Smyle to deliver Red Bull Metropolis, the first major competitive Cities: Skylines event

Red Bull has partnered with creative agency Smyle for the launch of Red Bull Metropolis, the first-ever competitive gaming tournament based around Paradox Interactive’s city-building game Cities:Skylines.

The event will pit four leading content creators from the Cities:Skylines community –  Biffa, Quill, RTGame, and The Spiffing Brit, against each other, challenging them to complete a series of timed urban planning-themed tasks across five rounds on custom-made maps. The top-scoring contenders will then go through to a final round to decide the overall Red Bull Metropolis champion.

Smyle and NJ Live will deliver the live streamed online tournament and show on Twitch and YouTube, alongside film capture and broadcast and have also been responsible for the creative, the pre-event production and technical specifications. Smyle and NJ Live designed  the tournament’s custom-made maps together with the games publisher and the Cities:Skylines community.

The event will be broadcast live to official Red Bull Twitch and YouTube channels alongside each creator’s own channel, offering viewers the chance to control how they take part. Viewers can watch the event either on the main Red Bull channel featuring gameplay challenges, interviews, expert analysis and a host, or from their favourite creator’s perspective, following their every move.

Challenges, which include increasing a city’s population, managing traffic flow, building a campus and dodging meteors, will be individually scored with points awarded for fulfilling certain criteria. Players will be ranked for each challenge, with points placing them on a league table. US content creator City Planner Plays will be adding his unique take on each challenge from a real-life city planning perspective.

Alec Eve, project manager at Smyle said: “We are excited to work on this innovative, game-changing event. This is the first time a game such as Cities:Skylines has been broadcast in this way, taking it into the realm of esports. Our aim is to bring a tournament to a genre that does not traditionally have a competitive element and turn it into exactly that. We want to engage with dedicated gamers and those who would not normally play the game”.

The Red Bull Metropolis virtual six-hour tournament takes place on 21 August from 4pm GMT.

Credits:

Project manager: Alec Eve

Acc Manager: Becca Clark

Game & Talent Producer: Alex Shaw

Video Producer: Matt Potter

Video Editor: Tom Skelton

Creative Lead: Dan Huggett

Graphic design: Vipula Abeynayake

PM: Matt King

Show Producer: Ben Brown

Game & Talent Coordinators: David Jones & Toby Connolly

Proj Co: Maddie Fleet & Matilda Nambi