Hotly anticipated metropolis builder Cities Skylines 2 launched on PC through Steam in October and instantly bumped into numerous points developer Colossal Order has struggled to get on high of in the months since. Now, with participant sentiment turning a ‘blended’ Steam consumer overview ranking into ‘largely destructive’ for current opinions, and with the first Cities Skylines sport with extra gamers than its sequel on PC, the boss of Colossal Order has issued a message to disgruntled gamers designed to deal with chief issues.
In November, Colossal Order confirmed a sequence of delays for deliberate DLC so it may focus on much-needed efficiency enhancements and the already delayed Mod Editor. The console model wouldn’t be launched till the PC model was sorted out, the developer insisted.
Now, in (*2*), CEO Mariina Hallikainen requested herself the query: “How do you intend to get out of this mess? / What’s in the works to repair Cities: Skylines 2? / What’s going to you do to set issues proper for the catastrophe launch of CS2?” In her response, she admitted the lack of modding assist is Colossal Order’s “greatest remorse”, however addressed all the fundamental issues.
“We’d a lot fairly be in a distinct place than we’re in at the second, however we can not change the previous,” Hallikainen mentioned. “We’re working very laborious to catch up on the lacking modding assist, lacking platforms, the content material for the Final Version, and bettering the efficiency and fixing bugs this 12 months. The crew is split to work on totally different duties in order that we’re seeing progress on all fronts and whereas it may not really feel that it’s quick sufficient I can guarantee you we’re all doing the finest we will. Solely time will inform if this is sufficient to flip issues round.
“There have additionally been many questions on the patch cadence and why we moved away from weekly patches. Weekly patches are too heavy for us to maintain up with and the points we’re working on want extra time than only a few hours or days to repair. We’re a small crew of 30 builders and we’ve to plan the work in a approach that creates the quickest outcomes. So as a substitute of spending a giant a part of the week working on the construct deliveries and QA rounds, we will use that point to work on the fixes themselves. For the Final Version, the DLCs have already got a tough schedule so we’ll have good alternatives to patch the sport at the identical time. This doesn’t imply that we by no means patch the sport between the DLC releases. The purpose is to enhance the sport as shortly as potential and when we’ve a stable patch prepared and examined it is going to be launched.
“We’re conscious we’ve a mountain to climb in the case of delivering on the expectations however we’ve our ice picks prepared and we’re absolutely used to the chilly. We will preserve on climbing and you may proceed to see that progress in the sport.”
Then, on the lack of modding assist: “The most important remorse we’ve is that modding assist will not be but accessible for the sport. Now we have been working on it since the starting of the challenge and the intent was to have it absolutely prepared at launch. Code modding assist, map, and asset modifying have been all deliberate to be absolutely usable and mods shareable in a single place. We nonetheless imagine that providing modding assist makes any sport higher and that the instruments and mods needs to be accessible for all gamers to take pleasure in at no extra value.
“Throughout the challenge we confronted, and nonetheless proceed to face, technical difficulties that have an effect on the velocity and high quality of the improvement, particularly efficiency. We merely ran out of time as the focus needed to shift from modding assist to all fingers on deck to repair the efficiency. All this work remains to be ongoing.
“We’ll be speaking extra on the standing of the modding quickly. It’s not an excellent state of affairs however we’re dedicated to maintain working on this a part of the sport as a result of it means a lot to you and to us. ‘A Colossal Order sport is a moddable one’ is a promise we’ve made to ourselves years in the past and work very laborious to maintain.”
In the meantime, Hallikainen answered an inventory of questions, confirming extra animations are coming to the sport, bikes and bike paths are in the works, and extra buildings each free and paid are in the roadmap.
Cities: Skylines 2’s issues started earlier than its launch even arrived. Colossal Order warned gamers that it will launch with efficiency points every week earlier than the sport got here out. Since then, gamers have been met with decrease framerates and attention-grabbing dental glitches as the developer labored to create a greater expertise. In IGN’s Cities: Skylines 2 overview, which returned a 6/10, we mentioned: “Cities: Skylines 2 is an formidable sequel which may have bitten off greater than it will possibly chew – be ready to do a whole lot of terraforming if you don’t need your metropolis to seem like a nightmare.”
Wesley is the UK Information Editor for IGN. Discover him on Twitter at @wyp100. You’ll be able to attain Wesley at wesley_yinpoole@ign.com or confidentially at wyp100@proton.me.