An update to the Release Schedule

[Cities: Skylines Official]

Hello City Builders,

We wanted to take a moment to update you on the status of our upcoming releases. We know many of you are excited for new content, and we want to be transparent about where things currently stand.

The two Creator Packs — Modern Architecture and Urban Promenades — have been completed by their creators. While the Economy Patch, Detailers Patch, and Decorations Patch are all part of our commitment to improving the base game, we are well aware that the Asset Editor is one of the most crucial remaining features in fulfilling our promise to make mods fully available in-game. To ensure we don’t split our focus, we’ve made the decision to push the release of the Creator Packs to Q4. This will also affect the upcoming release of Bridges & Ports Expansion that will instead come in Q2 2025. We will continue dedicating our efforts to the base game before shifting focus to paid content. Our goal is to ensure the community is satisfied with the state of the game, and once we’ve achieved that, we’ll be excited to release these amazing packs to you!

/The Cities Team

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For those interested, here is an update from Colossal Order and what they are currently dedicating their focus to:

Hi everyone! It’s been a while since we shared an update, so we wanted to take this opportunity to talk about what we’re currently working on. While we don’t have a timeline to share at this point, we can share our current priorities. At the very top of our list is support for custom assets for the Editor and finalizing the console version of Cities: Skylines II. Two different teams work on these, so we’re able to make progress simultaneously, but for the sake of clarity, let’s take them one by one.

Asset Editor
The Asset Editor has presented us with more challenges than we expected, but we’re making good progress and have been sharing updated builds with the modding beta group, so they can get familiar with the Editor and provide feedback on its functionality. While we have done some initial testing of the importing, saving, and sharing processes, more work is needed before we can release the beta version of the Editor for public use. Two key features need to be finalized before asset support is available: Serialization and Virtual Texturing support for custom assets. Serialization is the process that turns meshes, textures, and asset information into an easily shareable file, similar to the .cok files that are created when saving maps. Virtual Texturing plays a key role in optimization as it reduces GPU memory usage.

Once these are ready, we can finalize the asset side of the Editor and set a timeline for its release. We know you’re itching to have custom assets to help bring your city dreams to life, and we’re equally excited to support the amazing asset creators in our community.

Console
Regarding the console version of Cities: Skylines II, we don't have any news beyond what we shared last time. We continue to work on it and will share an updated release window as soon as we have one.

Hotels & Tourism
We see your frustrations with this issue and want to assure you that it’s the top gameplay issue we are currently investigating. We’re making adjustments to the likelihood of hotels appearing in your commercial areas and going through all the bug reports we have related to tourism. Once we have a fix ready, we’ll share more information, similar to what we did with homelessness.

Detailer’s Patch #2
As promised, we have more detailing features in the works, and the Decorations Menu of patch 1.1.8f1 was only a part of that. Since we’re still working on this content, we won’t reveal the details yet, but we can share that we’re looking at road-related decorations and a line tool for placing props and trees. Our focus with Detailer’s Patch #2 will be on features rather than new assets, so while we expect to have a few new things for you to place, it won’t rival the first installment when it comes to variety.

Bug Fixes & Feedback
Besides the above, we are working on fixing bugs and incorporating your feedback wherever possible. We prioritize bug fixes based on how severely they impact the gameplay experience, so for example crashes are at the top of the list. If you encounter a crash, please share details so we can reproduce the issue and fix it. We also follow discussions in the community to make sure we address the issues that annoy you the most, so we can improve your overall experience. We are grateful for all the bug reports you have shared with us. The information and attached saves help us narrow down the cause and test if our fixes do the trick.

Following the Economy 2.0 patch we received a lot of great feedback on the difficulty of the game. Some of you enjoyed the added challenge while others did not. We understand that using the game options that disable achievements is not the most elegant solution for those of you who enjoy a lot of creative freedom while also wanting to keep some of the challenges in your gameplay experience. We are taking the time in the next months to figure out how we can better provide both fun and challenging experiences for the different types of players we have.

Thank you for all the support, the detailed and constructive feedback, and for being a positive part of our community. While our focus is on the game, we still check in with discussions as often as we can and appreciate everything you share with us. We are committed to making Cities: Skylines II the best game it can possibly be, and we’ll keep working until we get there.

 

[co_avanya]

I don't know if the game will be abandoned and the studio closed as many times it happened with Paradox recently.

We have absolutely no intentions of abandoning Cities: Skylines II. Colossal Order was founded with the dream of creating city-building games and our team is very passionate about realising the potential Cities: Skylines II has. It's been a bumpy road but that won't stop us. Secondly, while we have partnered with Paradox Interactive for our games, we remain an independent company with no intentions of shutting down.

Can you please be transparent with the community about why you refused to use Steam Workshop in the first place. It seems - fairly or unfairly - that you have thrown good money after bad to create a modding solution when one already existed.

We chose Paradox Mods for Cities: Skylines II as it isn't tied to one storefront and we want as many of our players to be able to mod their game. The platform used for sharing mods has nothing to do with the issues we're currently facing with the Editor. Had we chosen the Steam Workshop, we'd be in the same situation as now - with the exception that the code mods and maps currently available would only be accessible to players on Steam.

I'm glad we have a private beta group, but I don't know if the beta group consists of both the beta testers as well as asset creators, so that they can test out the asset sharing aspects.

The modding beta consists of code modders, asset creators, and map makers, who help us test the Editor and provide feedback on what improvements would make the process more user-friendly. We're extremely grateful for their contributions, and we're excited to see what they create once the Asset Editor is ready for the public beta release.

 

[Cities: Skylines Official]

Can you please be transparent with the community about why you refused to use Steam Workshop in the first place. It seems - fairly or unfairly - that you have thrown good money after bad to create a modding solution when one already existed.

Our main goal is to be able to share all creations equally between platforms. While there will have to be limits on consoles (storage, code mods), giving players on all platforms access to PDXMods is the main reason.

There is also the ability to fully control our own platform and customize it to both what the game and the community need/want. This is a HUGE improvement from having to wrangle with the unpliable workshop, which has a non-ideal backend.

I am not sure. I read "The two Creator Packs ... have been completed by their creators." but what does that mean exactly? The creators finished working on it, I suppose. And after the creators finished their work, does that mean there would be nothing to do for CO other than push them out of the door? Or would CO have to work with them before that is possible?

In hindsight, we should have been more clear about what this meant. It would involve diverting the attention from developing the Asset Editor and the base game to focus on implementing the Creator Packs. This is where we think the time is better spent focusing on fulfilling the top priorities for the community as a whole.

We do still intend to keep our promise to the Ulitmate Edition owners of providing 3 Creator Packs and 3 Radio Stations on top of the original content promised.

 

[Cities: Skylines Official]

Hi, you have to check this to see only Code mode.
For me, on the other hand, there is a lack of more categories that would sort the mods more depending on the functions they introduce (e.g. policies, traffic).

View attachment 1188888

We do not need other categories right now, but as we add asset mods officially, you will see more!

 

[co_avanya]

We discussed this an other thread on the forum, but the most likely is that when they sent the invitations they were planning some release. They did not deliver, but thought uninviting people would not be great. That seems the most logical explanation, but maybe @co_avanya could clarify?

This wasn't a PR event which is why we didn't promote it. This was a chance for us to sit down face to face with content creators, modders, asset creators, and map makers and hear about their experiences with the game, the issues that negatively impact their experience the most, their hopes for the future, and what they feel the wider community finds important.

It was a really positive and constructive event from our point of view, and I hope we get to do more events like this, both with the NDA group and open to everyone, so we can meet you all. But we'll have to see what the future brings. For now, we have a bunch of stuff to dive back into. And of course, once that turns into something concrete we can share publicly, we will.

 

[co_avanya]

@co_avanya I noticed that the roadmap on the website isn't yet updated to the new schedule. Are you or someone on the team able to revise it?

I'll check in with the team at Paradox to make sure it didn't slip through the cracks. Thanks for the reminder!

You wrote that you've been enjoying the game since its release, so also before the Economy2.0 patch. If the economy wasn't broken, there would be no patch.

BTW Tell me, if the homeless bug can be easily fixed with one mod, why hasn't CO been able to do it for months?

As far as I'm aware the mod regularly scans and removes homeless people from the city. No doubt super helpful while we worked on a fix, but as I understand it the mod didn't address the underlying cause of homeless people getting stuck. And no doubt useful for players who ended up with a very high number of homeless people in the city that would take a long time to clear.

That said, if you still have homeless people getting stuck in your city, please make a report with the save attached and include a list of mods (if any) that have been used in the save.

 

[co_avanya]

@co_avanya do you have any expected date to release the tourism hotfix?

No ETA for a fix yet, sorry! But we'll let you know when there's news on the situation.

 

[co_avanya]

Some fixes are simple and quick to do, some fixes are complex and require a lot of testing and tweaking. Unfortunately, the issue with hotels and tourism falls in the latter category but we're making progress. I understand it's frustrating having to wait for a fix, but I can assure you that we want this fix out as soon as possible too.

 

[co_avanya]

With all due respect but we are hearing that story again and again.

From the point of view of an outsider it looks pretty simple though:
With each potential tourist the demand for lodging should increase, making it more and more likely that a new commercial building will become a hotel. As that hotel will have a certain capacity, this capacity then will work against the demand for further hotels.
I am aware of the fact that demand for lodging will compete with demand for other commercial entities, but then again, the city's attraction for tourists should overcome the competition at a certain point of time.
The whole process literally could be tested in an Excel sheet before starting to code it. Setting up such an Excel sheet doesn't take a person with experiences in Excel more than a day.

This is of course only a very rough sketch but you get the picture.
It does however lead me to another point which is the weak if not completely missing information about certain game functionalities.

This would describe the design part of the process, which is followed by implementation by a programmer and testing - both of which are usually where we spend the most time.

I get that repeating the fact that game development takes time does not make the wait any less frustrating, but I'm afraid that it remains true for this issue and likely many other issues we will tackle in the future. I hope you have something entertaining to spend your time on while we finish up.