A month ago we learned Cities: Skylines 2 is in the works (opens in new tab) over at Colossal Order and Paradox Interactive, and that it'll be released sometime later this year.
Since then we haven't heard much else, leaving us to search for clues about the city builder sequel's features in achievement lists (which tell us it'll have rats, hailstorms, and 150 buildable map tiles (opens in new tab)) and scour the announcement trailer for easter eggs, such as one that suggested Cities: Skylines 2 might be built in Unreal Engine 5 (opens in new tab).
Today Colossal Order gave us a few new titbits of information about Cities: Skylines 2 via Twitter—including one that firmly shoots down that Unreal rumor. Cities: Skylines 2 will be built in Unity like the original, not in Unreal 5, Colossal Order confirmed in a tweet (opens in new tab).
The developer answered a few other questions as well, explaining that Steam Workshop mods and assets for the original Cities: Skylines, of which there are hundreds of thousands, will not be compatible with Skylines 2: "Cities: Skylines II is an entirely new game. Existing workshop content would likely need to be remade or adapted. We'll have more to share about modding Cities: Skylines II in the future."
And finally, a burning question many players have in an age where singleplayer games often include some sort of multiplayer functionality or co-op mode. In answer to the question, "Any scope to add multiplayer in Cities Skylines 2?" Colossal Order answered:
"Cities Skylines II is our most ambitious project to date, expanding on every mechanic in the franchise. Adding multiplayer support takes an incredible amount of time and resources that would take away from building the core player experience we are striving to create."
It's wonderful to see all the interest in Cities: Skylines II! 🙌 We'll have much more to share about the game in the future, but let's have a look at the questions we answered in March. 😁#CitiesSkylines #CitiesSkylines2 #CitiesSkylinesII pic.twitter.com/KBmiyxZP87April 4, 2023
So that's a no, basically. Mostly. It's as close to a no as you can get without actually saying no, which naturally makes me wonder why they didn't just say no.
I can't entirely blame Colossal Order for not being 100% concise in its answer, since the question itself wasn't entirely straightforward, either. The asker didn't say, "Will Cities: Skylines 2 have multiplayer?" They said "Any scope to add multiplayer," which leaves room for the type of answer we got.
But I'm guessing that almost-no means definitely not, and that's probably a good thing. Lest we forget how SimCity crashed and burned a decade ago (opens in new tab) after EA and Maxis did spend the time and resources on multiplayer—coincidentally leaving plenty of room for the rise of Cities: Skylines two years later.
As for when we'll learn more about Cities: Skylines 2, Colossal Order tweeted, "We'll have much more to share about the game in the future." While that sounds nebulous, Skylines 2 is due out sometime in 2023 so there can't really be all that much longer to wait.
