Cities: Skylines 2 Console Commands & Cheats Guide

Why Players Use Console Commands in Cities: Skylines 2?

Cities: Skylines 2 is a 2023 sequel to the popular city-builder from 2015 that borrows the core idea from the original game while aiming to improve the gameplay loop and make the game more accessible. It’s a management game that requires careful planning to achieve success, which could be difficult, considering how many aspects of developing a city you’ll be responsible for. It can get tricky when you have to meet all the wants and needs of your citizens while maintaining a healthy budget.

It shouldn’t come as a surprise that, as a result, some players like to resort to using shortcuts to make their lives easier. Using cheat codes and console commands in video games is one such shortcut option to overcome challenges that appear too difficult for the player’s skill.

Another reason could be that some players enjoy having full control over the game, and only through cheats, such a level of power could be achieved.

But it doesn’t matter what your own reasons are – if you want to give cheats a try, here’s how to enable cheats in Cities: Skylines 2.

How to Access Cheats in Cities: Skylines 2

To start using cheats in Cities: Skylines 2, you’ll have to prepare the game first and enable something that is usually referred to as Cities: Skylines 2 debug mode or developer mode. It doesn’t come with a classic debug console, but it enables a handful of useful options that will help you manipulate the game and shape it the way you want.

The following method works with the Steam version of the game.

1. Find the game in your Steam library.
2. Right-click it and choose “Properties”.
3. In the “General” tab, find the “Launch Options” section.
4. Add -developerMode (without quotation marks).
5. Confirm the changes and launch the game.

To check if Cities: Skylines 2 cheats work now, launch the game as you normally would, start a new game or load an existing save, and while in the city view, press the “Home” or “Tab” keys to access different developer menus.

Useful Commands in Cities: Skylines 2

The is no command console in Cities: Skylines 2, but there are still plenty of options to pick from in developer menus.

Pressing the “Home” key opens up the “Add Object” interface, from where you can pick any asset that exists in the game and drag it directly into your game world to place it freely. If you know the name of the object you want to find, you can use the built-in search bar to quickly get to the searched item.

Pressing the “Tab” key opens up a window with a lot of options for game manipulation. From here, you can, for example, adjust the camera, weather conditions, lighting, time of day, lift all restrictions on object placement, and much, much more.

And by the way, you should totally try surface painting, which is not exactly “cheating” but rather a tool that will allow you to make visual adjustments that would’ve been impossible to do otherwise.

Type “surface” when in the “Add Object” menu to find various kinds of surfaces; you can pick the one you want and paint the surface with it by dragging the points on the ground. You can even choose existing buildings to fine-tune surfaces that belong to them, such as parking lots, pavements, and more.

Compatibility with Modding

Using cheats is not the intended way of playing Cities: Skylines 2. On top of that, the creators of fan-made mods for the game don’t typically take the possibility of cheating into account. As such, you might encounter issues when using developer tools during the game when playing with mods enabled.

To be clear, minor problems may happen, but it’s unlikely for you to run into any kind of severe game-breaking or crash issues. However, it’s still a possibility that’s worth keeping in mind, so, just to be on the safe side, remember to back up your save files and keep multiple saves of your current playthrough. This way, you’ll be able to restore your progress if something goes wrong.

Warnings and Possible Issues When Using Cheats

Apart from potential conflicts with mods, using developer tools might affect the game and cause a variety of known issues that have been reported by the community. These include the inability to remove certain objects after placing them and the inability to reopen the “Add Object” window under certain circumstances. Using “bypass mode” could also break road sections and junctions if used on road networks.

Developer tools are disabled by default for a reason; they’re tools used by developers to quickly test various environments and scenarios to make sure everything works correctly. They’re not meant to be used during normal gameplay by the players; the game is not guaranteed to work fine when you start playing around with these tools, so use them with caution and keep the risks in mind.

Conclusion

Cities: Skylines 2 console commands don’t exist, but we have very useful developer tools that we can use to shape the game world and manipulate gameplay. When using the tools, make sure to keep and maintain copies of your save files. If you’ve never used cheats in Cities: Skylines 2, there’s a chance that you’ll do something you weren’t supposed to do and permanently damage your city. This is especially true when using the “bypass mode” that lets you place any object anywhere without any restrictions.