Paradox studio Colossal Order has shared an update on the development status of Cities: Skylines 2. Unfortunately, it’s not what fans wanted to hear.
In a post on their forums, Colossal Order said this:
“Dear Console Players,
We wanted to update you on the console release schedule. Unfortunately, we have not yet met the stability and performance targets we set for the console release. Without a Release Candidate (RC), we are now unable to meet an October release window.
While we are making slow but steady progress, there are still unresolved issues impacting the game in ways that harm the player experience we want to deliver. We expect to receive a new RC, which will undergo a thorough review in August. This evaluation will determine whether we can begin the submission process and provide a solid release date, or if further issues need to be addressed.
We understand this is disappointing, and it’s not what we had hoped for either. However, we are committed to keeping you informed throughout this development process, even if the updates aren’t always what we’d like.
Thank you for your understanding and support.”
Cities: Skylines 2 released on Windows last October 24, 2023, via Steam. It is also playable on Nvidia’s GeForce Now cloud gaming service, and can be launched but is unplayable on the Steam Deck. Its target consoles are PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X.
Now, if you have actually been playing Cities: Skylines 2 this whole time, none of this should come as a surprise to you. Fans have been generally negative towards this title, in spite of the improved gameplay, because it launched on PC with a lot of technical and performance issues. We reported last April that Colossal Order apologized for the game’s state, and went out of their way to offer their Beach Properties DLC for free.
Now, we sought out what the player community had to say about this update. This YouTube by Cities by Diana pointed out that players are still waiting for performance updates to bring the game up to expectations. The community has been unhappy with Colossal Order, but the studio has been rebuilding that trust with these fixes.
So, most of us don’t play management sims like this, but it sounds like Paradox had to put this game on a redemption narrative, in the same way that Cyberpunk 2077 did. It sounds reasonable to delay the console release, if at least console players don’t experience the same thing the hardcore PC gamers did.
We do hope that Colossal Order gets it all together so that when PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X|S owners finally get to play Cities: Skylines 2, it will be a worthwhile experience out the gate.
