Cities: Skylines II will get a roadmap soon, giving players a clearer view of the game’s plans after the upcoming patch. The developers also said the PS5 and Xbox versions are progressing, but they are not ready to commit to a release date.
Colossal Order addressed those topics and several long-running player requests in its latest Q&A announcement on Steam. The thread remains open for more questions, with answers covering simulation systems, roads, visuals, audio, performance, and future development priorities.
Roadmap plans will cover the post-patch direction
The team plans to publish a roadmap very soon, with the goal of explaining what comes next after the upcoming update. Regular roadmaps are also being considered so players can see the general direction for the year, although the developers stressed that plans can change.
The new answers build on the team’s earlier mid-September patch discussion, which covered performance work, logistics problems, and ways to give players more control without turning city management into constant micromanagement.
Console progress continues without a release date
Asked when Cities: Skylines II will reach PS5 and Xbox, the developers said they do not want to announce a date until they are certain it can hold. The team described its progress as good and promised more information once it is ready.
Work remains on several areas, including the user interface, and the developers do not currently plan to add more developer tools for community testing. The answer provides an update on the console versions, but it does not narrow the release window.
Simulation work will remain focused on smaller steps
The resource economy is being examined from several directions. The current order of work starts with service problems, then moves through citizen and company behavior, demand, rents, and land value before reaching cargo transportation. Those systems affect one another, so the team is not promising a single sweeping fix.
Pathfinding remains a high priority, but the developers do not plan a complete algorithm rework. They said future changes are more likely to involve balancing or bug fixes because citizens already avoid congested routes. Small changes to citizen decision-making can still have a large effect on traffic behavior.
Performance work is also continuing without one universal solution. Bottlenecks vary based on the city and the player’s hardware, leaving dozens of areas that can receive optimization work. Custom difficulty settings are possible in theory, but the team is currently focused on balancing the difficulty options already in the game instead.
Several requested systems are not currently planned. Those include pandemic management, organized crime, natural-disaster and evacuation changes, and a system for managing multiple settlements on one map. Smaller zoning grids, such as 2-meter grids, are also not planned, though quality-of-life controls for existing grids could come later.
Audio and visual updates are still ahead
A full audio update is being planned for the near future. It will add new audio content, revise existing sounds, and rebalance volume levels across the game so that individual effects and information cues are easier to hear.
Visual updates are also planned, with more exact details expected later in autumn. Among the requests covering construction animations, citizen behavior, and road textures, the developers currently place road textures first. More varied non-US assets and agricultural content are planned as well, although no timeline has been given.
Existing base-game assets may eventually be updated to use newer window materials and lighting options, but that work is not close. The developers also described a long-term goal of making cities feel more dynamic and interactive, while acknowledging that it will take time.
Road tools and city control remain selective
A road builder-style tool in the vanilla Asset Editor is one possible direction for more flexible road widths and restrictions. Live road editing during a game is probably outside the current scope, and the team has not yet worked on better road naming despite its popularity among players.
No large plan currently covers combining bus stops and bike lanes on the same road segment. Tunnel work is limited to smaller fixes such as visual problems at entrances. The team is also considering district-level control over resource production and stronger import and export management rather than asking players to direct every company individually.
Community bug reports are logged in Jira, where they are triaged by priority. High-priority problems move into development as soon as possible, while lower-priority issues can take longer to reach active work. Share your thoughts on the roadmap, console progress, and the team’s plans in the comments, and follow us on X, Bluesky, YouTube, Instagram, Steam, and Telegram.
Cities: Skylines II
Developed by Colossal Order
Create and manage your own city without restrictions. Offering a deep simulation and a living economy, Cities: Skylines II will challenge your decision-making skills and allow you to build the cities of your dreams. Get ready for a new epic scale in the most realistic city builder - ever.
- Genre Simulator, Strategy
- Platforms Xbox Series X|S, PC (Microsoft Windows), PlayStation 5
- Perspective Bird view / Isometric
- Modes Single player
- Release October 24, 2023
- Publisher Paradox Interactive
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Age Rating
