I know that I am not the type of player who gets overly bogged-down by performance when playing a game but I want to start out with a single, very clear comment: even if you think Cities: Skylines II is the exact game for you, do not play it now. To be clear, this isn't even purely because of technical performance either; balance is still in need of being tuned within the sim.
Leading up to its release, I was longingly looking forward to the city-builder. Despite concerns around technical performance, I leaped in. Pre-release material showed that it wasn't the EA-style The Sims-style reset of a game where the new iteration reverts back to 1.0 with little improvements and some steps backwards to gameplay. Cities: Skylines 2 comes out swinging, packing in seasons, additional transportation options, expanded road tools and systems which were added in previous expansions, all now rolled into the base game. The visual updates are pleasant, even if you have to turn them down to get the game to run and your trees look like potatoes, painted green, with a stick shoved up their behinds. The foundations of Cities: Skylines II are great and I think this could be a great game with staying power.
That's fine and all, but what's missing? Well... the new traffic system implemented breaks the game. In an effort to create "real" drivers or pedestrians, the game allows for illegal traffic maneuvers and jaywalking. Big deal, right? Well... pedestrians refuse to use ramps or stairs so if there's a busy intersection, there's no way to divert pedestrians away from it. Cars driving down a road in rush-hour traffic will sometimes hold up traffic as they wait for a gap to do an illegal u-turn. Added a bus lane? Cool, it'll be filled with more cars than busses. I can only assume this was done either 1) by mistake or 2) so they can introduce a KGB-themed DLC that allows you disappear dissidents to a gulag. It's great to be able to add or remove crosswalks or stoplights and I appreciate the new road building tools. However, there's additional refinement I found myself wanting such as left-turn lights or being able to control what are or are not turn lanes in an intersection instead of the game automatically assigning it. The unfortunate truth is that the previous iteration had mods which supported this and now they're about 50% of the way to implementing back that same functionality with no current support for mods.
All that comes back to the initial point: wait. The technical performance will improve. They'll add in the mod support. The pedestrians will finally use a bridge. There's a million small issues that make me want to like this game and can't play because the sim breaks as soon as the town gets above 40k people. I do have confidence with the team and their desire to do right by the customer eventually and provide the support needed. I just wish a lot of the balance and performance had been hammered out before release.
Leading up to its release, I was longingly looking forward to the city-builder. Despite concerns around technical performance, I leaped in. Pre-release material showed that it wasn't the EA-style The Sims-style reset of a game where the new iteration reverts back to 1.0 with little improvements and some steps backwards to gameplay. Cities: Skylines 2 comes out swinging, packing in seasons, additional transportation options, expanded road tools and systems which were added in previous expansions, all now rolled into the base game. The visual updates are pleasant, even if you have to turn them down to get the game to run and your trees look like potatoes, painted green, with a stick shoved up their behinds. The foundations of Cities: Skylines II are great and I think this could be a great game with staying power.
That's fine and all, but what's missing? Well... the new traffic system implemented breaks the game. In an effort to create "real" drivers or pedestrians, the game allows for illegal traffic maneuvers and jaywalking. Big deal, right? Well... pedestrians refuse to use ramps or stairs so if there's a busy intersection, there's no way to divert pedestrians away from it. Cars driving down a road in rush-hour traffic will sometimes hold up traffic as they wait for a gap to do an illegal u-turn. Added a bus lane? Cool, it'll be filled with more cars than busses. I can only assume this was done either 1) by mistake or 2) so they can introduce a KGB-themed DLC that allows you disappear dissidents to a gulag. It's great to be able to add or remove crosswalks or stoplights and I appreciate the new road building tools. However, there's additional refinement I found myself wanting such as left-turn lights or being able to control what are or are not turn lanes in an intersection instead of the game automatically assigning it. The unfortunate truth is that the previous iteration had mods which supported this and now they're about 50% of the way to implementing back that same functionality with no current support for mods.
All that comes back to the initial point: wait. The technical performance will improve. They'll add in the mod support. The pedestrians will finally use a bridge. There's a million small issues that make me want to like this game and can't play because the sim breaks as soon as the town gets above 40k people. I do have confidence with the team and their desire to do right by the customer eventually and provide the support needed. I just wish a lot of the balance and performance had been hammered out before release.