Full video version: https://youtu.be/az-aW-iwSlY
Cities: Skylines 2 should not be released. It pains me to say as a big fan of the original game, but the sequel here is simply not in an acceptable state.
So basically, Paradox sent me a copy of the game - thanks to the for that by the way - and given how many hours I have poured into the original, I went into this one super excited. I booted up the game and was immediately met by a 5 fps main menu. Not 60, not 30, but just 5. I figured, okay, I’ll change some settings around to see what I can get to work. The devs sent me their recommended graphics settings, so I swapped to those and managed to get the main menu to roughly 70 fps.
This was great, until I hopped into the actual game and it wasn’t. After just an hour of gameplay, that 70 fps deteriorated all the way down to 30. After two hours, it was down to 15-20 with my population not even hitting 10,000 yet. I was playing at 1440p on a mix of mostly low and some medium settings. My system specs are above the recommended requirements, even after they were raised a few weeks ago (which was already a massive red flag to begin with).
The performance is just abysmal. I can see maybe 30 fps being fine, but the fact that the game frequently dips to half of that on almost the lowest settings is just unacceptable. It makes the experience feel slow, choppy, and frustrating. It’s not even like the game itself is bad. From what I have played, it has been a solid upgrade to what I loved about the first game. It’s just that those upgrades are marred by some of the worst performance I have seen from a PC release all year.
I’ve seen others concerned with the change of modding platforms - from Steam Workshop to Paradox’s own mod platform - but honestly, that doesn’t bother me so much. The performance is all that really matters at this point and I cannot in good faith give the game a proper review until it is optimized. That might take months. Maybe longer.
Overall
I cannot recommend Cities: Skylines 2. It’s almost unplayable in its current state and the fact that it is being released anyways is really just sad. The publisher knows the game isn’t ready and that really just rubs me the wrong way. Maybe good for business, but bad for the consumer and that is ultimately who I always will side with.
Cities: Skylines 2 should not be released. It pains me to say as a big fan of the original game, but the sequel here is simply not in an acceptable state.
So basically, Paradox sent me a copy of the game - thanks to the for that by the way - and given how many hours I have poured into the original, I went into this one super excited. I booted up the game and was immediately met by a 5 fps main menu. Not 60, not 30, but just 5. I figured, okay, I’ll change some settings around to see what I can get to work. The devs sent me their recommended graphics settings, so I swapped to those and managed to get the main menu to roughly 70 fps.
This was great, until I hopped into the actual game and it wasn’t. After just an hour of gameplay, that 70 fps deteriorated all the way down to 30. After two hours, it was down to 15-20 with my population not even hitting 10,000 yet. I was playing at 1440p on a mix of mostly low and some medium settings. My system specs are above the recommended requirements, even after they were raised a few weeks ago (which was already a massive red flag to begin with).
The performance is just abysmal. I can see maybe 30 fps being fine, but the fact that the game frequently dips to half of that on almost the lowest settings is just unacceptable. It makes the experience feel slow, choppy, and frustrating. It’s not even like the game itself is bad. From what I have played, it has been a solid upgrade to what I loved about the first game. It’s just that those upgrades are marred by some of the worst performance I have seen from a PC release all year.
I’ve seen others concerned with the change of modding platforms - from Steam Workshop to Paradox’s own mod platform - but honestly, that doesn’t bother me so much. The performance is all that really matters at this point and I cannot in good faith give the game a proper review until it is optimized. That might take months. Maybe longer.
Overall
I cannot recommend Cities: Skylines 2. It’s almost unplayable in its current state and the fact that it is being released anyways is really just sad. The publisher knows the game isn’t ready and that really just rubs me the wrong way. Maybe good for business, but bad for the consumer and that is ultimately who I always will side with.