Cities Skylines 2 Dev Targets 30FPS: ‘There’s No Real Benefit in a City Builder for 60FPS’

The developer of Cities Skylines 2 has revealed the game targets 30 frames per second, even on the most powerful PCs.

In a Reddit AMA, Colossal Order chief technical officer “damsku” said there’s “arguably no real benefit in a city builder to aim for higher fps”. What matters more with city builders, damsku said, is to avoid stutters and have a responsive user interface.

Earlier this month, Colossal Order admitted Cities Skylines 2’s performance wasn’t up to scratch, but insisted it would launch the city builder on PC as planned today, October 24. “Cities: Skylines 2 is a next-gen title, and naturally, it demands certain hardware requirements,” Colossal Order said at the time. “With that said, while our team has worked tirelessly to deliver the best experience possible, we have not achieved the benchmark we targeted.”

In an additional note to press, Colossal Order further explained its position: “Colossal Order and Paradox are 100% aware Cities: Skylines 2 requires high-end hardware for high-end performance, and they want to ensure that players are also aware of this. They are going to keep working on performance as more feedback is received from players worldwide, but the game is not being delayed, and so players should keep the recommended specs in mind.”

With Cities Skylines 2 set to launch imminently, performance trouble on even the most powerful PCs is a genuine concern. Here’s damsku’s quote in full:

“The target is 30fps because of the nature of the game, (arguably) there are no real benefit in a city builder to aim for higher FPS (unlike a multiplayer shooter) as a growing city with inevitably become CPU bound. What matters more with this type of game is to avoid stutters, and have responsive UI.

“For that reason, our simulation is also built around an expected update rate given 30fps. However, it does not hurt to get 60fps as it can contribute to better visuals in relation to temporal effects so while our target is 30fps, we don’t intend on limiting or stopping the optimization work just because we reach it on recommended hardware, we just don’t believe there would be a long term benefit in setting the target to 60fps, especially because we face rendering challenges both from close up and far distances.”

IGN’s Cities Skylines 2 review returned a 6/10: “Cities: Skylines 2 is an ambitious sequel that might have bitten off more than it can chew – be prepared to do a lot of terraforming if you don’t want your metropolis to look like a nightmare.”

Last month, Paradox and Colossal Order delayed the PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X and S version of Cities: Skylines 2 from the planned October launch to some point during spring 2024, and issued refunds to those who had pre-ordered.

Wesley is the UK News Editor for IGN. Find him on Twitter at @wyp100. You can reach Wesley at wesley_yinpoole@ign.com or confidentially at wyp100@proton.me.