Our journey with modding started in a somewhat unexpected way with our first game, Cities in Motion. Back then, we hadn’t initially planned extensive modding support, but as the game used our own technology and was very accessible to players, a modding community grew surrounding the game. While not intentional we soon discovered how much modding can add to a game with players customizing their gameplay experience, creating and sharing content with each other.

We carried that lesson forward to Cities in Motion 2, though it wasn’t until Cities: Skylines that we really realized the full potential of supporting modding. As we were developing the game, we had one of our two programmers focus on creating tools to mod the game. When Cities: Skylines was released, we had a map editor, that let you create your own maps to build cities on, and an asset editor to import custom 3D models to the game. These, along with code mods, could then be shared on the Steam Workshop and downloaded by others. Through the years we expanded the capabilities of the asset editor to include more options, and as map themes and scenarios were added to the game, we included editors to make your very own.

Today, the Cities: Skylines Workshop has over 400,000 mods with everything from maps and themes to buildings and code mods changing the rules of the game. We were absolutely blown away by the creativity and dedication of our modding community, and throughout the game’s lifetime, we have continued to improve how we interact with the modders.