Cities: Skylines 2 is now available and, as expected, the game shines with its undeniable qualities, but it is also tarnished by significant problems. According to the developers, however, these would not be that problematic.
Colossal Order’s new urban simulation game, Cities: Skylines 2, launched on PC last Tuesday. Generating mixed reactions among players on Steam. Despite a significant volume of negative reviews centered around performance issues, the developers recently shared a surprising statement.
Cities Skylines 2 and the bugs that “don’t bother”
To date, only 49% of Cities: Skylines 2 reviews on Steam are positive. The majority of negative comments mention performance issues with the game. As detailed in our test, the situation is rather catastrophic, even on a very powerful machine. The game is not optimized at all and forces users to accept unacceptable compromises. And this on the majority of systems. Unlike Cities Skylines 1 when it was released.
Faced with these numerous criticisms, the studio has chosen to express itself and address these concerns in an update post on Steam. In this post, the team outlines its post-launch plans and goals, emphasizing that improving the game’s overall performance remains a priority. However, the team downplays the seriousness of the current problems, deeming them less serious than what some players are saying.
Although some PC systems are experiencing difficulties, we have concluded that performance is not a major issue for all gamers. Our top priority is to provide an enjoyable gaming experience, and we have received enough positive feedback to justify our decision to maintain the release date
Fixes on the way
Despite this position, Colossal Order plans to deploy updates to address player concerns. This includes several small fixes as well as a more substantial update intended to address major issues. Aspects for improvement include eliminating stuttering, optimizing GPU performance, and finding all possible optimizations for the CPU.
As detailed in the blog, the performance goal is to reach a stable minimum of 30 FPS, as there is no real advantage to aiming for a higher FPS in a city building game (unlike a multiplayer shooter). Indeed, as a city develops, the processor (CPU) is increasingly used, which limits performance. The most crucial aspect in Cities Skylines 2 is to avoid stuttering and ensure a responsive user interface. This is why the simulation is designed around an expected refresh rate of 30 FPS. However, reaching 60 FPS can help improve time-related visual effects, so although the goal is 30 FPS, the developers do not plan to limit optimization work once this goal is achieved on recommended hardware.