There is simply no peace around Cities Skylines 2. After the problematic start, the game is still not in a really satisfactory condition.
Publisher Paradox Interactive and developer Colossal Order have now jointly apologized and said: “We disappointed you.”
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What's happening now?
“We see and understand the disappointment,” they say. They apologize repeatedly for the mistakes that happened with Cities Skylines 2 and announce that players will receive a refund for the Beach Properties DLC. Work on further paid DLCs has been postponed indefinitely.
“We asked for your patience and support and you gave it to us. In return, we let you down. We thought we could make up for the game's shortcomings in an unrealistic time frame. And rushed out a DLC that was in its “We are sincerely sorry for all of this.”
Further news about Cities Skylines 2:
Beach Properties was criticized by fans for its content and was perceived as too expensive. From now on, the add-on will be offered free of charge; owners of the Ultimate Edition should get other additional content instead. More information about refunds you can find it here.
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“Unfortunately, it will not be possible to offer a refund to buyers of the Ultimate Edition. The reason for this is the distribution of the Ultimate Edition across digital and physical outlets, which makes implementing a partial refund very complicated.
“We recognize that this is far from ideal, especially given the commitment of those who have remained loyal to us since launch. We are committed to returning that loyalty and that is why we will become the owners of the Ultimate Edition with Compensate 3 Creator Packs and 3 Radio Stations, totaling a value of $39.99. Hopefully, this solution ensures that you feel like you're receiving fair compensation, regardless of the method of purchase.”
Before work on paid DLCs continues, further updates will be released. The Bridges and Ports expansion will not come until 2025. They would also like to hold a meeting with prominent members of the community, talk about development plans and offer “full transparency”.
The console versions were also postponed further. Last planned for spring 2024, they are now scheduled to appear in October 2024.
“We have struggled to get Cities: Skylines 2 to the necessary level of optimization for a console release, but we are now hopeful that an upcoming build in April will show sufficient progress to allow us to target a release candidate and then one for October Release build can continue,” says Paradox.
“However, until we have seen and evaluated the progress in these builds, we cannot confirm the release date, and even then there will always be some uncertainty.”
So there is still a lot to do before Colossal Order and Paradox can regain the trust of fans. Cities Skylines 2 was released for the PC in October 2023 and was criticized, among other things, for its performance and the lack of mod support.