A little over eight years ago, publisher Paradox Interactive brought its ambitious city builder Cities: Skylines to the original Switch and … well, it was a mess. Some people were dazzled by having such an in-depth city builder on the go, but I couldn’t get over the atrocious performance and image quality. The original Nintendo Switch was a magical kind of system, but it wasn’t powerful enough to really handle a game that complex. I suppose that’s what makes the announcement of a Switch 2 upgrade so compelling to me, as I still like the idea of building cities on the go.
A few days back, Paradox revealed that Cities: Skylines – Expanded Edition will be heading to the Switch 2 on October 28th, 2026. Costing $50 with a 70% discount for owners of the Switch 1 original, this new port will not only include ten expansions, but expand the buildable areas to 25 tiles, bring a map editor into the mix, and support keyboard and mouse controls. Players will have the option to switch between a 30 fps “quality” mode and a 60 fps “performance” mode, both of which sound better than the sometimes 10 fps the Switch 1 version would get.
There isn’t much information to go with this announcement, but I’m all for improving shoddy ports with new versions. I think it’s a little silly that there isn’t a free upgrade, especially with how bad the Switch 1 version is, but then this new port brings a tremendous amount of additional content. I just hope it can do justice to the base game, which is still one of the better city builders on PC from the last decade and a half. Here’s hoping the lessons learned from this Switch 2 port will help Lego Skylines achieve its best form.
Cities: Skylines – Expanded Edition image gallery
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Written by Peter Glagowski
Peter has been a freelance gaming and film critic for over seven years. His passion for Nintendo is only matched by the size of his collection.
