A new patch for the troubled Cities: Skylines II has vastly improved the city-building game, fixing several bugs and adding a host of new features and assets.
But the huge update comes just days after the game was made available for a free weekend of play, meaning thousands of players who were prepared to give the game a second chance missed out on seeing the brilliant new additions.
It seems a bizarre missed opportunity to showcase the game in the best possible light, following the disappointing state in which Cities: Skylines II was launched in September 2023.
Cities Skylines II: New Features
There are a huge number of new features in what the developers are calling Detailer’s Patch #2.
These include:
- A new traffic-flow monitoring system that allows you to see the routes vehicles are taking across your city
- Service vehicle parking that now shows when vehicles such as ambulances, police cars and trains haven’t been deployed
- A huge selection of new roads, including cul-de-sacs and roads with designated parking
- A large selection of so-called “pocket parks” that can be deployed in small areas between buildings
- A new line tool that allows you to place rows of trees, bushes or other items alongside roads
The update also brings a series of bug fixes and performance improvements, which alleviate some of the biggest gripes with Cities: Skylines II, which has been widely criticized for its sluggish performance and stiff system requirements.
Initial load times have been significantly reduced by around a third in my tests. Several bugs that previously prompted the game to crash have been eliminated, including one that saw the game crash to the desktop when trying to bulldoze a specific segment of road.
The homelessness bug has also been addressed, where cities would accumulate huge numbers of homeless citizens in parks and other public places. Citizens who no longer have a home are now more likely to leave the city via public transport, provided a connection to outside routes exists.
These improvements come on top of a flurry of recent region packs that have been added to the game for free, adding hundreds of new buildings from Japan, the U.K., Germany and France, adding much more visual variety to the game.
Warm Reception
The new features and bug fixes in the Detailer’s Patch #2 seem to have gone down well with players of the game, judging by the reaction on social media sites.
“I’m proud of [developer] Colossal Order, the region packs, the expansions and the detailers packs all in a couple of months,” wrote one player on Reddit. “They really have redeemed themselves.”
Another Reddit post claimed that Cities: Skylines II was now “the perfect game”, adding that “I think it’s important for us as a community to come out and make it clear that while past criticism was warranted, we’ve gotten over the hump—and to anyone who is on the fence about getting the game, it’s worth every penny now.”
While I—and many other players who responded to that post—wouldn’t go so far as to describe it as the “perfect game”, there’s no doubt that Cities: Skylines II has made significant progress in the year or so since it was first unveiled.
I stated in a recent one-year review of the Cities: Skylines II that the game had smoothed out some of the performance issues that blighted the initial release, and the subsequent patches and huge number of new items added in recent weeks have only improved the game further.
There are still several irritations that require work, not least the finicky methods of laying water/sewage pipes and transit lines, which can be desk-thumpingly frustrating. Many players are also yearning for the addition of bicycles in the game, making it easier for citizens to get around cities without relying on public transport.
But if you’ve been wondering whether to give Cities: Skylines II a second chance, now is the moment where the game feels like it’s truly coming of age. It’s just a shame they couldn’t have implemented the update ahead of the free trial, not after it.
