Cities: Skylines II's New Caretaker Ships Its First Big Bet: Zoos, Theme Parks and Tourists
A year after Paradox moved Cities: Skylines II from Colossal Order to its in-house Iceflake Studios, the new team has released Expansion Pass 2. Here's what's in it, what the handover changed, and whether the troubled sequel is turning a corner.
Two years ago, Cities: Skylines II was the city builder people loved to complain about. It was slow on good PCs, short on features and missing its console versions. In 2026 it has a new studio, a new expansion pass and, for the first time in a while, a little momentum.
On September 15, 2026, Paradox Interactive and Iceflake Studios released Expansion Pass 2 for Cities: Skylines II on PC, priced at $44.99 / £37.99 / €44.99. It's Iceflake's first expansion pass and its first original content for the game since taking over development at the start of 2026.
What's in the pass
The bundle has seven pieces, described by Paradox as one instant unlock, two expansions, three creator packs and a radio station:
- Downtown Market Set (instant unlock): a social hub built from shipping containers and food trucks, plus a Scottish-inspired temperate map with lochs, rivers and ruins.
- Park Adventures (expansion): a modular park builder with four park types, city parks, zoos, amusement parks and nature reserves, over 100 new assets and five new maps.
- City Vacations (expansion): tourism that changes with the seasons, plus new tools for managing tourist arrivals, transport and spending.
- Creator Pack: Modern Suburbs by Trist1322: one- to three-storey low-rise housing.
- Creator Pack: First Response by Arthaix: fire, disaster, medical, police and combined emergency buildings.
- Map Pack by Uncle Ron: seven maps inspired by real places.
- Corner Street Beats: late-night music for building.
Paradox says buying the pass saves up to 24% versus buying everything separately. The free "Autumn Breeze" patch (version 1.6.1f1) launched alongside it with gameplay, visual and UI improvements.
How we got here
Cities: Skylines II launched on October 24, 2023. It drew a big audience, peaking at 104,697 concurrent players on Steam, Paradox's second-highest peak ever at the time. But performance problems, missing features and bugs dominated the conversation. Console versions, planned for a cross-platform launch, slipped and were eventually postponed indefinitely.
On November 17, 2025, Paradox and original developer Colossal Order announced they were parting ways. Development moved to Iceflake Studios in Tampere, Finland, a Paradox-owned team best known for the colony survival game Surviving the Aftermath. Colossal Order shipped a final round of updates, including a bike patch, Old Town buildings and an editor beta, before handing over.
Iceflake's remit is broad: free updates, the long-requested Editor, the console editions and all future expansions. Studio manager Lasse Liljedahl said at the time that Iceflake "has the capacity and capability to get started".
The original's long shadow
Part of the pressure on Cities: Skylines II comes from its predecessor. Cities: Skylines launched in 2015 and had sold more than 12 million copies across all platforms by June 2022, with 13 expansions and one of PC gaming's most active modding communities. On Steam today it still sells for $29.99.
Paradox's own deputy CEO summed up the franchise's scale when announcing the handover: "Four games, dozens of expansions, and a community of millions of Cities players."
Why it matters
City builders can recover from rough launches, but only if their developers keep shipping. Iceflake's first year shows a team putting out content on a regular rhythm: patches first, then a full expansion pass built around parks and tourism, two features players have asked for since the original. The big questions left are the editor and consoles. If Iceflake delivers those in 2027, Cities: Skylines II may finally become the game its 2023 marketing promised. For the bigger history of city builders, from SimCity to Anno, read our city builder feature.