Cities: Skylines 2 didn’t have a great start last year. When it launched in October, the sequel to the best city builder around garnered a mountain of criticism thanks to its wonky simulation and significant performance issues. There were a plethora of great ideas buried inside it, but it definitely didn’t put its best foot forward. Improvements have been made since then, but this week’s launch of the first bit of post-launch DLC, Beach Properties, has just riled players up again.
Beach Properties is a weird DLC to lead with. It’s an asset pack, so it doesn’t introduce any new features, instead throwing a waterfront zone, a bunch of new growable buildings, six signature buildings and, erm, four trees into the mix. Despite the name, it doesn’t actually include beaches, and the assets have been criticised for mostly being a bunch of regular houses.
Granted, at $10/£8.49, this was not going to be a beefy expansion. And it’s probably better for Colossal Order to work on getting the game in a better state than shifting to developing brand new features. Even with that in mind, though, players haven’t been too impressed with the value on offer here. “There is nothing in this DLC that justifies it costing a fifth of the price of the base game,” one review reads. “This is a disgrace. The assets look nice, but for 10 euros, there is way too little in this DLC,” reads another.
At least modding tools have finally arrived. This is something that players have been waiting for since launch, so the anticipation levels were pretty dang high. Modding was so core to the original game, to the point that modders got early access to ensure the Steam Workshop was full of them at launch, so their absence this time was disappointing. At least they’re here now. Sorta.
See, this is just a beta. Map and code mods can now be created and shared, but it’s not yet possible to import assets, which was a big part of the first game’s modding scene. Paradox also uses its own mod platform now, instead of using Steam Workshop, which means a new system you’ll need to get used to. The arrival of these tools is broadly a good thing, but there are still all of these caveats.
I’m still hopeful that Cities: Skylines 2 will grow into a city builder that’s just as essential as its predecessor, but nearly half a year after launch it still has the air of an early access game.