Cities Skylines 2 performance issues sours 100,000 concurrent players launch

The launch of Cities Skylines 2 has been a mixed bag at best, considering the community's overall reception in the last week. With over 100,000 concurrent players on Steam alone, there can be no doubt that the new city-building sensation is off to a flying start in terms of pure numbers. However, there are some worrying signs as far as the community feedback is concerned.

Expectations have been quite high from Paradox's latest city builder following the success of the first City Skylines title. This could be the main reason for such a huge number of concurrent players at launch. However, there are a certain number of performance-related issues that are not allowing the community to enjoy the game. This could be something that the developer Colossal Order will need to sort out as early as possible.

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Cities Skylines 2's performance issues could be a major thorn in its potential success

It's undeniable that Cities Skylines 2 holds immense potential. After all, the developer has been ambitious with their new project following the first game's success. As for Paradox, they're not new kids in the world of video games as well.

However, the current performance issues have been ruining many players' experiences. Most of the negative comments on Steam are entirely due to the performance levels of the game and an overall lack of optimization. As a result, running the title efficiently has been a significant issue, even for those who can quickly meet the recommended settings.

One major issue is the lack of ample FPS, even on systems that should run at 60 FPS or higher. Cities Skylines 2's rocky launch adds to the long list of 2023 releases with major performance-related issues.

Many of the current issues will likely be solved with post-launch patches. Members of Paradox's official forum have also been busy noting some of the concerning factors they have encountered so far.

On October 25, the developer posted an official comment on Steam stating their reason for not postponing the launch.

“While some setups on PC have challenges, we concluded the performance is not a dealbreaker for all the players. “For us, the number one priority is for the players to have fun with the game, and we had seen enough feedback from players enjoying the game that it would be more unfair to postpone. We know we will keep working on the game and do our best to fix issues as fast as possible, so we wanted to respect the announced release date and allow people to start playing the game."

Colossal Order has also stated that most of the issues with Cities Skylines 2 are related to rendering the game at a higher quality.

“The issues we are currently facing are tied to the rendering of the game, and decreasing the quality of visual effects such as Depth of Field, Global Illumination, and Volumetrics will get you a fair performance without affecting simulation - at the cost of some eye candy.”

It remains to be seen if the current issues plaguing the community will be removed eventually and if Cities Skylines 2 will be able to reach the heights of the first game of the series.