Cities: Skylines 2 has changed development hands, and the new team is now trying to whip the sequel into shape after a launch state that was, to put it mildly, questionable.

Ten years after famously beating SimCity at its own game, Finland’s Colossal Order said goodbye to the Cities: Skylines series last year. Iceflake Studios has taken over – a team players may recognize from Surviving the Aftermath. Iceflake has now published the first part of its roadmap for the sequel’s future, and the opening entry of its new developer diary series, City Corner, outlines some of what will arrive in Skylines 2’s debut update.

The first patch is set to deliver a long list of changes, including several items the community has been asking for for quite some time. This initial post focuses mainly on the visual work Iceflake has been doing, though it does not represent the full scope of the update. Even so, the direction of travel is clear: the sequel is getting meaningful revisions rather than cosmetic tweaks.

The headline addition is a new feature inspired by yenyang’s Recolor mod, letting players customize the colors of individual objects. For now, it is limited to buildings, props, and vehicles, but the team says it is working on extending it to trees, plants, and other items. Potentially even more important is the comprehensive redesign of Cities: Skylines 2’s user interface, intended to make the sequel less confusing to navigate. The onboarding flow has been simplified, several icons have been reworked for clearer meaning, and the toolbar sits at the center of the overhaul – which Iceflake describes as a significant redesign aimed at improving readability.

Other planned changes include major updates to lighting and the skybox to improve nighttime visibility and increase the number of visible clouds, along with a revamp of weather effects so snow actually stays on the ground. With snow failing to accumulate on most surfaces even during heavy storms, the developers say they are fixing it in true Finnish fashion. Iceflake is also planning a second developer diary that will go deeper into the mechanical changes coming with the update.

It remains unclear why Colossal Order parted ways not only with Cities: Skylines, but also with its publisher, Paradox Interactive. In its statement, Paradox said both parties mutually agreed to go their separate ways, while Colossal Order’s CEO pointed to new projects the developer wants to pursue.

Source: PCGamer, Steam, Paradox Plaza