Paradox Warned Us That Cities: Skylines 2’s Rocky Launch, But Does That Excuse It?

These days, I’m extremely wary about buying anything on the day it releases, for fear that it will need weeks or even months of patching before it works properly (I greatly admire Vlad’s resolve in waiting a year before playing Baldur’s Gate 3). Usually, when something like this happens, a lot of the anger stems from the fact that the developers or publishers went ahead and released the game, pretending that nothing was wrong. The first anyone would hear about performance issues would be when they sat down and played the game for themselves.

In the case of Cities: Skylines 2 however, we have exactly the opposite. In the lead-up to launch Paradox was very open about how the game won’t be fully optimised and hasn’t met its own benchmarks.

Even more interesting, Paradox has gone ahead with the original release date, for PC at least. There are serious performance issues on day one, low frame rates, stuttering, and crashes, but Paradox insists that “for the long-term of the project, releasing now is the best way forward”. They have committed themselves to doing all they can to optimise the game in the coming months, but they have been very clear that they want to “manage expectations on performance.” It’s a strange situation all around, and I have conflicted feelings about it.

On the one hand, it’s nice they aren’t pulling a CD Projekt Red and haven’t deliberately obfuscated the state their game is in. From both a business and a moral perspective, that takes guts. Paradox will be well aware of how many people (just like me) are wary of big releases being shoved out the door with an abundance of technical problems, so they won’t have made this decision lightly. They will know that some people are going to be put off altogether, and that’s apparently a risk their willing to take. Getting players on board and then having them stick around while you fix your game is always a big ask, so I respect the transparency here.

The fact that Paradox has been so open about their game’s issues does mitigate this to an extent, but it’s still not entirely excusable.

On the other hand, Paradox are making players pay full price for a product that they themselves acknowledge is not working as intended. We seem to have lost sight of this as a society in general, but you should get what you pay for. If I give Paradox my money, the bare minimum I should get in return is a product that runs properly (with some leeway for minor hiccups). If Paradox can’t provide that, then they shouldn’t be willing to take my money, or release it with a clear ‘Early Access’ caveat.

The fact that Paradox has been so open about their game’s issues does mitigate this to an extent, but I still don’t think it’s entirely excusable. Surely delaying the game is the classier solution here? Sure, one or two die-hard fans will probably get on your case but that seems small potatoes compared to all the baggage that comes with releasing an unfinished game. There is another angle on all this, however. How will this move actually play out from a business perspective long-term?

You only get one first impression, but we have seen games like Cyberpunk 2077 and No Man’s Sky turn things around both critically and commercially after less-than-stellar launches. I think things are a little different in the case of Skylines 2 though. For one thing (unlike the games I just mentioned) it exists in the shadow of its enormously popular predecessor, the original Cities: Skylines. To be clear, I reviewed the sequel, and I think it’s brilliant, but the original game now benefits from years of updates, DLC, and perhaps most importantly, mods.

What I’m saying is that there are a lot of people who have got the original game just the way they like it, and it will take a lot to coax them onto the sequel. There are lots of ways you can do this as a developer, but making the game awkward to play on anything but the very latest hardware isn’t one of them. If I’d heard about the situation with the performance issues, I would at the very least put off buying the game for a few months.

Maybe some of these people can be convinced to jump ship in the future, but that all hinges and when and if the current problems are solved. What doesn’t help is Paradox’s other recent announcement that they are removing Steam Workshop support in favour of its own internal mod platform. This has angered a lot of players who feel it’s an unnecessary move that will hinder their ability to mod the game the way they like.

Ultimately, Paradox has made a rod for its own back. They now need to fix Skylines 2, and fast, or risk players drifting back to the first game, which is still in the top 100 most-played games on Steam. Unless they can offer some seriously compelling reasons to pick up the sequel instead, a lot of players will stick with the original. It’s been refined over many years and can guarantee a stable experience; two qualities you should never overlook.

I don’t want to see Skylines 2 fail, and I hope Paradox’s gamble pays off, but I have my doubts. They’re playing a very risky game, and I hope for their sake that they know what they’re doing.