Cities: Skylines 2 Attracts Crowd of Gamers, but Gets Only 47% Positive Reviews on Steam [Update]

Source: Paradox Interactive

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Update

The situation with Cities: Skylines 2 on Steam is very dynamic - currently, that is, a dozen hours after the release, the new installment of the series of city builders from Colossal Order has 47% positive reviews on Valve's platform (out of about 9700 reviews issued). Last night, the percentage was only 29%.

Original news (October 24)

Cities: Skylines II was certainly a game awaited by many people, including fans of the first part. However, the condition of the new economic strategy may have been a concern before the release - optimization was complained about by reviewers, and various bugs could be seen on materials shared by youtubers. Fans, however, did not lose hope that on the day of release they could have fun in Cities: Skylines II. Unfortunately, the reality turned out to be different.

The launch of Cities: Skylines II ...

Let's start with the fact that the game from Colossal Order is extremely popular. In just a few hours the game isurpassed the prequel in terms of player activity on Steam. At the same moment Cities: Skylines II was played by more than 100,000 people on Valve's platform (via SteamDB).

It should be borne in mind that the game is also available in Microsoft Store, as well as in PC Game Pass, so it actually attracted even more players.

Source: via SteamDB.

First Cities: Skylines on Steam has a much lower activity record of just over 60,000 players. It is worth noting that the game is also available on other platforms, and has been twice distributed for free in Epic Games Store.

However, that there has been so much interest in Cities: Skylines II does not translate into a good reception for the game. As of this moment more than 2,300 people have given it a review, and only 29 percent of them are positive. "Mostly negative" (as Steam categorizes it) ratings are due to terrible optimization.

Gamers, who own really powerful hardware, complain of performance problems and even random and frequent crashing to desktop. Many fans claim that Cities: Skylines II should never have come out in such a state - the complaints seem understandable, especially since the game is not cheap.

No wonder then that some players are already abandoning Cities: Skylines II and prefer to return to the first game or are asking for a refund of money they paid for the game.

...proved to be very problematic

Developers are aware of the game's technical condition - they were aware of it before the launch, but still decided not to postpone the release. Colossal Order is about to release an update that will improve performance of Cities: Skylines II, but it is unclear when to expect it. The developers want to optimize the game, fix bugs, and at a later date introduce support for Nvidia DLSS and AMD FSR technologies.

Until the update is ready, you have to find another way to improve performance in Cities: Skylines II. So the developers have published a short guide for people for whom the game does not run well, but stubbornly want to play it.

1. After firing up the gameyou should wait until all textures load - otherwise you may experience glitches such as completely black buildings. Loading of Virtual Texturing options must therefore be completed.
2. The developers recommend playing at a resolution no higher than 1080p and refresh rate of 60 Hz.
3. It is recommended to disable depth of field, motion blur and volumetric elements (affecting cloud quality) in the options.
4. If you have a problem with low frame rates, then turn off dynamic resolution. This should increase performance, for the price of a blurring effect during the gameplay.

However, there is no certainty that following the above advice will significantly improve performance of Cities: Skylines II. In that case, all that remains is to wait for a patch from the developers.

It is a pity that the technical condition of the strategy game is so bad, because in terms of gameplay Cities: Skylines II is a very interesting title- as pointed out by players on Steam, and earlier by critics. There are a lot of interesting new features compared to the predecessor, and more will probably be introduced in future updates or DLCs.

Finally, let us remind you that Cities: Skylines II will be released on PS5 and Xbox Series X/S consoles only next spring.

1. Cities: Skylines 2 Review - A Revolution, 2.0, or 1.5?
2. Cities: Skylines 2 - official website
3. Cities: Skylines 2 on Steam