The most talked-about city building game on Steam was supposed to take place in 2025 with Cities: Skylines II, the unofficial successor to SimCity. However, the city builder has been facing serious issues since its launch in October 2023. The game is currently suffering from an aging population and too many corpses that are not being picked up. A hotfix is supposed to solve the problem now.
This is the situation: In October 2023, Cities: Skylines II was released, and there had been a lot of hype around the game, as the first part is considered a milestone in the genre. At its peak, 75,549 players were online on Steam simultaneously.
But the release turned into a disaster for publisher Paradox Interactive, and players abandoned the game. Even the developers seemed to warn against the game. Cities: Skylines II was generally seen as an “unfinished disgrace” – even today, it holds a dismal 53% positive reviews on Steam.
Initial DLCs were panned and are considered “the worst titles on Steam” overall. The general sentiment was: the developers should fix their game before bringing new content and charging for it.
Recently, the first part had more players on Steam than the second part. But now they want to address the issues.
This is a big problem: When you play Cities: Skylines II for an extended period, the city’s inhabitants grow old and retire.
But then there is no one left to work, and the game saves become unplayable. Moreover, the collection of dead residents doesn’t function properly; corpses clog the cities.
Hotfix rejuvenates tired old folks and removes corpses
What do they want to change now? With a new update, hotfix 1.2.3f1, all retirees will be significantly rejuvenated (via steam).
The maximum age will be limited to 120 in-game days.
In save games with too many dead people that have not yet been picked up by the coroner, the corpses will be removed.
The developers say: The update will also ensure that people now die at reasonable times.
Developers expect a sharp rise in unemployment
Could there be problems? The developers state:
If a game is started with the update, there could be a spike in unemployment, then the number of retirees drops sharply, and suddenly there are more workers again.
But once the game has been running for a while, everything should stabilize at “more reasonable levels.” Well, if only the problems in the real world could also be solved with an update. A city builder on Steam that we can wholeheartedly recommend is here: I spent 50 hours on a game on Steam in 4 days – no city building game has captivated me like this in 30 years
