"Hardware Limitations" Causing Cities: Skylines 2 Console Delay, Says Studio

Colossal Order, the studio behind Cities: Skylines 2, have had a rough go of it since the game's PC launch last October. The game suffered from a few technical issues at launch, and had many feeling it had fewer offerings than its predecessor. Despite its issues, fans of the series have been anxiously awaiting news on the game's console release, which has been delayed indefinitely.

As reported by Eurogamer, the studio has since issued an update on the game's Steam page detailing some of the reasons why the console release has faced challenges. According to the statement, the studio had run into "simulation issues (CPU) and graphics issues (GPU)" that were becoming noticeable when players took certain actions, causing frame rate drop and memory overload. "These issues are particularly challenging due to the hardware limitations of consoles," the studio said. 

"For instance, when placing larger buildings that involve numerous entities, the system struggles to handle the data load. During the calculation process (e.g., checking if there’s enough space or if any entities overlap with existing assets), performance bottlenecks arise, resulting in these noticeable issues."

The statement continues with somewhat reassuring news for fans, with the game now in a "stable and playable state" achieved by significantly lowering the graphics quality.  "However that's to the level where it becomes a compromise that we are not willing to make. Once we get it to an acceptable level, further optimizations are needed for both simulation and memory usage before we are ready to share the console version."

Though a console release is still not on the horizon, Colossal Order confirmed that it "remains a top priority for us" and that they "have multiple solutions being explored with experts actively involved."