Cities Skylines 2 dev offers refunds, makes DLC free

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Cities Skylines 2 developer Colossal Order says that it is sorry for the current condition of the city building sequel, as it lays out plans to heal its relationship with the CS2 community. Purchasers of the first Cities Skylines 2 DLC, Beach Properties, will be refunded, and the pack itself will be available for free going forward. Likewise, owners of the Cities Skylines 2 Ultimate Edition will receive additional material, as Colossal Order affirms that its focus now is on repairing and rectifying the base CS2 game before releasing any further paid expansions. The release of the Bridges and Ports DLC has been moved to 2025, as Colossal Order explains how it plans to make CS2 into the “best city builder it can be.”

The first Cities Skylines 2 DLC, Beach Properties, faced criticism from players of the city building game, given that it was launched before other issues with CS2, including performance and simulation troubles, had been resolved. The Cities Skylines 2 add-on soon became the worst-rated game, item, or purchasable on all of Steam, based on user reviews. Now, as it attempts to solve the various issues that remain in CS2, Colossal Order issues a statement regarding refunds and plans for the future.

“We see and understand the disappointment many of you have expressed after the release of Cities Skylines 2 and the recent release of Beach Properties,” the developer says. “We asked for your patience and support, and you’ve shown those. In return, we let you down. We thought we could make up for the shortcomings of the game in a timeframe that was unrealistic, and rushed out a DLC that should not have been published in its current form. For all this, we are truly sorry.

“When we’ve made statements like this one before, it’s included a pledge to keep making improvements, and while we are working on these updates, they haven’t happened at a speed or magnitude that is acceptable, and it pains us that we’ve now lost the trust of many of you. We want to do better. The very first thing we’re doing is to compensate those who purchased Beach Properties. We will change the pack to be a free addition to the game, refund it to the extent possible, and provide additional content within the Ultimate Edition.”

Colossal Order explains that, owing to the distribution of the Ultimate Edition across both digital and physical storefronts, it is not possible to directly refund UE owners for the price of the Beach Properties DLC. Instead, the developer will add three additional creator packs and three more radio stations to the Ultimate Edition.

“Looking ahead, we also want to make immediate and meaningful changes in the way we approach the game’s development and our communication with you,” CO continues. “Firstly, this means a complete focus on improving the base game and modding tools, and secondly, we want to better involve you, the community, as we choose our priorities going forward. We will focus on additional free patches and game updates in the coming months before Colossal Order spends time on new paid content, resulting in a move of the Bridges and Ports Expansion to 2025.

“In addition, the aforementioned Creator Packs are being produced independently, and will not take any focus away from the work on improving the game. To make sure we focus on the right things, we’re putting together an advisory meeting, where a small group of player representatives, together with Colossal Order and Paradox Interactive, will discuss the development plan for this year.”

Cities Skylines 2 mods were expected to help resolve a range of the game’s problems, once they were supported via the new, official Paradox modding platform and editing suite. The official modding tools have also created problems in Cities Skylines 2, however, as they fail to recognize some mods, or do not implement their complete functionality correctly. Colossal Order says that a console launch of Cities Skylines 2 is now tentatively scheduled for October, and that the console version is being worked on by a development team separate to the PC build.

“In closing, we want to reaffirm our dedication to making Cities Skylines 2 the best city builder it can be. We appreciate your support and feedback, and hope we can regain your trust going forward. It’s our responsibility to earn it, and we hope these actions are a first step in the right direction. We are deeply grateful for your continued passion for our game.”

Cities Skylines 2 originally launched in October 2023. It currently has a ‘mixed’ rating on Steam, based on user reviews, and an average concurrent player count of just over 5,500.

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