Enlarge / Kudos to the designer of this umbrella-shaded rooftop terrace at Colossal Order, perhaps the only worker who can imagine a place that isn't overwhelmed by Steam reviewers. (credit: Paradox Interactive)

Under the very unassuming name of patch 1.1.0f1 , Cities: Skylines 2 is getting something quite big. The sequel now has the modding, map editing, and code modding support that made its predecessor such a sprawling success.

Only time will tell if community energy can help restore some of the energy that has been dispersed by the fraught launch of Cities: Skylines 2 (C:S2) . The project of relatively small developer Colossal Order arrived in October 2023 with performance issues and a lack of content compared to its predecessor. Some of that content perception stemmed from the game's lack of modding support, which had contributed to entire aspects of the original game not yet available in the sequel.

When Ars interviewed Colossal Order CEO Mariina Hallikainen in December, she said that modding support was the thing she was most looking forward to arriving. Modding support was intended to be available at launch, but the challenges of building the new game's technical base, amid many other technical issues , pushed it back, along with console releases.

Enlarge / Colossal Order CEO Mariina Hallikainen, from the company's "Winter Recap" video. (credit: Colossal Order/Paradox Interactive/YouTube)

It's not often you see the CEO of a developer suggest their game is "cursed" in an official, professionally produced video, let alone a video released to celebrate that game. But Colossal Order, and its CEO, are not a typical developer. And Cities: Skylines 2 has not had anything close to a typical release.

In a "Winter Recap" video up today for Cities: Skylines 2 (C:S2) , CEO Mariina Hallikainen says that her company's goal was to prevent the main issue they had with the original Cities: Skylines : continuing work on a game that was "not a technical masterpiece" for 10 years or more. The goal with C:S2 was to use the very latest technology and build everything new.

"We are trying to make a city-building game that will last for a decade," Hallikainen says in the video. "People didn't understand; we aren't using anything from Cities: Skylines. We're actually building everything new." Henri Haimakainen, game designer, says Colossal Order is "like fighting against ourselves, in a way. We are our own worst competition," in trying to deliver not only the original game, but more.

Enlarge (credit: Paradox Interactive)

The worst thing about Cities: Skylines 2 is that it was recently released.

If this hugely ambitious city builder simulation would have been released some time ago, patched over and over again, and updated with some gap-filling DLC, it would be far better off. It could be on its slow-burn second act, like No Man’s Sky , Cyberpunk 2077 , or Final Fantasy XIV . It could have settled into a disgruntled-but-still-invested player base, like Destiny 2 or Overwatch 2 . Or its technical debts could have been slowly paid off to let its underlying strengths come through, as with Disco Elysium or The Witcher 3.

But Cities: Skylines 2 ( C:S2) is regrettably available now in its current state. It has serious performance problems, both acknowledged by its 30-odd-employee developer Colossal Order and studied in-depth by others (which we’ll get into). It has a rough-draft look when compared to its predecessor, which has accumulated eight years of fixes, DLC, and mods to cover a dizzying array of ideas. Worst of all, it was highly anticipated by fans, some of whom have high-end systems that still can't properly run the sluggish game.