Cities: Skylines 2

Basic healthcare and deathcare services unlock as soon as players reach the first milestone of Cities: Skylines 2. This provides a local clinic complete with ambulances, and a cemetery complete with hearses. If players want anything more advanced, they'll need to buy it from the new development tree.

The way that healthcare and average health work in Cities: Skylines 2 isn't fully explained, and many players may end up wondering whether they encountered a bug or whether they're doing something wrong. This doesn't help when citizens constantly complain about healthcare on Chirper despite having good access to clinics. But the simple fact is that players must invest in better healthcare buildings if they want the city's average health to go up.

Clinics vs. Hospitals

Cities Skylines 2 Hospital Reach Off — Healthcare coverage when the hospital is off in Cities: Skylines 2.

In the original Cities: Skylines, the hospital was simply a larger clinic that could cover a wider area and was better at dealing with the demands of high-density zones. These traits are even more true in the sequel. Compare the road colors in the above image where the hospital is turned off to the below image where it's on:

Cities Skylines 2 Hospital Reach — The incredible reach of a hospital in Cities: Skylines 2.

Note how almost every road turns a brighter shade of green, and even the roads in the industrial zone across the river turn green. Hospitals are very expensive compared to clinics, but their reach is impressive.

However, players should keep clinics around even after the hospital goes up. Response time is a big factor in ambulance effectiveness, and citizens will get better results if ambulances can start closer and avoid traffic jams.

A new factor to worry about in Cities: Skylines 2 is "Average Health." Citizen health isn't a new concept to the series, but the way it functions is. If players only build clinics, the Average Health stat in the Healthcare and Deathcare info view will stagnate at around 60%. The only way to really improve this stat is to invest in hospitals and other buildings that improve the city's health. A single hospital can boost Average Health to around 68%, and other buildings can bring this number up even further.

Other Average Health Boosters

Cities Skylines 2 Development Healthcare Deathcare — Healthcare and deathcare in Cities: Skylines 2.

Healthcare facilities in Cities: Skylines 2 are as expensive as they get. The crematorium is cheap, and the hospital is affordable once players need it, but the remaining buildings both cost eight development points. This is too expensive for the early game, especially since players have other buildings they should unlock first. A hospital is enough for citizens to start praising the healthcare system (though others will continue to insult it), and that will have to do until the late-game milestones.

Aside from the Disease Control Center and the Health Research Institute, another way to improve the city's healthcare is by unlocking and buying the Medical University. This building is in the Education and Research development tree.

The Medical University provides the same education as a regular University, but it costs more to build and maintain, and it doesn't handle as many students (even after the upgrade). In exchange, it provides a city-wide boost to two Average Health factors, and with the Practice Clinic upgrade it provides a regional boost to Average Health.

Average Health measures more than just access to clinics in Cities: Skylines 2. If players want to get this number up, they'll need to start investing in more expensive forms of healthcare.

Cities: Skylines 2 is available now on PC, PS5, and Xbox Series X/S.

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