Hello, City Builders!
We hope this message finds you well. We have some updates to share with you:Next Region Pack available todayWe’re thrilled to announce that the next Region Pack is almost here! This time, we bring you to the United Kingdom with a collection of community-created assets inspired by the local architecture and landscapes of Great Britain. The UK Region Pack will be available today at 16:00 CET on Paradox Mods, so make sure to check it out!
Patch Release TomorrowTomorrow, we have a small bugfixing patch for you. This update brings some gameplay fixes, UI improvements, and more. Full patch notes will be available alongside the release tomorrow at 10:00 CET.
A heads-up for our modding community: the talented modders in our Early Access program are already reviewing mod compatibility with this version. However, as always, we ask for your patience, as many mods may require updates and might not work immediately after the patch goes live.
Upcoming Creator PacksWe have some exciting news regarding the upcoming Creator Packs - Urban Promenades & Modern Architecture and the corresponding Soft Rock Radio - they will soon be available. Keep your eyes open for more details as we will shortly shed some light on the content of them, the creators behind them and their release date.
Additional Creator Packs & RadiosLooking ahead, we also want to let you know that the three additional Creator Packs and Radios Stations, that will be included in the Ultimate Edition, are in the pipeline. While these won’t be ready for a Q4 release, they are in the last implementation stages and will be ready for release early next year.
Console UpdateWhile we do not have a new release date for the console version yet, we want to keep you up to date on our progress and our challenges. Currently, we are experiencing both simulation issues (CPU) and graphics issues (GPU) which become noticeable when players take certain actions that cause frame rate drops or memory overload. These issues are particularly challenging due to the hardware limitations of consoles.
For instance, when placing larger buildings that involve numerous entities, the system struggles to handle the data load. During the calculation process (e.g., checking if there’s enough space or if any entities overlap with existing assets), performance bottlenecks arise, resulting in these noticeable issues.
At this point, we have managed to get the game to a stable and playable state by significantly lowering the graphics quality. However that's to the level where it becomes a compromise that we are not willing to make. Once we get it to an acceptable level, further optimizations are needed for both simulation and memory usage before we are ready to share the console version.
Until they are resolved, we cannot provide a release estimate to avoid it being premature and potentially misleading. The console release remains a top priority for us, we have multiple solutions being explored with experts actively involved, and we're working hard to bring you the console version of Cities: Skylines II.
With appreciation,
The Cities: Skylines Team
