Paradox has finally confirmed the state of Cities Skylines 2 mod support, and it’s not looking good. Unfortunately, the upcoming city-building simulator won’t support mods on launch, but it will later on in life.
With over 300,000 mods currently available for the 2015, Cities Skylines 2 mod support is expected to be a huge deal when it finally releases. However, the upcoming sequel won’t have any built-in mod support until the game’s official modding tools release.
Revealed in a Paradox Plaza blog post, mod support will be absent for the foreseeable future. Instead, fans will have to wait until the game’s Editor mod tools are officially out of beta. Until then, mods are a no-go for Cities Skylines 2.
“From the start, we knew we wanted to include an in-depth editor powerful enough to bring your ideas to life,” Paradox writes in its blog. “This time around we have a good sense of what modders and creators may need, based on all the amazing things they created for Cities: Skylines, and our goal is to support that with the new Editor currently being worked on for Cities: Skylines II.”
The new Editor tool will allow players to create their own custom landscapes, buildings and even add code to the city-building simulator. If you’re ever spent time with The Elder Scrolls Construction Kit, imagine that but for a city builder — it’s very impressive! With enough code, modders will be able to overhaul gameplay functions such as water irrigation, traffic management, and even industries.
Following the launch of the official Editor tool, Paradox plans to enhance it with future updates. This will allow for even more customisation with changeable asset types planned for foliage, vehicles and even citizens in the future.
Modding in the original Cities Skylines was so popular that some modders were even recruited to develop official expansions for the game. Could we see the same happen with this sequel? Well, most probably.
Cities Skylines 2 releases on Xbox Series, PC and PS5 on October 24, 2023. Paradox has confirmed that the game will launch with performance issues. The game also releases on Xbox Game Pass the same day.