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The clearest explanation came from Colossal Order CEO Mariina Hallikainen: the studio planned Cities: Skylines 2 around Unity capabilities that were not finished or did not work as expected. The team had to build replacements and workarounds, including for engine instability, missing features in Unity’s HDRP shader pipeline and a lack of long-running job support in its Entity Component System. That is a specific, retrospective account from the game’s former developer—not proof that Unity alone explains every performance problem.
What caused Cities: Skylines 2’s performance problems?
In a March 18, 2026 interview with PC Gamer, Hallikainen said Colossal Order had based parts of development on Unity features that were not finalized. She summarized the mistake this way: “We completely overestimated the engine’s capabilities at the beginning of the project.”
In a follow-up email, Hallikainen named three concrete shortcomings: general engine instability, missing core features in the High Definition Render Pipeline (HDRP) shader pipeline—including interpolators—and the absence of long-running job support in Unity’s Entity Component System (ECS). She said the team ended up building more technology to replace features that were missing or failed to meet expectations.
That account helps explain why the problem was more involved than simply tuning graphics settings late in development. If a project depends on engine capabilities that are unfinished, the developer must work around or replace them while also building the game. Hallikainen also said the team wanted to future-proof a game it expected to support for years; in retrospect, relying on unproven engine features became a hindrance.
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Her interview is an attributed explanation from the studio’s CEO, not an independent technical audit. It identifies development constraints, but does not establish that those constraints account for every cause of poor performance or every player’s experience.
How bad was performance at launch?
Launch-era testing documented why performance became a major concern, including on high-end PCs. In its 2023 GPU testing, GamersNexus tested about 23 graphics cards and reported that an RTX 4090 averaged below 40 FPS at 4K on low settings. The result describes that test’s hardware, game build, settings and conditions; it is not a benchmark for the current version.
GamersNexus also characterized the initial post-launch performance patch as a 3–5 FPS difference for many cards in its testing. That is a historical finding, not a promise of the same change on other hardware or builds. No controlled, current comparison across hardware, resolutions and large city sizes is established by the available evidence, so launch results cannot quantify how much performance has improved since.
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What has changed, and what should players try now?
Performance work continued after launch, but the documented changes are specific adjustments rather than a published, universal speedup figure. Patch 1.5.7f1, released April 29, 2026, added a Benchmark option to the main menu. Its notes also describe changes to moon lighting and shadows during daytime, and daylight and shadows at night, to improve performance; the main menu was capped at 120 FPS to reduce GPU stress. These are targeted changes, not evidence of a particular overall gain in gameplay.
Paradox’s performance guide, updated August 4, 2026, suggests trying these settings:
- Lower resolution to 1920×1080.
- Disable depth of field.
- Disable volumetrics.
The guide cautions that motion blur, depth of field and dynamic resolution do not always improve performance. Results depend on the system and settings, so use the game’s Benchmark tool to assess a change on your own setup rather than assuming a toggle will help.
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Virtual texturing and temporary artifacts
Paradox describes virtual texturing as a way to use video memory more efficiently for textures. While textures are processing, buildings may appear temporarily dark or other graphical artifacts may show. The guide says the wait depends on hardware and is usually under a minute.
Independent reader supportYour contribution helps us test, update, and keep practical guides available for everyone.What about console performance?
Paradox’s console statements document missed targets in 2024, not the state of console performance in 2026. On July 8, 2024, the company said it had not met its console stability and performance targets and that unresolved issues affected the intended experience. An earlier update on May 23, 2024 said beta testing had revealed missed targets and that the team was prioritizing crash fixes and frame-rate improvements.
Those statements establish that console readiness was a recognized problem at the time. They do not, on their own, establish current console performance or quantify improvements since.
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