Cities Skylines 2 has had a difficult time so far. At launch, the city building sequel was criticised for performance issues and technical shortfalls. Since then, the lack of official Cities Skylines 2 mod support has been a constant sticking point, as well as issues with population, the economy, and the persistent land values bug. One day, perhaps, Cities Skylines 2 will reach its full potential. Indeed, Colossal Order is working tirelessly on patches and updates. In the meantime, however, the Cities Skylines 2 Steam player count continues to tumble, hitting an unfortunate new milestone whereby the original game now has more than twice as many players as the sequel.
Cities Skylines 2 mods will no doubt be a shot in the arm for the city building game. Colossal Order has recently explained that the absence of official mod support is the studio’s “biggest regret” and that it has a variety of plans to improve the game in coming updates. Nevertheless, Cities Skylines 2 is struggling to maintain a player base. As of this writing, the game is rated ‘mixed’ on Steam based on lifetime user reviews. More damningly, recent reviews give Cities Skylines 2 a ‘mostly negative’ rating.
The Cities Skylines 2 Steam player count is likely more concerning, however. As of this moment, Cities Skylines 2 has 5,307 concurrent users on Valve’s platform versus 10,995 for the original game. Cities Skylines 1 is also winning over the past 24 hours – 11,080 players at peak versus Cities 2’s 5,465. The numbers vary slightly, but Steam DB and Steam Chart both tell the same story: Cities Skylines 1 has more than double the players of the sequel.
Colossal Order has outlined plans to rectify the game including fixing the dreaded land values bug, implementing official mod and asset-creation tools, and continuing to resolve performance and simulation troubles. I like Cities Skylines 2. I still think it can be an even better game than the original. But the road back is starting to look steeper.
While we wait and see what happens with Cities Skylines 2, try some of the other best strategy games, or maybe the best management games available on PC.
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