Image via Paradox Interactive.
Following the widely criticized launch of Cities: Skylines 2 last month, developer Colossal Order and publisher Paradox Interactive have delayed the game’s first few pieces of DLC to instead focus on fixing performance issues.
The move likely comes as no surprise to players. Since launch, the team has been dropping weekly hotfixes to make the game run more smoothly across the board, and work on that front continues. In a post explaining its current priorities, the team lists performance first, with level of detail issues taking precedence and CPU performance improvements to follow. Bug fixing is also high on the list, with around 200 known issues being investigated, followed by modding support.
The result of this need to fix core issues is that the planned DLC for Cities: Skylines 2 has been pushed back by a few months, which is surely a blow to players who sprang for the Ultimate Edition. Originally, the first pieces of DLC, the Beach Properties assets pack and Deluxe Relax radio station, were expected to land before the end of 2023. Now, they will arrive in Q1 2024.
Likewise, the Modern Architecture and Urban Promenades creator packs and the Soft Rock radio station have moved from Q1 to Q2 2024. However, the Bridges and Ports expansion and Cold Wave Channel radio station will still arrive in Q2 2024.
The post notes that an outsourcing partner has been handling development on the Beach Properties pack, which suggests that, even with Colossal Order occupied with fixes, the overall content pipeline remains stable. There’s also a mention that the console version of Cities: Skylines 2 will not move ahead until the PC version is satisfactory, so we could be waiting a while for the new city-builder to make it to PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series S | X.