Cities: Skylines 2 boss says there won't be paid DLC until 'performance issues are fixed'

(Image credit: Paradox)

Following its launch in 2015, the original Cities: Skylines spawned a surprising number of DLC packs: a whopping 62 in total. But if you're wondering when Cities: Skyline 2 will start flinging paid DLC your way, you're in for a bit of a wait. Colossal Order CEO Mariina Hallikainen said today that paid content won't arrive until the game is running better.

"...we will not release new paid content for Cities: Skylines II before the outstanding performance issues are fixed to our standards," Hallikainen wrote in a blog post on the Paradox Forum today.

Performance issues have plagued the city builder sequel, which launched last month to Mixed reviews on Steam—compared to the original game's Very Positive rating. Hallikainen says improving the game's performance is the priority for Colossal Order, rather than beginning work on expansions and packs. "As a small team, we must focus on the task at hand to avoid spreading too thin," she wrote.

Performance fixes won't be the only items in upcoming patches. "We are also very much looking forward to starting to go through your suggestions for Cities: Skylines 2, such as adding some beloved quality-of-life improvements already familiar from the predecessor that were missed in the sequel due to priorities and time constraints," Hallikainen said, without getting specific.

A few other items Colossal Order is focusing on in the short-term in Cities: Skylines 2: garbage collection bugs. These can cause garbage trucks to vanish while driving their routes, and garbage service buildings fill up with trash "seemingly out of nowhere" (perhaps from invisible trucks?) and thus don't collect garbage from city residents. These issues are causing other problems as garbage is being exported off the map, with all those stinky trucks causing extra traffic congestion.

We wrote last week about packs of dogs roaming the city streets after being abandoned by their owners: this bug is being addressed too, and could potentially lead to an addition to the game. "Plans to fix this issue caused immediate debate if we should turn this bug into a feature," Hallikainen wrote. "I for one would absolutely welcome the idea of an animal shelter DLC with a bunch of policies and all sorts of animals needing rescue in the city!" See, not all bugs are bad.

Chris started playing PC games in the 1980s, started writing about them in the early 2000s, and (finally) started getting paid to write about them in the late 2000s. Following a few years as a regular freelancer, PC Gamer hired him in 2014, probably so he'd stop emailing them asking for more work. Chris has a love-hate relationship with survival games and an unhealthy fascination with the inner lives of NPCs. He's also a fan of offbeat simulation games, mods, and ignoring storylines in RPGs so he can make up his own.