Cities: Skylines gets its first proper expansion in 3 years as its disastrous sequel once again settles for smaller DLC packs

Publisher Paradox Interactive has a big – and expensive – celebration in mind for the 11th anniversary of the beloved Cities: Skylines, including a host of DLC coming to both the original city builder and its sequel. This includes the first full expansion pack for the original game in nearly three years, as Paradox continues to weather the fallout from the maligned launch of Cities: Skylines 2.

The new content for the original Cities: Skylines is led by Race Day, an expansion that'll let your city host cycling, motorsports, and foot races. You can either build bespoke race circuits, or designate parts of your city streets as event roads so that they'll shut down to let racers through when the big event gets underway. This expansion launches on March 10, and while there's no official branding, I'm sure it's no coincidence that it comes just a few days after the Formula One season begins this weekend.

Notably, this will be the first full expansion for Cities: Skylines since Hotels & Retreats launched way back in May 2023. That was a few months ahead of the launch of its sequel, but as I wrote about in my Cities: Skylines 2 review, the follow-up landed in such a disastrous technical state that (now-former) developer Colossal Order had little choice but to delay DLC until after the biggest issues were fixed.

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Cities: Skylines 2 eventually got one full expansion with Bridges & Ports, which was promised ahead of launch in 2023 but only ended up launching two years later in 2025. Most of the game's DLC has taken the form of community-led content creator packs, which add largely cosmetic new buildings, and expansions to the soundtrack.

The original Cities: Skylines has also been getting new content creator and soundtrack DLC since 2024, when it was becoming clear how much of the community was not ready to move onto the sequel, but there have been no other proper expansions in that time. March 10 will also see the release of Iconic Brutalism, Renewed History, and 8 Gear Radio DLC for CS1, all of which will be available separately or bundled all together with Race Day for $23.99 USD.

Cities: Skylines 2, meanwhile, is just getting those smaller types of DLC, with Office Evolution and City Stations creator packs and Smooth Vibes FM and Skyrail Radio soundtrack expansions. According to a press release, new developer Iceflake Studios will also introduce a free patch which "will bring the Iceflake Arena signature building to the game, and improve toggle zoning, as well as bug fixes and more." All this stuff lands on March 18.

It's not all doom and gloom for Cities: Skylines 2. SteamDB shows that the sequel is actually currently pulling in higher concurrent player counts than its predecessor, though the numbers are close enough that it's easy to see why Paradox might be keen to offer more content to both groups. But I have to wonder how long it'll take before the sequel once again gets full expansion packs of its own.

The original Cities: Skylines still tops our list of the best city-building games you can play today.