Strategy Sessions Weekly: Cities: Skylines II Finally Tackles Performance (July 22, 2026)

Cities: Skylines II’s new custodian just showed its first real move on the game’s oldest complaint. Iceflake Studios published a dev diary confirming a benchmark tool and multicore CPU support are coming, which matters more than any single patch note because it signals how the studio plans to run the game going forward. Three other strategy and sim titles also hit decision points this week, so here’s what’s worth acting on now and what can wait.

🎯 Quick Wins

Three items from this week you can act on straight away:

• City States: Medieval leaves Early Access on 24 July. The merchant-republic city builder launches at 1.0 for £15.99 ($19.99), with a 20% discount at launch. If you want a smaller-scale alternative to sprawling 4X strategy games, this is a reasonable buy-now candidate.
• GoGo Town has released in full. The city-builder is out of Early Access, so if you were waiting for the complete feature set before buying in, that wait is over.
• Dawn of War IV revealed its multiplayer faction lineup. Nothing to buy yet, but worth knowing before the game’s eventual release if competitive RTS is your thing.

🧠 Strategy Spotlight: Cities: Skylines II’s Performance Fix

The real story this week is Iceflake Studios’ 17 July dev diary, the first concrete performance move since the studio took over from Colossal Order. Two things stand out: a new benchmark tool that lets players measure their own city’s performance against a standard baseline, and multicore CPU support, which spreads simulation load across more of your processor instead of leaning on a single thread.

For players who have been sitting on large cities and watching frame rates crawl, this is the fix that actually addresses the complaint rather than papering over it. A benchmark tool means you can diagnose whether your specific city or your hardware is the bottleneck before you start pulling assets or downgrading graphics settings. Multicore support should matter most once city size and simulated population climb past the point where a single core can keep up, and it follows a run of patches that have been chipping away at the game’s rough edges, including June’s Summer Solstice patch and the earlier First Frost update.

Treat this as a “wait and see the results” moment rather than a “problem solved” one. Dev diaries describe intent, not shipped code, so the real test comes when the update lands and players start running the benchmark tool on their own saves. If you have held off on a mega-city project because of performance, this is worth tracking closely over the next few weeks rather than assuming it is fixed today.

👀 Worth Watching

The Guild: Europa 1410’s Early Access has been delayed to September, so reset your expectations if you were tracking a summer release. Tempest Rising also announced its Veti Campaign Expansion on 10 July, adding new RTS content for players already in that game’s ecosystem, and it is worth a look if you are already invested rather than a reason to buy in fresh.

⏭️ Next Week’s Prep

Watch for the City States: Medieval launch reviews once players get real hands-on time past the marketing beats, and keep an eye on whether Iceflake shares a firmer timeline for the benchmark tool and multicore support. If either lands, we will cover the practical results here rather than just the announcement, following on from last week’s roundup on Dawn of War IV’s release date.

📋 The Week at a Glance

What’s the biggest Cities: Skylines II news this week? Iceflake Studios announced a benchmark tool and multicore CPU support are in development, the first concrete performance fix since taking over the game from Colossal Order. What should strategy and sim players buy now versus wait on? City States: Medieval and GoGo Town are reasonable buy-now picks at 1.0, while The Guild: Europa 1410 (delayed to September) and the Cities: Skylines II performance update itself are better watched than bought into immediately.

Note: some items in this roundup reference developer dev diaries and community-sourced timelines rather than confirmed patch notes; treat specific delivery dates as estimates until Iceflake Studios confirms them officially.

🧭 Continue Your Journey

• Last week: Dawn of War IV Locks In a Release Date
• Cities: Skylines II Summer Solstice Patch 1.6.0f1: What Changed and Why It Matters
• Cities: Skylines II Gets a Fresh Start: What the First Frost Update Actually Changes