Cities: Skylines 1 receives new paid DLC 18 months after its supposedly final update

As Cities: Skyline 2 continues its attempts to bounce back from last year’s disastrous launch, Paradox Interactive has announced and released a new batch of paid DLC for the original. Cities: horizonsabout 18 months after delivering what was supposed to be its last major update.

Paradox Completed Cities: Skylines 1 release roadmap in May of last year with the launch of its final mini expansion, Hotels & Retreats. At the time, it said that developer Colossal Order would continue general support until the end of 2023 as it shifts its focus to Cities: Skylines 2.

But the release of Cities: Skylines 2 went wrongcausing multiple delays to Paradox’s post-release DLC plans, while Colossal Order continued to improve the base game. An initial attempt to force DLC onto the Cities: Skylines 2 player base was so poorly received, Paradox promised to postpone all future paid DLC “indefinitely”. Then in September announced further delays to the DLC so Colossal Order could complete work on a “crucial” asset editor.

And now, amid a series of other major failures for Paradox, the publisher has decided to return to a well that most assumed had finally run dry. 18 months after ending support for Cities: Skylines 1, three new paid DLC packs were released for the game, all themed around mountain peaks and alpine terrain. There is the Mountain Village package and Map Pack 3both are part of the Cities: Skylines Content Creator range, in addition to the Radio Station Alpine Tunes music package.

“This content has been in the works for some time, as we know many of you still love building and expanding your cities in the original Cities: Skylines,” Paradox wrote in its DLC Announcement. “No resources were diverted from Cities: Skylines 2 for this,” he continued, noting that the new DLC was created in partnership with developer Tantalus. “Our friends at Colossal Order remain fully focused on developing and improving Cities: Skylines 2.”

All three new Cities: Skylines 1 DLC releases are now available for PC and arrive before eight free, community-created region packs inspired by the architecture of iconic cities around the world launching for Cities: Skylines 2 starting next week.

All of this comes at a challenging time for Paradox, which has faced a series of high-profile setbacks in recent years. Along with the disastrous launch of Cities: Skylines 2, Prison Architect 2 has now been indefinitely delayed after the paradox split with developer Double Eleven earlier this year, while Vampire: The Masquerade – Bloodlines 2 (which was almost canceled before The Chinese Room took charge of its turbulent development) recently saw its release delayed from “late 2024” to 2025. That’s in addition to Paradox’s. decision to cancel promising life simulator Life By You in June, and the business failure from last year’s Lantern League, which resulted in Paradox parting ways with developer Harebrained Schemes.

Speaking to Eurogamer about the company’s troubles earlier this year, Paradox CEO Fredrik Wester accepted“It is clear that we have made poor decisions on several projects, especially outside of our core, and this must change.”