The biggest name in city builders has a few cracks in its foundation. When it launched late in 2023, it was pretty obvious that Cities: Skylines 2 would have benefited from some more time in development, and thanks to optimization issues and a lack of mod support, the city builder sequel currently has "Mixed" reviews on Steam—with recent reviews dipping into "Mostly Negative" territory. Ouch.
That's disappointing, especially since the original game still enjoys a "Very Positive" 93% review score on Steam (and by the looks of it is currently drawing twice the amount of daily players than its sequel).
Today on the Paradox Forums, Colossal Order CEO Mariina Hallikainen reiterated the studio's commitment to addressing community requests for improvements, while simultaneously pointing out fixes and changes can't happen overnight.
"We’d much rather be in a different position than we are in at the moment, but we cannot change the past," Hallikainen wrote. "We’re working very hard to catch up on the missing modding support, missing platforms, the content for the Ultimate Edition, and improving the performance and fixing bugs this year. The team is divided to work on different tasks so that we’re seeing progress on all fronts and while it might not feel that it’s fast enough I can assure you we are all doing the best we can."
One of the most common requests from fans is mod support: the original Cities: Skylines has hundreds of thousands of mods that add custom creations like roads, vehicles, maps, districts, parks, and unique buildings. An editor for Cities: Skylines 2 hasn't arrived yet, and sounds like it could still be a ways off.
"The biggest regret we have is that modding support is not yet available for the game," Hallikainen said. "We have been working on it since the beginning of the project and the intent was to have it fully ready at release. Code modding support, map, and asset editing were all planned to be fully usable and mods shareable in one place."
After launch, issues with the game's performance took top priority, Hallikainen said, and the studio "ran out of time as the focus had to shift from modding support to all hands on deck to fix the performance." Work on mod support is ongoing, but there's no indication when the community might see it. "It’s not an ideal situation but we are committed to keep working on this part of the game because it means so much to you and to us," Hallikainen said.
In the meantime, Hallikainen points out some improvements that have been made based on player feedback, like improved pathfinding, and highlights a few items the studio is working on now such as improvements to the education system and more transparency in the economic system.
"We are aware we have a mountain to climb when it comes to delivering on the expectations but we have our ice picks ready and we are surely used to the cold," Hallikainen said. "We're going to keep on climbing and you'll continue to see that progress in the game."
You can read the full post on the Paradox Forums.
