Paradox Says It “Miscalculated” How Players Would React To Cities: Skylines 2’s Broken Launch

Paradox Interactive has misfired with the launch of Cities: Skylines 2. It’s been almost 1 year since the city-building simulator came out, garnering a ton of hype prior to its release, but unfortunately, all of those prospects took a considerable nosedive, no thanks to the state the game launched in.

Now, Paradox CEO Mattias Lilja has had something to say about this to Rock Paper Shotgun, speaking to the publication in the recent Paradox Media Day.

We were aware that performance was not great, but we underestimated how it will be perceived by players – how serious the player perception would be. So I think one learning with Cities 2 is if we could have brought players in to try it on a larger scale, that would have helped. Going forward, we need to have this communication with players and openness to a larger degree, and quite early if possible. Tinto Talks is one way of communicating with players even before release. But there’s also of course, closed beta tests and having dedicated enthusiasts in even earlier, under NDA, to help us identify issues.” 

What Mattias is trying to insinuate here is an age-old practice in the gaming industry that many game developers stick to in an attempt to meet deadlines and release schedules. It’s debatable that the release-now-fix-later approach is a problem in the gaming sphere, but it’s led to some genuinely fantastic final products, particularly No Man’s Sky, Battlefield 4, and, of course, Cyberpunk 2077. 

Paradox Interactive Continues To Polish Its Latest City Builder

Cities: Skylines 2, however, is a whole different story. Heading over to the CitiesSkylines2 subreddit, it’s clear how fed-up players have started to grow with the title, with Paradox’s promises nowhere near in sight. The strategy sim did roll over more than a million copies, as of Februrary 2024, but the overall player count has also halved over the course of this year.

The game came out on October 24, 2023, for PC, with the PS5 and Xbox Series X|S versions being indefinitely delayed. eXputer reviewed it, rating Skylines 2 3.5/5.0, with author Asad Ahmed remarking, 

Cities: Skylines 2 is a sequel with notable improvements over its predecessor, but it falls short in terms of content and stability.”