"What's Cities: Skylines II like now?" 🤔

One of the most common questions on the subreddit is whether people should try or purchase Cities: Skylines II. This understandably leads to many duplicate posts discussing the game's current state, what has changed since launch, and whether or not it is "worth playing".

This megathread aims to gather resources, reviews, and recent firsthand player perspectives in one place. This way, whether you're curious about performance and gameplay features or simply want to hear opinions from others who have tried the game, you've got a straightforward resource that collates that information.

We want to encourage constructive and engaging conversation:

If you've been actively playing the game, we'd love for you to provide feedback about what you enjoy, what could be improved, or what you feel is still missing.
If you've dropped off, or are still waiting to pull the trigger, we'd love for you to explain what led you to step away from the game or what features are keeping you from getting started

As the goal is to provide helpful guidance for others considering the game - you should avoid leaving short, glib, or otherwise unhelpful responses. Remember that Reddit is community of individuals and those people have come here because they're looking for your help and guidance. If you'd prefer to "send a message to the devs" the best way to do that is drop a Steam Review if you already own the game, or keep your wallet in your pocket if you don't.

General FAQs

If you're after general information about or help with the game (e.g. features, minimum or recommended specs, the situation related to modding, when the game will release on consoles), check out our wiki articles below. They'll provide you a decent base level of knowledge and help you understand more about the features and limitations of the game.

Patches and Bug Fixes

As of the start of this month, there have been 26 patches for the game. These patches have included things like modding support, bikes, economy reworks, bug fixes, and new game modes. You can review the change log for each individual patch on the Paradox Wiki:

Paradox Wiki Patches Page

What's happening with custom assets?

Official (albeit beta) support for custom assets was added on 4 December 2025. At the moment, buildings and props are supported and documented.

Are there bikes yet?

Yes! Bikes were released on 19 November 2025.

What have the devs been saying?

The main channel for "formal" communication from the developers comes via the Official Information & Announcements section on the Paradox Forums. We maintain an accompanying megathread for each post which captures a lot of player feedback and reactions to the news shared each week.

The best way to catch up on past posts is to browse the Dev Diary and/or Announcement flairs and dip into the more recent ones. Unfortunately, these links may not work on Reddit's mobile apps (please tell Reddit if you'd like this fixed) but in the meantime you can go to the main page of the subreddit and use the "filter by flair" options provided.

Live Gameplay Videos

If you're interested in seeing how the game is playing today, you can check out recent videos or streams from YouTube and Twitch. These will show you the "real" game, not marketing videos, and let you spot how the game is performing in real-world scenarios.

Reviews

Although critic reviews aren't necessarily reflective of the current state of the game user reviews (especially recent ones) are helpful sources of information to help you decide whether or not to drop your cash on any new game, not just Cities: Skylines II.

Metacritic Page (includes both critic and player reviews)
Steam Review Page (you may wish to use the provided filters to show more recent reviews)
Microsoft Review Page (you may wish to sort by "recent")

Try Before you Buy

If you're still unsure, Cities: Skylines II is available on Microsoft Game Pass for PC, which is a subscription service at a much lower monthly cost than the full retail price of the game. Microsoft is currently offering an initial 14-day trial for as low as £1/$1/1€ (which renews at full price after the 14 days).

US$1 Game Pass Trial
£1 Game Pass Trial
1€ Game Pass Trial (this link goes to the Xbox Ireland store, check the local Xbox site for your country before proceding)

Refunds

If for any reason you can't make use of a discounted Game Pass for PC subscription (i.e. it may not be available in your region), you have the option of purchasing the game and refunding it within the store's refund window.

Steam: Request a refund within 14 days of purchase, as long as you haven't accrued more than 2 hours of total playtime
Microsoft Store: Request a refund within 14 days of purchase, as long as you haven't accrued "a significant amount of play time"

Recognising that you may not be able to reach the "late game" within 2 hours, you can use this 100k benchmarking city to establish whether or not you're comfortable with the performance on your system.

Specific Questions

If you've got specific questions about items not covered in these FAQs, feel free to ask them below. If you've been redirected to this post by a removal notice, please understand that this is done to help keep the subreddit tidy by providing a centralised and dedicated location for all information related to this topic.

^These ^megathreads ^are ^scheduled ^to ^post ^at ^00:01 ^on ^the ^first ^day ^of ^each ^month. ^If ^it's ^late ⁱⁿ ^the ^month, ^you ^may ^want ^to ^wait ^for ^a ^new ^post ^to ^appear. ^Please ^send ^us ^a ^ModMail ^with ^any ^suggested ^{improvements!}

Did the new devs lay out their plan for this game’s future ? I’ve done a run 2 months ago after not playing for almost a year and I found the main issue were still present, the lack of simulation and details makes the game feel like you’re just building a city in the visual sense, it dosnt feel lived in at all, also the game is either very difficult for no reason (your profits are nothing compared to your expenses suddenly without a cause) or stupidly easy to the point where i set half the zone’s tax rate to single digits just to make my money pile grow slower (this is on hard mode btw ). This game has so much potential over it’s predecessor they can add banks companies dynamic residents that act in a certain way, more complex industry and resources gathering, more complex public transport system better and overall more policies for city zones but instead they add bikes that are barely get used even if you build the ultimate walkable city and ban the use of single cars, they add homelessness but it’s just a small and temporary debuff for when you demolish occupied residential buildings. Unless the new devs are willing to overhaul the core systems of the game and entirely remake them in order to provide an actual city building experience this game is never gonna get out of its mixed reviews spiral on steam

1 points AdamCog

Did the new devs lay out their plan for this game’s future ? I’ve done a run 2 months ago after not playing for almost a year and I found the main issue were still present, the lack of simulation and details makes the game feel like you’re just building a city in the visual sense, it dosnt feel lived in at all, also the game is either very difficult for no reason (your profits are nothing compared to your expenses suddenly without a cause) or stupidly easy to the point where i set half the zone’s tax rate to single digits just to make my money pile grow slower (this is on hard mode btw ). This game has so much potential over it’s predecessor they can add banks companies dynamic residents that act in a certain way, more complex industry and resources gathering, more complex public transport system better and overall more policies for city zones but instead they add bikes that are barely get used even if you build the ultimate walkable city and ban the use of single cars, they add homelessness but it’s just a small and temporary debuff for when you demolish occupied residential buildings. Unless the new devs are willing to overhaul the core systems of the game and entirely remake them in order to provide an actual city building experience this game is never gonna get out of its mixed reviews spiral on steam

5 points ieatalphabets

When are we expecting the first patch or latest dev diary from the new studio?

9 points gophergun

How's the performance these days? Is it possible to run 100K+ cities without slowdowns?


1 points LymanPeru

my computer runs if just fine.

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2 points AgentBond007

Any city of that size will slow your PC down a bit but it runs better than CS1 did at that size.

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3 points nurdiemannn

I am wanting to buy a new computer and buy C:SII with it. I've been playing C:S 1 for 1 year now and I liked it. Does anybody have advice.

PS: I'm not a computer nerd soooo


2 points revolutionary-panda

Prioritise a strong CPU and enough ram (which is sadly expensive right now). There's a few threads out thrre with CPU benchmarks on simulation speed at various population levels, which is more useful IMHO than looking at FPS. Essentially, once your citizen count goes up, wealer CPUs have trouble keeping up with all the calculations the game needs to do.

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1 points nurdiemannn

I have bought a PC with a strong CPU just now. Very expensive indeed.

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6 points WalterWoodiaz

CS2 is really good with mods, but other than that it stills needs a lot more content. Worth it on sale but not at full price. I really hope the new team can actually do something good with the game.

9 points govego2005

I would literally fly back to CS1 if the road building tools were like CS2.

10 points Vauvin

Will likely never purchase CS2 because to me it's not enough of an engine upgrade to CS1, something which I see as not really patchable. CS1 has soo much content, is really stable and is more performant than CS2. There's nothing really that I'm missing in CS1 that CS2 has. Some things I would expect are bigger platform changes like polygonal zones instead of square and more detailed public transport/service mechanics.


-1 points LymanPeru

CS2 is streets ahead of CS1.

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1 points LordStefania

As in the buggy CS1 streets, so a few paces behind CS1 lul

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1 points expIainlikeimfive

CS2 is streets ahead of CS1.

In that streets are the only noticeable improvement over CS1.

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4 points AgentBond007

The CS2 engine is light years ahead of the CS1 engine, you should switch once enough assets get in.

CS2 may not have that much content now but neither did CS1 at this stage, and the fundamentals are much better.

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16 points greggers23

I come to you all today to once again ask if tourism is fixed yet.


4 points Headtenant

It depends on what you’re expecting as a fix or what you thought was missing? Hotels now work if that was on the list, I have plenty of people visiting attractions too, taking selfies

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1 points greggers23

My last experience a year ago was that hotels and motels would have minimal tourists as well as few traveling no matter the amount of transportation options.

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13 points psu2435

One of my favorite things from CS1 was vehicle mods, particularly real world emergency vehicles and trains, stuff like that. It’s my understanding that vehicle modding remains difficult…what’s the forecast on that?


11 points stillpiercer_

It’s supported now via Asset mods.

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13 points GermanCommentGamer

There are a bunch of vehicle mods out there. The thing I noticed is that custom animations aren't supported yet, so planes can't retract their landing gear for example

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17 points RedditServiceUK

mods i beg just enjoy nye 😭


8 points kjmci

It’s an automated post

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6 points Candid-Stay-7663

whats nye

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11 points _Burgers_

Bill Nye the science guy

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4 points Technical-Horror-956

new years eve

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7 points Candid-Stay-7663

idk how my dumbass didn't get that

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