Cities Cities: Skylines 2 had a rocky launch to say the least. Major performance issues and bugs have put off the planned content patches for quite some time, and the lack of mod support at launch has made the situation even worse.

While redemption stories are not that uncommon in games (see "Cyberpunk 2077" and "Warhammer 40k: Darktide"), the long road to player goodwill is particularly painful in this game, and as of this writing Recent reviews of this game on Steam are "mostly negative."

Still, there may be a small glimmer of hope for failing city planners, as Colossal Order has announced the first post-launch asset pack and, importantly, the dawn of official mod support for the game.

"Along with Beach Properties, Cities: and announced on the game's official forums. Appearing to be a "beta release," these official mod tools will include a map editor and a "code tool.

"The Map Editor allows you to create maps with the familiar terraforming tools, import heightmaps to create a highly accurate depiction of your hometown, and upload your creations to Paradox Mods: ...... The Code Tool allows you to show off your coding skills and create code mods to your heart's desire!"

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If you are a modding enthusiast and already want to start doing your homework, there are currently several entries for these tools on the City Skylines 2 wiki. This update will also bring "a fair amount of performance updates and general fixes and improvements."

As for the actual DLC, the Beach Properties asset pack adds a waterfront residential district, with custom-built buildings and four trees that are also custom-built. While it probably doesn't take that many different types of trees to create a compelling landscape, one can't help but feel sorry for whoever was forced to create this graphic.

The developers also released a new roadmap for the delayed content schedule:

The Beach Properties asset pack is still paid content. This is also difficult to say, given that the original Cities: Also, the original Cities: Skylines is cheaper, has more content, and is overall better than the sequel.

Still, Cities: Cities: Skylines 2 was released with an optimistic Expansion Pass that players paid for: in other words, Paradox has painted itself into a corner. If you make this free as a gesture of good will, players who paid a lot of money may feel that they have been shortchanged. Making something like this free as a gesture of good will, those who have spent more may feel shortchanged. Keeping it as paid content is seen as milking money out of a product that was not released in great condition. It is not an enviable situation, even though publishers brought this on themselves. Nonetheless, Beach Properties will be released next week on March 25.