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Cities: Skylines II for Windows: Gameplay and PC Requirements

Cities: Skylines II is a single-player city-building simulation for Windows. Compare your PC with the publisher’s minimum and recommended specifications, and understand what those requirements can—and cannot—tell you about performance.
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Cities: Skylines II is a single-player city-building simulation for Windows. Paradox’s published specifications put the minimum at 8 GB of RAM and a GeForce GTX 970 or Radeon RX 480, while its recommended tier calls for 16 GB of RAM and a GeForce RTX 3080 or Radeon RX 6800 XT. Those are hardware reference points—not a guarantee of a particular frame rate or smooth performance in a large city.

What do you do in Cities: Skylines II?

You build and manage a city: lay roads and infrastructure, provide services, plan residential districts, and develop industry and trade. You also manage the budget and respond to residents’ needs as the city changes. Seasons, weather, pollution, and interconnected economic and simulation systems add challenges beyond simply expanding the map. The game is listed as single-player on Steam.

Cities: Skylines II was released on October 24, 2023. Iceflake Studios and Colossal Order are listed as developers, with Paradox Interactive as publisher. Paradox lists Steam as the platform and Windows as a supported platform on its purchase page.

Can your Windows PC run Cities: Skylines II?

Compare your computer with the publisher’s minimum and recommended specifications below. These are published requirements, not results from testing every possible combination of parts. Meeting the minimum is a compatibility screening point, not evidence that the game will run at a particular resolution, frame rate, or city size.

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Component Minimum Recommended
Operating system 64-bit Windows 10 Home 64-bit Windows 10 Home
Processor Intel Core i7-6700K or AMD Ryzen 5 2600X Intel Core i5-12600K or AMD Ryzen 7 5800X
Memory 8 GB RAM 16 GB RAM
Graphics Nvidia GeForce GTX 970 (4 GB) or AMD Radeon RX 480 (8 GB) Nvidia GeForce RTX 3080 (10 GB) or AMD Radeon RX 6800 XT (16 GB)
Storage 60 GB available space 60 GB available space

These figures come from Paradox’s Windows requirements listing. Steam’s recommended operating-system field also lists Windows 11, whereas Paradox’s purchase page lists Windows 10 Home for both tiers. Check the live listings for the current platform details.

How to compare your PC

  • Check the processor model, system RAM, graphics-card model and video memory, and available storage—not just one headline spec.
  • Compare your graphics card to the named models as a reference, but do not treat a similar name or a single component as proof of equivalent performance.
  • Factor in your intended resolution and graphics settings. The published requirements do not specify a guaranteed frame rate for a particular setup.

Will meeting the requirements guarantee smooth performance?

No. Paradox describes the game as “performance-heavy” and provides a performance guide with settings players can adjust before or during city building. The requirements are useful for screening a PC, but they do not promise a specific frame rate, resolution, or performance as a city grows. The official specifications are not benchmark results.

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What editions, updates, and add-ons should buyers know about?

The reviewed purchase information identifies Steam as the platform for the Windows game. Steam lists digital creator packs, radio stations, and the Bridges & Ports expansion as add-ons. They are optional catalog items; the listings do not establish that an add-on is required to play the base game. Catalog entries and displayed prices may vary over time and by region. The reviewed official pages do not establish a physical edition.

Paradox continued publishing official news in 2026, including City Corner posts dated September 3 and August 20. That indicates ongoing official activity, but does not identify the current game version. The April 29, 2026 notes for Patch 1.5.7f1 document fixes involving production statistics, commercial demand, outside connections, and Bridges & Ports imports, as well as Paradox Mods changes such as parallel downloads, playset sharing and version support, and removal of the Beta label. Those are changes in that patch, not confirmation of what is current now. Check the official news and patch notes for the latest version-specific information.

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How have players rated it?

On October 3, 2026, Steam displayed 57% positive English-language reviews from 34,325 total reviews and 74% positive recent reviews from 811 reviews. These are moving review snapshots and may change; consult the live Steam listing for the current figures.

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