Does Cities: Skylines 2 Have a Multiplayer Mode?

Multiplayer could make all the difference when building your virtual city from the ground up in Cities: Skylines 2. Having a friend on board can lead to some chaotic yet innovative fun, but does Cities: Skylines 2 even have official multiplayer support in the first place? Here’s what to know.

Can You Play Cities: Skylines 2 Multiplayer?

After developer Colossal Order confirmed Cities: Skylines 2 was nearing the end of its development, the team decided to answer some burning questions in March from the community. From mod support to the stability of performance, Colossal was pretty transparent about the state of things, including whether a multiplayer mode would get implemented.

“Any scope to add multiplayer in Cities: Skylines 2,” asked a player during this Q&A.

Colossal Order responded that “adding multiplayer support takes an incredible amount of time and resources that would take away from building the core player experience.” Back in March, the team seemed adamant about focusing on the solo player experience, but the developer’s response doesn’t quite outright say no to adding it in the far future.

“Completely understandable,” said one fan on Reddit. “I don’t think anyone expected it to have any…I would really enjoy it as an addition. Not online play with dedicated servers, just peer-to-peer.”

Another user supported the developer’s decision, saying, “It’s really hard to make multiplayer good, and really easy to have it not work. Keep it offline, sharing save files/maps is good enough for me. I want a really robust single player experience.”

As of this article’s writing, you can’t play multiplayer in Cities: Skylines 2 on the PC version, and we can assume the same will apply to the console iterations when they launch in 2024.

Related: All Achievements in Cities: Skylines 2

A Cities: Skylines 2 Multiplayer Mod Could Solve This Issue

Unlike the sequel, the first game, Cities: Skylines, had a multiplayer mod that players could download to build with their friends in a single game. That mod required one player to act as the host of a server to allow other players to connect to them. It worked relatively well but demanded a ton of setup to work properly.

“It works but is only really accessible to either complete no-mod players or very advanced players,” said one Redditor. “You need to match all mods assets and DLCs to player together and even so there’s a lot that can go wrong.”

Some brave modder could put together something similar for Cities: Skylines 2 through the official Paradox Mods editor, but it’s fair to say we’re a while off from seeing anything like this anytime soon.  

If you’re looking for more, check out how to fix any lagging or crashing problems you may be having in Cities: Skylines 2.