The Original Cities: Skylines Has a Big Tuesday Coming
Eleven and a half years after release, Cities: Skylines is about to have its busiest release day since 2023. On Tuesday, October 28, two new Content Creator Packs and a radio station arrive for PC, PlayStation and Xbox, and the Expanded Edition launches on Nintendo Switch 2.
One thing the Switch 2 version will not have is mods, and neither does any other console edition. That remains the dividing line in this hobby. Console players get what the publisher ships, and PC players get Steam Workshop. It is the same line everyone is about to rediscover with Rockstar’s launch, where someone asking about a GTA VI mod for their PS5 copy will get the same answer Cities: Skylines console players have heard for a decade.
The new packs
Mansions & Manors, by creator Feindbold, does what the name says: a new residential zone of “old money” estates with elegant service buildings and a fleet of luxury residential vehicles for the parts of your city where land value is high. Holiday Getaways is a tourism and leisure set, aimed at coastal and resort districts, and Blueprint Beats Radio is a 16-track station of lo-fi hip-hop and chillhop for late-night zoning sessions. Paradox has priced previous Content Creator Packs at a few dollars each and there is no reason to expect anything different here. These sit alongside the Race Day expansion from March 10, which was the game’s first full expansion in two years and added motorsport venues and event management.
The fact that Paradox is still commissioning creator packs for the first game tells you where its audience is. Cities: Skylines II has improved under Iceflake, but the original’s player count has remained stubbornly competitive, partly because its mod library is enormous and partly because it simply runs on everything.
Switch 2 Expanded Edition
The Switch 2 release is the more interesting story for console players. The original Switch port from 2018 was heavily cut down and ran poorly. The Expanded Edition, built with Tantalus Media, promises improved visuals, better performance and expanded building tools, per Paradox’s October 7 press release. If it performs the way that release suggests, it will be the first handheld Cities: Skylines that is actually pleasant to play, and the first time Switch owners get something close to the full game rather than a trimmed port.
Is it still worth playing?
Yes, and especially on PC if you own the expansions. The Steam Workshop library is enormous, the game is stable, and Tuesday’s packs add to a catalogue that already covers almost every architectural style you could want. For a game that was supposed to be replaced three years ago, it is in remarkable health.
