Ahead of Cities: Skylines 2, the devs detail the final DLC for the original game
After 8 years of support, this is the final Cities: Skylines DLC roadmap
Eight years after the launch of Cities: Skylines, developer Colossal Order has unveiled the game's final DLC roadmap as the studio moves to fully support the upcoming sequel.
I want to be clear here: the press release we received from Colossal Order and publisher Paradox Interactive makes multiple references to things like "the last content packs" and "the final expansion." The devs intend to continue "general support" for the game through the end of the year, but with DLC releases concluding in May, this is truly the end of an era.
On March 22, Cities: Skylines will get three Content Creator packs - mostly cosmetic building collections built in collaboration with the game's most prolific modders. Those three packs are Africa in Miniature, with 28 new buildings inspired by Africa's urban architecture; Sports Venues, with stadiums featuring "realistic" baseball, soccer, and football animations; and Shopping Malls, with 60 assets covering everything from department stores to fast food joints. The same date will also see the launch of three Radio Station packs, including tunes with African, 80s, and pop-punk themes.
March 22 will also see the launch of a free content update that "improves the transport system" for the base game as well as the After Dark, Snowfall, Natural Disasters, and Mass Transit expansions.
Then, the final Cities: Skylines DLC lands in May, led by an as-yet-untitled mini-expansion with a vacation theme. May will also see the launch of two more Radio Station packs, and three more Content Packs, titled Industrial Evolution, Brooklyn and Queens, and Railroads of Japan - all of which sound pretty self-explanatory.
Cities: Skylines launched on March 10, 2015, and as with most games published by Paradox these eight years have been supported with an absolute mountain of DLC expansions ranging from completely essential to completely forgettable. While you can get it all substantially cheaper if you wait for a sale, it costs well over $300 to grab everything at full price.
It's safe to expect a similar DLC rollout for Cities: Skylines 2, though we haven't gotten any official details on what to expect from the sequel just yet. An early list of Cities: Skylines 2 achievements does have some very exciting hints about what to expect in terms of new gameplay mechanics, though. The sequel is due to launch sometime in 2023.
Sign up to the 12DOVE Newsletter
Weekly digests, tales from the communities you love, and more
There are plenty more of the best city-building games to check out while we await what's next from Cities: Skylines.
Dustin Bailey joined the GamesRadar team as a Staff Writer in May 2022, and is currently based in Missouri. He's been covering games (with occasional dalliances in the worlds of anime and pro wrestling) since 2015, first as a freelancer, then as a news writer at PCGamesN for nearly five years. His love for games was sparked somewhere between Metal Gear Solid 2 and Knights of the Old Republic, and these days you can usually find him splitting his entertainment time between retro gaming, the latest big action-adventure title, or a long haul in American Truck Simulator.
After 2.5 million sales, Manor Lords publisher says it "would almost be arrogant" to not be surprised by the city builder's success - but "you cannot count on it to repeat"
Overthrown is a unique sandbox game "relative to most of the genre," with an ever-changing world that separates itself from genre giants like Minecraft