Paradox explains why Cities: Skylines II still doesn't have a release date on consoles

The original Cities: Skylines received a console release years after the PC version. However, when Paradox Interactive announced Cities: Skylines II in March of 2023, it revealed a simultaneous launch plan for the city-builder. That didn't go according to plan, though, as the Xbox Series X|S and PlayStation 5 versions have continued to get delayed for over a year now, and there's no release date in sight.

In its latest developer update blog, developer Colossal Order provided some details on what's holding back the console port, saying that "while we do not have a new release date for the console version yet, we want to keep you up to date on our progress and our challenges."

The studio says that "hardware limitations of consoles" are causing frame rate drops and memory overload issues, with both simulation (CPU) and graphics (GPU) sides being the cause.

"For instance, when placing larger buildings that involve numerous entities, the system struggles to handle the data load," the studio explains. "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 current console build is reportedly stable, per the developer, but the team only achieved this by using a significant downgrade to the game's graphics quality. The studio says it would rather avoid that state for the console version's release, meaning many more optimizations are needed to help the game run on the Xbox and PlayStation platforms.

"Until they are resolved, we cannot provide a release estimate to avoid it being premature and potentially misleading," the team adds. "The console release remains a top priority for us, we have multiple solutions being explored with experts actively involved, and we're working hard to bring you the console version of Cities: Skylines II."

Aside from the console version update, the developer also released the Cities: Skylines II UK Region Pack for free today, which is a collection of community-created assets. More creator packs and radio stations are incoming, too, alongside bug-fixing updates. No fixed dates have been attached to the expansions that are coming in 2025 yet.