18
votes
Development of the Paradox Interactive-owned IP Cities: Skylines will shift from Colossal Order to Iceflake Studios
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- Title
- Cities: Skylines to switch developer
- Published
- Nov 17 2025
- Word count
- 666 words
I can't put my finger on what other dev/game I'm thinking of, but I feel like this isn't the first time we've seen a dark horse developer swoop in and dethrone the longstanding master of a genre only to then botch it on the sequel.
Kerbal Space Program comes to mind, but that situation is different. Although very similarly frustrating for a long-time fan :(
Possibly Planet Coaster counts. Frontier pretty much dethroned Rollercoaster Tycoon for amusement park management sims (though honestly Atari kinda abdicated by shoveling out low-quality dreck for mobile for years). Now, Planet Coaster 2 is having some struggles in much the same way as C:S2.
Actually, the two series are quite alike in their stories and struggles. The initial entries of both garnered active and opinionated playerbases, and had extensive DLC libraries prior to the launch of their sequels–to the extent that it was a hard sell to get people to start the treadmill over again. The pitches for both sequels included promises of better performance that haven't materialized, at least not enough to justify the purchase price and relative lack of content compared to their predecessors.
I'm not clued-in to insider info for either, but the feeling I get for both is that the publishing side of things was the main driver of the sequel being launched. Frontier is both developer and publisher for Planet Coaster, and as stated in the linked piece, Paradox is the publisher for C:S and also owns the IP. Both publishers have long track records of shall we say "aggressive" DLC strategies that have been their bread and butter, but also have bitten them in the ass when sequel time rolls around.
I have both C:S1 and PC1 in my library and have enjoyed both, but neither sequel has yet offered enough to justify the price tag. Looking at Steam reviews alone, it seems I'm in good company on that.
Citystate is that game for me.
The idea of a SimCity clone where the main gimmick is making political decisions that reshape your city was a novel concept, albeit flawed in execution. Anarchist and libertarian politicies were utterly overpowered to the point where it was the easiest sure-fire way to transform your city into a utopia, while the game ran like complete shit once your city grew past the 250k population mark. Then the outer space update launched in an incredibly buggy state where housing couldn't upgrade beyond the penultimate tier and sometimes you'd end up with "NaN" dollars unable to spend anything and effectively have the data of one of your exoplanetary colonies corrupted. And then Andy Sztark abandoned the game.
Citystate II dialed back heavily on the ambition and just became another generic city builder which Sztark abandoned some time after launching in Early Access. And now with Citystate Metropolis on the horizon, I just wish this guy would actually stick to a project for a change.
LGR recently did a C:S2 two-year update review that goes over some of the issues that have persisted in the game since launch. It's worth checking out, if like me you haven't been following the title very closely. Clint always does a good job of keeping his criticisms of his darlings fair and even-handed.
I picked up C:S2 during a free weekend about a year ago and ended up buying it afterwards since it was also on a slight sale. Played it for about a week. It was fun enough. But haven't been back to it since. I played a decent amount of the original C:S. 468hrs for C:S vs 15hrs for C:S2. Really didn't run into any major issues when I played it.
I've read a fair amount about the issues CO and Paradox encountered. And of course all the finger pointing by people in the community. Idk who's at fault for all this. Don't really care. It's a shitty situation, period. Yeah the game is stable, but I wouldn't say it's necessarily at a level where it's a vast improvement over the original game. Hopefully Iceflake will have the technical know-how to really get this game off the ground.
Crazy to think that C:S was the answer to Maxis/EA's failed 2013 Sim City release. Then almost a decade later, CS:2 would essentially go through the same thing.
CS 1 was one of my favorite gamea, so I was very excited for CS 2. Let's just say I was quite dissapointed, especially at first. That being said, they have been making strides lately, and the only thing I was still really missing was bikes, so I'm not too happy with this. I do understand the decision though. I don't have too much faith in IceFlake: they have a single "proper" PC game and their website is filled with job listings. Let's see, but I'm not holding my breath.
What stopped me from continuing to play it, besides the performance issues, was the simulation itself & how fake it was in practice. The most glaring example I still remember, goods imported & exported had no correlation with anything. I recall being bothered by other areas, but I can’t remember them.
My question is: have they done anything since then to improve the city’s simulations?
Over the last 2 years they've released a bunch of updates, in the patch notes for each one they talk about how some system or another as broken and they fixed it to make the simulation work, and each time I load up a game and can't really tell much of a difference. I'm sure they've fixed bugs, but they haven't fundamentally made the underlying systems either a) fun/gameplay, or b) have like, an actual noticeable impact on the game, with the player interacting with it in a meaningful way. The game, to me, is still stuck in only having "put down roads, zone lots" as a gameplay loop, and nothing else.
That doesn’t inspiring. I keep checking in on this topic whenever CS2 makes the news, but at this point I feel like I should give up hope on getting my dream city builder! I should probably revisit CS1 and be done with it.