Cities: Skylines 2 dev says it won't release paid DLC until performance "fixed to our standards"

Cities: Skylines 2 dev says it won’t release paid DLC until performance “fixed to our standards”

Time Stamp: November 6, 2023 5:08 PM

Cities: Skylines 2 studio Colossal Order has pledged not to release paid DLC for its city building sequel until its heavily criticised performance issues have been “fixed to our standards”.

Performance concerns have, of course, dogged Cities: Skylines 2 even before its release, with Colossal Order and publisher Paradox Interactive taking the unprecedented step of warning potential buyers that it had “not achieved the benchmark we targeted” prior to launch – but then going ahead and releasing it anyway because “releasing now is the best way forward.”

In the weeks since, Colossal Order has continued to chip away at Cities: Skylines 2’s performance issues and bugs (even the ones definitely not related to teeth), and it’s now followed-up last week’s patch with a new blog detailing some of the changes to come.

Cities: Skylines 2 gameplay trailer.

In the blog, Colossal Order CEO Mariina Hallikainen began by urging the Cities: Skylines community to focus on “constructive criticism” and avoid attacking fellow fans after reactions to the recent removal of an “offensive” in-game radio advert – a skit focused on the fictional Spasm Electronics, utilising sound effects some felt made light of seizures – “went a bit too far”.

Elsewhere, Hallikainen noted balance issues relating to city garbage collection are currently on the developer’s radar, and confirmed a recently highlighted bug – which caused cities to generate an “insane number of abandoned packs of dogs” – will be addressed in the next patch, perhaps regrettably.

Hallikainen ended by pledging the studio won’t “release new paid content for Cities: Skylines 2 before the outstanding performance issues are fixed to our standards.” It’s unclear exactly what the developer’s standards threshold might be, given the mess it deemed acceptable enough to release in the first place, but hopefully it means some serious improvements will manifest before Paradox starts squeezing consumer wallets with endless paid DLC.

“We are also very much looking forward to starting to go through your suggestions for Cities: Skylines 2, such as adding some beloved quality-of-life improvements already familiar from the predecessor that were missed in the sequel due to priorities and time constraints”, Hallikainen concluded in her post. “My pledge to you is that Colossal Order will keep working on Cities: Skylines 2 so it will reach its full potential”.

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