Cities: Skylines 2 has been delayed until 2024, but only on consoles

A city skyline — (Image credit: Paradox Interactive)

Prospective urban planners looking forward to Cities: Skylines 2 will need to get the PC version if they want to play this year. While a simultaneous launch was previously announced, Colossal Order has now pushed back the console release date, targeting a spring 2024 launch instead.

Colossal Order and publisher Paradox Interactive released a statement with the bad news today, as well as an update on the official forums.

We are hard at work getting the game ready for our release on October 24th. While doing so, we have come to realize that we need more time to reach the quality targets we have set. As we want to provide the best experience for our players, we are updating the release window for Xbox and PS5 to Spring 2024. The additional time allows us to focus on matching the quality and performance across all platforms.

While Cities: Skylines is undeniably a more comfortable fit on PC, the last game's console ports worked surprisingly well, though they didn't launch alongside the PC version either.

For PC players, who will still be able to start erecting cities on October 24, new system requirements have been released, with the recommended specs being quite hefty.

I still consider an RTX 3080 a fairly high end card, being one of the most powerful from the last generation. But don't worry if your rig contains something a bit less beefy: the minimum specs are pretty generous.

CPU: Intel Core i7-6700K | AMD® Ryzen 5 2600X

Ever since the original game usurped the city builder throne from SimCity (RIP), hardly a month has gone by without me dipping into one of my many metropolises, so I'm more than eager for the sequel to arrive in less than a month. New road tools, a deeper simulation and its larger scale have all gotten me pretty excited.

Fraser is the UK online editor and has actually met The Internet in person. With over a decade of experience, he's been around the block a few times, serving as a freelancer, news editor and prolific reviewer. Strategy games have been a 30-year-long obsession, from tiny RTSs to sprawling political sims, and he never turns down the chance to rave about Total War or Crusader Kings. He's also been known to set up shop in the latest MMO and likes to wind down with an endlessly deep, systemic RPG. These days, when he's not editing, he can usually be found writing features that are 1,000 words too long or talking about his dog.