Here's What Cities: Skylines 2’s New Developer Is Updating First

Why It Matters

Improving usability and visual fidelity addresses core community complaints, helping retain and grow the city‑builder’s player base. The changes also signal Paradox’s commitment to sustaining the title without reliance on third‑party mods.

Key Takeaways

• Iceflake takes over Cities: Skylines 2 development.
• First patch focuses on UI and visual enhancements.
• Custom color options added without needing mods.
• Weather system overhaul adds controllable clouds, snow, lighting.
• Patch slated for late February, pending bug fixes.

Pulse Analysis

The transition of Cities: Skylines 2 to Iceflake marks a rare mid‑lifehand-off for a live‑service title, underscoring Paradox’s willingness to protect its investment by partnering with a studio experienced in post‑launch support. Iceflake’s background on Survival‑type games brings a fresh perspective to the city‑building genre, where user experience often determines long‑term engagement. By prioritizing a more intuitive interface and clearer visual cues, the upcoming patch directly tackles the steep learning curve that has deterred newcomers, potentially expanding the game’s demographic beyond its hardcore fanbase.

User interface refinements are more than cosmetic tweaks; they reshape how players interact with complex simulation tools. A streamlined onboarding process, context‑aware icons, and a color‑coded toolbar aim to reduce friction when establishing new cities, while the promised in‑game Encyclopedia will centralize knowledge that currently lives in scattered community wikis. The addition of native custom‑color options eliminates the need for external mods, empowering creators to personalize skylines instantly and fostering a more vibrant mod‑free ecosystem. These visual upgrades not only enhance aesthetic appeal but also improve accessibility, a critical factor for retaining players in a competitive simulation market.

The weather overhaul introduces granular control over cloud cover, fog, and snowfall, aligning the game’s atmospheric dynamics with real‑world climate patterns. Such realism can deepen immersion and open new strategic layers for city planners, who must now consider seasonal impacts on infrastructure and services. By rolling out these features in a February patch, Iceflake signals a rapid development cadence, reassuring the community that lingering performance issues from the 2023 launch will be addressed. Continued developer diaries promise further mechanical tweaks, suggesting a roadmap that balances visual polish with substantive gameplay improvements, essential for sustaining the franchise’s relevance in the evolving simulation landscape.

Here's what Cities: Skylines 2’s new developer is updating first

By Kyle Orland · Senior Gaming Editor, Ars Technica

Back in November, Cities: Skylines 2 publisher Paradox made the surprising announcement that longtime series developer Colossal Order would be ceasing work on the series as part of a “mutual” breakup. Now, we’re getting our first glimpse into the kinds of patches and upgrades new developer Iceflake (Surviving the Aftermath) is prioritizing for the popular city‑builder going forward.

In a City Corner Developer Diary posted late last week, Iceflake focuses mainly on the visual improvements it’s planning for its first major Cities: Skylines 2 patch. Chief among these is improvements to the game’s user interface that Iceflake admits can “sometimes be a bit confusing when it comes to communicating things.”

The new patch will include a “streamlined” onboarding process for new cities, more expressive and context‑aware icons, and toolbars with clearer colors and visual style. A new in‑game Encyclopedia will also let players search through information about different gameplay topics, though that feature likely won’t be ready for Iceflake’s first patch.

As for the look of the cities, Iceflake says it’s taking inspiration from an existing “recolor” patch, integrating the ability to set custom colors for buildings, props, and vehicles into the base game. Players will eventually be able to recolor trees, plants, and other props as well, but this will also have to wait for a later patch.

Players will soon be able to recolor buildings without a mod.

Credit: Iceflake

The game’s weather systems will also be getting an overhaul, with easier customization options to get a distinct look and feel based on location. That includes snow that’s more likely to fall on boreal maps and will coat a city’s rooftops and lawns with a solid white blanket. Players will also be able to directly control cloud cover and should see a direct effect on the lighting and fog levels.

Iceflake says it plans to publish another developer diary focusing on mechanical and gameplay updates and bug fixes before rolling out its first patch by the second half of February “if all goes well.” Longtime series fans can only hope that things go well under the new development order, long after the game’s 2023 launch was hampered by performance issues and missing features that the community is still unhappy about.