archman155]

does the game run well for you? in the trailers it looks really laggy and poorly optimised. id expect it to run at like 60fps all the time considering ur pc specs. if it doesnt us lot with the slower pcs wont be able to play at all

[@BiffaPlaysCitiesSkylines]

We're still all on beta release, so not 100% optimized. I can get decent enough FPS to make a video, but I am expecting much better on the finished version :-)

[@Archman155]

@@BiffaPlaysCitiesSkylines yeah hopefully, my pcs like 6 years old lol so I hope it manages

[@danielhakim9756]

Biff, is there a chance u would replayed the "By A Dam" Disaster Scenario?

[@SuperExtremeTNT]

so glad the vehicles are different for EU mode, don't have to see the silly police car

[@WillyLangley]

Nice Video!

[@BiffaPlaysCitiesSkylines]

Thanks!

[@AlexFarlow-m1w]

I ordered this game that is on preorder I also got PlayStation 5 for this game because it wasn’t available in the PlayStation 4 console but I will transfer the games over to the PlayStation 5 It’s a 2.8 terabyte console rather then the 825 gigabytes of memory