Although Cities: Skylines II isn’t one of the most memorable of disappointing game releases in 2023, in my personal case Yes, it ranks quite high on this list.. The reason, as I explained at the time, is that I really liked (and actually still like) its predecessor, and given Colossal Order’s good work with it, I had quite a lot of expectations (big mistake, I know) going into this release.

It soon became clear that Cities: Skylines II was supposed to be a really big leap in quality compared to Cities: Skylines, but unfortunately he suffered from a fairly common disease these days, an absolute lack of optimization which, as we told you in October, resulted in offering terrible performance even on the latest generation of top-of-the-line equipment. For example, we found a case where a player with an Intel Core i-13900KS OC and a Radeon RX 7900 XTX had to settle for an average of 15 frames per second when playing in 4K.

So it was another case of early startso we expected Colossal Order to focus exclusively on fixing all these issues, releasing as many updates as needed and in the shortest possible time to make it up to its players and especially everyone who bought it. an act of faith in these times and that many of us have already stopped practicing for more than obvious and well-known reasons.

However, it seems that was too much of an expectation, so Instead, the developer began working on the first DLC for the game, Beach features. The latter went on sale on March 25 for 9.99 euros and from the first moment began to accumulate negative reviews, since its content was limited to a few buildings. Can you imagine selling DLC ​​dedicated to beaches and not giving you any option to modify the beaches? Well, Colossal Order didn’t just think of it, they did it. And of course, in the meantime, optimizations to the core game are still halfway through.

So, Eventually, the developer and distributor had to back down, posting an apology statement on Steam and removing the DLC from the store. In it, they inform that they will proceed to refund all people who purchased it and that its content will be offered free to all users. At the very least, the statement acknowledges all that was done wrong (which is no small feat) and acknowledges that they let a large part of their community down. They claim they are committed to “fixing” Cities: Skylines II.in a time horizon that was not realistic” and that the launch of the DLC was a hasty move.

After this singing mea culpaand to report the actions I have already taken regarding Beach Properties, they claim that I have completely reassessed my priorities so that over the next few months will focus exclusively on the development of updates and fixeswhich means that The release of new DLC is delayed until at least 2025which is the deadline by which they hope to have fixed all the issues that still exist in the base game.

Moreover, with regard to the long-awaited version of Cities: Skylines II for consoles, the statement says that they prefer not to commit to a release date, that they will wait until this development is polished enough so that its debut on these platforms is not as disappointing as the PC version. There’s nothing to complain about at this point, quite the contrary, in fact it’s exactly the same thing they should have done with the PC version.

The need to start monetizing development as soon as possible is understandable, as the investment behind it can be more than substantial. Now it is necessary to find a balance in this and establish appropriate MVP (Minimum Viable Product) values ​​that can at least slightly satisfy the initial users. And as recent history has taught us, A deficiency in this sense can have negative effects that are very difficult to reverse..

On the other hand, one of the main means of monetization for Paradox Interactive, both as a developer and as a distributor, as well as developers who use its services as a distributor, is paid DLC, as we see with titles such as two panoramas , Surviving Mars sagas, Stellaris, Hearts of Iron and Europa Universalis etc. They obviously don’t have exclusive rights in that sense (say that to EA with The Sims) and that’s understandable… except in cases like this where the DLC precedes an adequate user experience . Let’s hope that at least the statement of intent is more than a toast to the sunand that those who believed in Cities: Skylines II even before it went on sale will receive the compensation they undoubtedly deserve.