I've heard of developers choosing to make new games, but I didn't know games could choose to be made by new developers! Inspiring!

They didn't chase graphics. Yeah the lighting system is better and the Civs having over 1000 polys is overkill for something you're gonna focus on for 0.1% of playtime. CO failed by choosing an architecture that was not ready for production use. There was a few devlogs where they straight up said they were using pre-release versions of Unity that were half baked to develop CS2. They were testing some technology Unity was supposed to release in the future. Because of that they had to write a bunch of tools FOR UNITY themselves. In doing so they couldn't get ahead of technical problems that kept popping up because it meant they had to fuck with Unity(the software and the company) more and more. The biggest example of this is the asset importer. Why in a video game built with modding in mind does this game have not have an asset importer almost 3 years later? Why did it take 2 years to release a DLC that was supposed to be out in the first 6 months? Why did it take 2 years to "fix" the economy part of the sim? They're never gonna fix the busted ass traffic. CO built this game on a half built foundation and they've been paying for it since day 1.

The size of their staff going from 1 to 2 made no sense to me with how much grander scale of a simulation they spoke of. It seemed unrealistic before launch and to this day they still seem to be struggling with it. Really screwed the pooch. Paradox for being penny pinchers for what could have become their Civilization in regards to beloved hyper geeky but high selling type of game. Colossal Order for not growing up and then trying to play off criticisms with how they're a hunky dory scrappy small indie developer that can't staff up for the AAA scope sequel of a hit of a game with major amounts of DLC. Self infantalization are for your early 20s

We'll have to wait and see. They aren't shutting down, they're parting with Paradox, and hence the Cities IP. It's possible this will set them free to pursue something that'll allow that passion go shine through even brighter.

This does look quite bad. What a shame, I bought the game at lunch and it was buggy and unstable. I assumed it will be improved and fixed over the next years. When I tried it a few months ago it had most of the same flaws including instabilities which are a deal breaker for this kind of game. And now they essentially killed it.

> I didn’t know games could choose to be made by new developers No, game's aren't alive and cannot choose anything. The higher-ups at publisher and IP owner Paradox Interactive can, however. Usually these things happen at Microsoft when they shut down studios, like what happened with Essemble Studios (Age of Empires, Halo Wars) and Double Helix Games (Killer Instinct).

I guess the console version will never become a thing then

Your statement made very little sense at first read. Took me a minute to figure out you're probably being censored. > Really screwed the pooch. Paradox for being penny pinchers for what could have become their Civilization in regards to beloved hyper geeky but high selling type of game. Colossal Order for not growing up and then trying to play off criticisms with how they're a hunky dory scrappy small indie developer that can't staff up for the AAA scope sequel of a hit of a game with major amounts of DLC. Self infantalization are for your early 20s

Hm? It seems to make sense to me. They're saying Cities Skylines could have filled a niche similar to the Civilization series, with a modest but devoted following. Cities Skylines 2 was set up to be a AAA game in scope, but neither the publisher nor the developer were willing to put the resources and work into making it happen.

Relevant to note the publisher (Paradox Interactive) is also known for extremely poor in-house QA. Both game and DLC releases are known to be extremely buggy. >[Hallikainen] We’re confident that the franchise will continue to thrive under Paradox’s leadership That's corpo speech for "we lost the franchise, PI has under its direct control now". Note Iceflake Studios is "[part of Paradox Interactive](https://www.iceflake.com/)".

I feel like most accusations of bad QA have their roots upstream of the QA department (or lack thereof)

I'm not too hopeful. The new devs' portfolio doesn't make it seem like they have enough experience to handle a big project like this. It's sad because while Colossal Order definitely messed up the launch (though I'm still unsure whether it's their fault or Paradox — probably both), they knew what makes city builders good. I feel like two years in, they've finally handled all the faults of the base game, and were ready to build upon it and release new content. I have to be optimistic because, like I said, the base game is now pretty good to build upon, but the new devs don't inspire confidence.

Iceflake Studio's portfolio does not exactly inspire confidence, feels like this is the end of city skylines. What a shame.

Relevant to note the publisher (Paradox Interactive) is also known for extremely poor in-house QA. Both game and DLC releases are known to be extremely buggy. >[Hallikainen] We’re confident that the franchise will continue to thrive under Paradox’s leadership That's corpo speech for "we lost the franchise, PI has under its direct control now". Note Iceflake Studios is "[part of Paradox Interactive](https://www.iceflake.com/)".

It’s 50% Unity, 40% CO, and 10% Paradox. CO chose to use Unity for CS2, Unity did not have all the needed fratures and framework for the game to CO ended up creating software for Unity and using prerelease builds of Unity which are very unstable. Paradox all the while had a set deadline for CO to hit.