Cities: Skylines Passes New Sales Milestone, Free DLC Coming

The SimCity-inspired Cities: Skylines has now sold more than 2 million copies worldwide, publisher Paradox Interactive announced this week. The celebrated PC city-building game, developed by Colossal Order, was released a year ago this week. The 2 million figure counts copies sold across PC, Mac, and Linux.

Skylines sold 250,000 copies in its first 24 hours after release last year, becoming Paradox's fastest-selling game in its history. In an effort to celebrate the game's first birthday and its big success, Paradox has announced it will release a free content update later this month with new features.

The update, coming March 22, will introduce landscaping-themed content and features, including the ability to perform "mild terraforming" for existing cities. Additionally, the update will make canals and quays available for construction.

Additionally, Paradox has put out a video that speaks to the game's first-year accomplishments. One notable piece of information is that Skylines development started with just nine people and today, the team's headcount is only 16 people.

Developers also teased that they plan to support Skylines for "years" into the future with "meaningful" new content and challenges.

"Our team is floored by the response players have had to Cities: Skylines and by the level of success the game has achieved in such a short time," Colossal Order CEO Mariina Hallikainen said in a statement. "We knew that trying to create a city-building game with such a small team was an ambitious project, but we'd been working towards that goal ever since the first Cities in Motion title, and we knew, if given the chance, that we could make it happen. A year ago, we achieved that goal, and the results have been nothing short of incredible. We've got so much more in store for all two million of our players, and I want to thank each and every one of them."

Colossal Order has also announced a sweepstakes where one player will win a trip to visit the studio in Tampere, Finland. This person will get a tour of the studio and access to the game's anniversary party. You can enter by submitting anything Chirper-themed--it could be art, poetry, a song, a game mod, or anything else. A full set of contest rules are available here.

In GameSpot's 8/10 Cities: Skylines review, real-life mayor Brett Todd wrote: "Right now, there is no better way to take a peek at life as a mayor without filing your papers to run for office in the real world."

An expansion titled Snowfall was released in February.