Cities: Horizons 2The publisher believes that players have developed “higher expectations” of games and also “accept less” which will be resolved over time.
This is according to Paradox Interactive Deputy CEO Mattias Lilja, who spoke with Rock Paper Shotgun about the delay of Prison Architect 2, as well as the cancellation of Life By You and the reception of Cities: Skylines 2. Speaking of the former, Lilja says there were “quality issues” – in particular “it's not the same kind of challenge” that we had with Life By You,” which ultimately led to it being delayed “to give players the game they deserve” when it launches.
But it's more than that, as Lilja continues: “It's also based on the fact that we, in all transparency, see that fans right now, with a tight budget for games, have higher expectations and accept less than you. You fix things over time. That's our opinion. The gaming space has always been a winner-take-all kind of environment. Some games appeal to most players, and most games. They are removed quite quickly, and this is even more pronounced now. [during] maybe the last two years.”
Lilja goes on to say that when it comes to Cities: Skylines 2, which was released last year for major performance issuesand thanks to multiple delays have not yet been released on consoles – Paradox “I knew we would have some problems, like every launch.” He later admits that some of those things were “issues that we really hadn't fully understood, and that's totally up to us.” As for the city builder's performance, Paradox creative director Henrik Fåhraeus says in another conversation that “we underestimated how players will perceive it.”
A little more optimistically, Fåhraeus says that Paradox learned from Cities: Skylines 2 that “if we could have brought in players to try it on a larger scale, that would have helped,” and that in the future, the publisher wants to have a “larger scale” . “Open with players, “and as soon as possible if possible.” With this in mind, hopefully the publisher can avoid the same mistakes in the future.
A year later, almost none of the DLC from Cities: Skylines 2's first year was released and now everything has been delayed again.