Cities: Skylines Franchise Gets a Major Shakeup with New Dev

The Cities: Skylines franchise is getting a significant change as developer Colossal Order and publisher Paradox Interactive have mutually decided to go their separate ways. The Cities: Skylines franchise will remain with Paradox Interactive, which means Colossal Order will have to create something entirely new for its next project. As a result of the mutual breakup, Iceflake Studios is taking the lead on the Cities: Skylines franchise. The team is based in Tampere, Finland, and is one of Paradox Interactive’s internal management game studios. As for Colossal Order, the statement on the official Paradox Forum only said the team “looks forward to building on its experience across new projects and exploring new creative opportunities.”

For now, Colossal Order will implement a few additional updates to Cities: Skylines II before officially departing. Those updates include the Bike Patch, Old Town buildings, bug fixes, and general improvements to the game. The team also plans to add a beta implementation of asset support for the Editor, which will provide access to Asset Mods, before the end of the year. Iceflake Studios will officially take over development at the start of 2026, and Paradox Interactive is committed to future expansions and content packs for the game.

As someone who really enjoyed the original Cities: Skylines, I was disappointed when Cities: Skylines II launched with some major issues. It’s almost hard to believe Cities: Skylines II is over two years old now, as it’s still sitting at a Mixed rating on Steam with over 30,000 user reviews. Hopefully Iceflake Studios can fix some of the game’s major issues while Colossal Order gets a fresh start without Paradox Interactive’s oversight.