Wahey, Cities Skylines 2 is getting rid of high rent problems by straight-up deleting all the landlords

Sure, the world may be a rough place, but sometimes games can help offer us a bit of a laugh to help ease the burden. For example, as part of its upcoming economy re-work, Cities Skylines 2 is solving its high rent issues by getting rid of all the virtual landlords.

Yup, this isn't a joke, or a parody, or something you're hallucinating as you stand on a platform hungover and gradually realising that your rent's due. Colossal Order, for all the game's issues performance-wise at launch for those of us without NASA-spec PCs, is doing a thing that's bound to win at least some of us back over.

"Let’s start with Rent," Colossal Order says in a development diary detailing some of the changes coming as part of the "Economy 2.0" update that's set to arrive in the game soon. "Most likely you have run into complaints of 'High Rent' in the game, so let’s talk about it. To complement the land value changes in patch 1.1.0f1 in March, we have tweaked how Rent works."

"First of all," it continues, "we removed the virtual landlord so a building’s upkeep is now paid equally by all renters." I don't know about you, but I just punched the air in celebration. Beyond that, the game's developers have also changed the way rent is calculated and tweaked the high rent notifications folks have been getting.

The latter "are now based on the household’s income", with the devs explaining: "That means that even if they currently don’t have enough money in their balance to pay rent, they won’t complain and will instead spend less money on resource consumption. Only when their income is too low to be able to pay rent will they complain about 'High Rent' and look for cheaper housing or move out of the city."

There have also been some tweaks made that'll affect both tenants and companies, specifically regarding paying for building upkeep. Basically, if not enough is paid to help keep the building's level and condition up, it'll end up "in such poor condition it collapses". Damn.

It's ok. Just try and ignore the threat of your digs imploding, Cities Skylines 2 NPCs. The landlords are gone, and that's what matters most.