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
For those interested, here is an update from Colossal Order and what they are currently dedicating their focus to:
[quote=CO] 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. [/quote]
