- After a decade on Cities, the selection was one other 10 years or one thing new – and the timing felt proper.
- The studio that when wanted Paradox to take an opportunity on it might probably now fund itself.
- No matter comes subsequent is a PC simulation sport, and it is already being made.
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Mariina Hallikainen has been CEO of Colossal Order because it was based in Tampere, Finland in 2009. In that point the studio went from an unfunded, and unknown, mass transit simulator to Cities: Skylines after which to a sequel it supported for years after launch.
In November 2025 Colossal Order and Paradox Interactive parted methods after 15 years and 4 video games. Growth of Cities: Skylines II moved to Paradox-owned Iceflake Studios firstly of 2026.
We caught up with Hallikainen forward of her PGC Nordics session to speak concerning the break up, what she desires from a writer now and what’s subsequent for the studio.
The top of a 15-year partnership
Paradox backed Colossal Order when the studio was very small and its first sport was, by her personal description, extraordinarily area of interest.
“We actually recognize Paradox taking an opportunity on us,” she says. Attending to make Cities: Skylines was “actually a dream sport for us. And to launch it to such an enormous success was simply a tremendous factor.”
The break up, in her telling, was a divergence. After greater than 10 years on the franchise, the studio’s ambitions had drifted from the work in entrance of it.
“We acquired the sequel out and we’re nonetheless engaged on it for a few years after the launch to get the options in that we needed,” she says. “And as we noticed that this work was coming to an finish, we needed to make the choice: can we really wish to proceed engaged on this for an additional ten years, or do one thing else?”
She describes it as slowly constructing, which entailed weighing the choices. “The time simply felt proper at that time.”
It does not want a writer’s cash any extra
Essentially the most consequential line within the interview is about funding. The studio that when wanted a writer to take an opportunity on it now not wants one to pay for improvement.
“We’ve the funding and the backing, so we do not want the writer help in the identical means as we used to.”
“Colossal Order is now a identified studio,” Hallikainen says. “We’ve the funding and the backing, so we do not want the writer help in the identical means as we used to.”
That reframes publishing as a service moderately than a lifeline, with self-publishing and a accomplice each dwell choices. What she desires from any accomplice is: collaboration, open communication and belief.
The outsider within the CEO’s chair
Hallikainen isn’t a developer and did not come from video games in any respect. She was a 23 yr previous automation know-how scholar when she took the job whereas all the opposite founders had been the builders.
What she introduced was a enterprise lens the studio won’t in any other case have had. Sport improvement, as she places it, “isn’t a interest undertaking” – the query from the start was methods to construct one thing that made the video games they liked and turned a revenue.
Her schooling was a whole lot of conversations. She spent a big period of time speaking to Finnish studios, Housemarque and Treatment amongst them, asking how they labored and the way they acquired there, then taking the components that match a small younger firm.
Hiring right into a small place “in the course of nowhere”
Round 30% of Colossal Order’s workers comes from overseas, and Hallikainen is sincere about why. Competitors inside Finland is fierce and budgets differ considerably – what the studio presents is long-term initiatives and an excellent atmosphere moderately than the highest wage.
Then there’s geography. Tampere, she says, is a really small place out “in the course of nowhere” – which produces a counterintuitive end result.
“It is really simpler for us to get skilled builders to affix from overseas than for instance from Helsinki,” she says. Somebody already ready to relocate is a candidate; somebody in Helsinki largely is not.
The founders had been college students with out roots in Tampere, however folks began households, youngsters began college and transferring acquired exhausting.
What does assistance is being the one one doing what they do. “If somebody really desires to work on simulation video games, they have a tendency to love the concept of working at Colossal Order,” she says.
What comes subsequent
Colossal Order has solely ever made simulation video games for PC and that is not up for change. “Simulation video games is one thing that we’re extraordinarily keen about and we’re very educated on,” Hallikainen says. The plan is to take 17 years of expertise and construct a brand new title within the style.
She confirmed a brand new sport is in improvement, and mentioned nothing else about it. “We can be sharing what it’s later in time, nevertheless it’s not time but.”
“There are completely different participant sorts and completely different sizes of viewers, she says, and it is about discovering the one you’ll be able to cater to and constructing on it.”
Her message for the Nordic business, forward of her PGC Nordics session, is optimism – particularly about market alternative and about audiences being findable should you cease attempting to achieve all of them. There are completely different participant sorts and completely different sizes of viewers, she says, and it is about discovering the one you’ll be able to cater to and constructing upon that.
You may catch Hallikainen at PGC Nordics in Helsinki, October twentieth and twenty first. Safe your spot.