After more than a decade of successful collaboration across numerous titles that we’re both immensely proud of, Paradox Interactive and Colossal Order have mutually decided to pursue independent paths.
Development of the Cities: Skylines franchise will move to a different studio under Paradox Interactive’s leadership and Colossal Order looks forward to building on its experience across new projects and exploring new creative opportunities.
This means the Cities: Skylines franchise will move to a new developer, and we’re pleased to announce that Iceflake Studios will be taking the lead. Based in Tampere, Finland, Iceflake Studios is one of Paradox Interactive’s internal management game studios and is hard at work getting into the nuts and bolts of Cities: Skylines II.
It sounds like the original cities skylines devs have jumped ship. Doesn’t sound good for the future of the game or the franchise
https://iceflake.com/games/
Their backlog does not inspire confidence. Hope I’m proved wrong
Basically a bunch of mobile games that can now be made within a week with a proper AI use.
Echoes of Paradox moving Vampire: The Masquerade - Bloodlines 2 to The Chinese Room for some reason none of us on the outside understand.
That is still so fucking mysterious to me. The Chinese Room makes exactly one type of game, which is “guided-interactive narrative experience” to be diplomatic. The exact opposite of Bloodlines 1. Dear Esther, Ozzy Mandus And The Crankhog Machine, their entire portfolio follows the same formula: strong in art direction, atmosphere, and story; weak in gameplay. Even a hit like Still Wakes The Deep only takes gameplay as far as “throw object to make the thing look away”. Their gameplay systems are not just middling but comfortably average, just enough to keep the player engaged while moving through the (admittedly beautiful) environments.
So why the fuck did Paradox choose them for Bloodlines 2? Are they stupid?
The only explanation I can come up with is that they’re a studio that reliably ships finished projects, and maybe that was all Paradox was looking for.
Just because that’s so you’ve done doesn’t mean that’s all you can do.