City Corner #15 – The Road So Far

Hello, Mayors!

Gather around the fire for this edition of City Corner, where we’re looking at the development of Cities: Skylines II. Since taking over, we’ve been improving the game in ways both visible and behind the scenes. Some changes, such as environmental updates, are easy to spot; others quietly help the game run more smoothly.

We covered our first six months in City Corner #9. This time, rather than revisit every patch, we’re stepping back to explore the broader areas we’ve focused on, how they’ve evolved, and a few details you may have missed in the update released on November 10.

Make yourself a cup of tea, coffee, or hot chocolate, bring out the s’mores, and let’s get started.

Exploring the Simulation

The simulation is an area where we plan to increase our focus. Its many systems must work together: citizens need to travel, companies need places to operate, and services need to keep up—all without bringing your carefully planned city to a halt.

So far, we’ve concentrated on making these systems interact more consistently. We’ve examined how citizens make decisions and move through cities, as well as how the different simulation systems affect one another. We’ve also continued refining the behavior of companies, households, and services, paying particular attention to issues that emerge as cities grow.

These changes may not always be obvious at first glance, but they contribute to a more dependable simulation overall. Our goal is a game that behaves more sensibly, avoids unnecessary performance strain, and gives you a reliable foundation for your cities.

Performance remains an important part of that work. We’re continuing to examine how the game handles everything from citizens and traffic to buildings and the environment. There’s no single line of code that can solve every performance challenge. Progress comes from identifying bottlenecks, testing adjustments, and finding better ways to handle increasingly complex cities. We know performance matters to many of you, and it will remain a priority for us.

More Freedom to Create

We also want to give you the freedom to build the cities you imagine. We’ve continued expanding and refining the available tools to make construction more flexible and give you greater control over the details. From road layouts and building placement to landscape sculpting, our aim is to remove limitations and offer more ways to make each city your own.

The game’s visuals have received attention, too. Alongside new visual content, we’ve worked on the environment, terrain, lighting, and other details that bring your cities to life. Improvement isn’t always about adding something new; sometimes it means helping the existing elements come together more naturally.

The interface is another essential part of the experience. We began working on it as soon as we took over, and we’ve continued refining it and adding options to make it more comfortable to use. You spend plenty of time in those menus, so they should be as useful as possible.

Improving the Asset Editor

Creating a city doesn’t end with the tools and assets included in the base game. The modding community has always been central to the Cities franchise, and supporting creators and players remains an important part of development.

We’ve been improving the Asset Editor and the wider modding workflow to make custom content easier to create, edit, and publish. We’ve also supported the Paradox Mods team as they improve the experience, including better ways to browse, organize, and manage the mods you use in your cities.

Much of this work happens behind the scenes, but more accessible and reliable tools mean fewer barriers between an idea and a finished creation. We’ve seen what this community can make, and we want to help you keep creating.

The November Patch

Alongside the announcement of the Park Adventures release date, we released a patch on November 10. The update lays the groundwork for the upcoming expansion and includes several fixes you had requested.

On the gameplay side, we addressed an issue that could cause cities to accumulate too many companies, even when there weren’t enough buildings for them. We also fixed the Hydroelectric Power Plant after your reports that it wasn’t functioning properly. If your plant had been holding back a little too much power, it should now be ready to get back to work. We’ll continue monitoring the situation, as we know there are still issues to address.

Paradox Mods received updates as well. A dedicated tab and featured section now make it easier to discover the latest content from creators you follow. We also added an option to keep subscribed playsets up to date, improved playset management, and made it possible to manage your Playsets and Library while logged out.

The patch also includes technical and interface improvements that some of you may have tried in the Open Beta, including an updated Coherent UI framework and upscaler support. Based on your feedback, we held back some other changes for further polish, including additional texturing beneath roads and FSR4 support.

Free to Play Days

We’ve talked a lot about the improvements made to Cities: Skylines II, and now there’s an opportunity to experience them. Starting November 12, the game will be free to play on Steam for a few days.

Whether you’ve been waiting to try the game, want to revisit an old city, or hope to introduce a friend to it, this is a great chance to start building. There’s also something extra: subscribe to the Paradox Newsletter to unlock the new Grand Post Office signature building and add another landmark to your collection.

We know there’s still plenty of work ahead and that many of you have more improvements you’d like to see. Something big is also coming in December alongside Park Adventures, and we can’t wait to show you. Until then, we’ll keep working through our to-do list and relying on your feedback.

Thank you for staying with us. Now, it’s time to get back to work—those parks won’t build themselves! We’ll share more about Park Adventures in the next City Corner, so stay tuned.

See you soon!

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