[Cities: Cities: Skylines 2 was released in less than ideal conditions, and most of the buzz surrounding the game has focused on how Colossal Order intends to fix the various performance issues with the game. Now, the studio has resumed its weekly "CO Word of the Week" feature seen at the end of 2018, updating players on its progress. In particular, at least in the first post, progress on the trash patch and roaming gangs of stray dogs. What's going on, guys?

Today's "Word of the Week," written by Mariina Hallikainen, CEO of Colossal Order, focuses on the launch of a game that "was overshadowed by technical issues that caused disappointment, and rightfully so."

These problems were so bad that the developers warned players before release, according to Chris Livingston's Cities: Cities: Skylines 2 review on this PCG, using a 40-series RTX graphics card.

According to Halikainen, the development team is working on this and is investigating "ways to speed up the patching process so that players don't have to wait for more important fixes than necessary."

The CEO continued that the game's first patch included several adjustments to the LOD levels. Some adjustments were included, but the team is still working on them, stating that "finding the optimal LOD level is a balance between visual fidelity and performance," including "characters and their teeth!" He stated that further revisions would be coming soon.

So it looks like there is a long way to go before "Cities: Cities: Skylines 2" will play the way it was supposed to at release, and that work will have to be done in addition to the usual fixes and adjustments to the actual gameplay. This is, if you ask me, the most intriguing part of this entire article. Not only is the Colossal Order working on fixing bugs in the UI and the economy, but they are also investigating the "huge pack of dogs left in the city as a result of citizens abandoning their dogs" bug.

I am not a well-known game designer, but I think the real solution to this problem is to lean into it. Let's turn my city into some sort of apocalyptic wasteland, like Denver in "Fallout," dominated by roaming packs of wild dogs.

Unfortunately, no one is willing to listen to my excellent ideas on such things. Still, the Colossal Order is clearly eager to reassure players that CS2 will one day be fit for play. The answer is probably financial problems with Paradox's shareholders, which is unfortunate for the developers involved in the game and for the players who have purchased it.