How is the State of the Game in March 2025?

[8t88]

Hello,
is it Worth installing/enjoyable to play, or is it still unplayable?
Thank you.

[RancidRon]

Depends. Seems some people are still having a lot of crash issues, I'm not and never had.

For me, my biggest issue on launch was haw very vanilla neighborhoods looked with row after row after row of the same assets. There are enough now that I am able to make better looking neighborhoods and there are plenty of mods for the game now too without having to go to a third party site. So for me with all the assets now added, its in a good state to play. Although I'm still greedy and want them to open up their mod database to assets like CS1 had so I can have more. I was lucky enough to never struggle with technical issues like crashes and horrible FPS despite my machine being very mid. Some restrictions may apply not available in all states.

[BillySkyWalker]

Since the latest update, it seems the game is running 90% smoother than before. I've had ZERO crashes... and overall, I'd say the game is fun again. The new assets really make a difference, imo.

[martinolund]

Originally posted by 8t88:

Hello,
is it Worth installing/enjoyable to play, or is it still unplayable?
Thank you.

I enjoy it and with the latest patch I recommend the game (but it still has bugs, flaws and more fixing needed), but it also depends on what type of a city builder player you are, but if you enjoy the things I do in a game such as this, it's fun.

[washu73]

For larger cities the game is virtually unplayable due to slowing down to a crawl.

[AKscene]

Since the latest update, I cannot play the game. Read about all the crashes to desktop on here and Reddit. That should give you a good idea.

[Moleiro]

every game thats CPU intensive wil have major inssues , they must optmize the game for GPU

[AussieBlive]

game is fine on high end cp. but the game play is broken making money is poo and progression needs money. build a cole mine and mine cole and it is still over priced.

[snickii]

for me its crashing with mods after an half hour, the ingame mods are not shown as outdated

[zaltocleotl[Banned@Paradox]]

About the same as March 2024, really. What's changed? More packs with more bugs in every one, more patches with more bugs in every one, more DLC with more bugs in every one.... you tell me.

[Fivealive007]

I just finished playing it after giving many months to cook in the oven and well, I think they should slap the early access label on top of this game.

While performance has improved it still far from perfect as the performance tanks if you decide to zoom in too close the game will freeze for a moment, run normally for a second before freezing again until you zoom out.

I first decided to try the content packs for the game since those released while I was gone and well its just made me get fed up with paradox's modding platform. It keeps installing but never finishes and every time I try to open up the platform now it wont let me go to its menu because its still downloading them so I cant install any mods now and pretty much gave up on modding for the time I've played. I would have no issues with the modding platform if it would just WORK

However by far the biggest disappointment was the amount of crashes. It felt like half the sessions i would have with this game would end in crashes. I started a city got a foundation and clicked on a building and CRASH. Ok, maybe that was a fluke... Start a new city because the last one was lost during the crash and I build a road, CRASH. Ok maybe it might be the mods even though i don't remember if i installed any before the content packs? Start the game unmodded start building a city and then realizes they forgot to build a 6 lane road instead of a 4 lane road so i go and do it and CRASH. there were more crashes but that last one ended up being the final straw for me.

Overall, don't play this game. Either give it a few more months or play CS1 or play something else.

[leftbehind]

I'm starting to enjoy it - there are fewer crashes (for me, at least), performance is better, and thanks to region packs there is much more variety of buildings. It's actually possible to be creative now. Also, bits of the simulation are now functional, there's actually some challenge.

BUT: I still need mods to make the game playable - notably Move It, Traffic, Find It, Anarchy, Extended Radio, Better Bulldozer, etc. I even need a mod to ensure that AutoSave is always enabled, because for some reason the AutoSave is off by default, and keeps resetting to off randomly. Without those mods, I would not enjoy the game at all (same situation for CS1).

The biggest gripe I have currently is how awful winter is, and the fact that CO don't seem the least bit interested in doing anything about it, ever. The snow texture is extremely bland, underwater terrain also gets covered in snow (fine for lakes, but ludicrous for coastline). Meanwhile, there's no snow on roads or surfaces (such as grass or farmland), so snowploughs look silly. Conversely, vehicles are covered in snow all winter, even while driving. Winter doesn't seem to have any noticeable effect on traffic or economy. Oh, and trees glow in the dark at night. On the map I'm playing (Goto Islands) winter started in December and lasted well in to April, so it's months of immersion breaking grimness.

The game is definitely better, but IMO it's going to be at least another year or two before it comes out of what should have been an early access release.

[megapolis]

no. economy is broken. modding leads to CTD. it took me two mods to crash the game.

[VicTheButcher]

Game is still broken. Specialised industry does not level up, trucks do not move product out, and profit is never positive. Outside connections are borked as well. They will take priority moving in rather than your existing cims which leads to homelessness and constant moving in and moving out. Game still crashes although I've locked the Nvidia control panel settings to only allow CS2 to run at 30 fps and that dramatically helped.

[boss82]

After the latest update it gets stuck with huge loading times and you have to restart your computer, even playing with zero mods. Talking about gameplay (if you ever succeed in loading a game): maps are still visually boring and ugly, graphics even at top resolutions are far away from something you could call "pleasant to watch". The economical simulation is "meh". Don't waste your time on it. Cities Skylines II is still a major failure.

[Hyshphahos]

How is economy now ? import/export is working ?