Game Pass Game Further Delays Console Version Release

The console version of Cities: Skylines 2 has received yet another delay, which will prevent it from reaching Xbox and PlayStation users until at least late 2024. This is the second major postponement that the Cities: Skylines 2 console ports have suffered in the past seven months.

Colossal Order's latest city builder has long been enduring development challenges, having initially been planned to hit the market in late 2020. Following numerous delays, Cities: Skylines 2 finally reached PC and Xbox Game Pass in October 2023. However, its console ports were pushed back to spring 2024, with Colossal Order citing optimization challenges as the main reason for the postponement.

Seven months following that previous Cities: Skylines 2 delay, the game's console version has now been pushed back yet again. «We have been struggling to get Cities: Skylines 2 to the necessary level of optimization for a console release,» wrote Colossal Order in an April 18 post on Paradox Interactive Forums. But the Finnish studio did manage to make some inroads in recent times, and is now «hopeful» that the latest version of the city builder will prove stable and performant enough to serve as the basis for a console release candidate. Should everything go according to this newly revised plan, the Xbox Series X/S and PS5 versions of the game will debut in October 2024.

Colossal Order's delay announcement was part of a more comprehensive post that was largely focused on responding to the player backlash over the Cities: Skylines 2 Beach Properties DLC. The move saw the Finnish studio apologize to the fandom; «we let you down,» a company representative wrote, in addition to revealing that the widely panned DLC will be changed to a free add-on, whereas its buyers will be refunded to any extent possible.

We have been struggling to get Cities: Skylines 2 to the necessary level of optimization for a console release.

Specifically, those who purchased it as part of the Ultimate Edition of Cities: