In The Hot Seat: Colossal Order's Mariina Hallikainen on leaving Paradox and life after Cities: Skylines
- After a decade on Cities, the choice was another 10 years or something new - and the timing felt right.
- The studio that once needed Paradox to take a chance on it can now fund itself.
- Whatever comes next is a PC simulation game, and it's already being made.
Mariina Hallikainen has been CEO of Colossal Order since it was founded in Tampere, Finland in 2009. In that time the studio went from an unfunded, and unknown, mass transit simulator to Cities: Skylines and then to a sequel it supported for years after launch.
In November 2025 Colossal Order and Paradox Interactive parted ways after 15 years and four games. Development of Cities: Skylines II moved to Paradox-owned Iceflake Studios at the start of 2026.
We caught up with Hallikainen ahead of her PGC Nordics session to talk about the split, what she wants from a publisher now and what's next for the studio.
The end of a 15-year partnership
Paradox backed Colossal Order when the studio was very small and its first game was, by her own description, extremely niche.
"We really appreciate Paradox taking a chance on us," she says. Getting to make Cities: Skylines was "really a dream game for us. And to launch it to such a huge success was just an amazing thing."
The split, in her telling, was a divergence. After more than 10 years on the franchise, the studio's ambitions had drifted from the work in front of it.
"We got the sequel out and we're still working on it for a couple of years after the launch to get the features in that we wanted," she says. "And as we saw that this work was coming to an end, we had to make the decision: do we actually want to continue working on this for another ten years, or do something else?"
She describes it as slowly building, which entailed weighing the options. "The time just felt right at that point."
It doesn't need a publisher's money any more
The most consequential line in the interview is about funding. The studio that once needed a publisher to take a chance on it no longer needs one to pay for development.
“We have the funding and the backing, so we don't need the publisher support in the same way as we used to.”
"Colossal Order is now a known studio," Hallikainen says. "We have the funding and the backing, so we don't need the publisher support in the same way as we used to."
That reframes publishing as a service rather than a lifeline, with self-publishing and a partner both live options. What she wants from any partner is: collaboration, open communication and trust.
The outsider in the CEO's chair
Hallikainen is not a developer and didn't come from games at all. She was a 23 year old automation technology student when she took the job while all the other founders were the developers.
What she brought was a business lens the studio might not otherwise have had. Game development, as she puts it, "is not a hobby project" - the question from the beginning was how to build something that made the games they loved and turned a profit.
Her education was a lot of conversations. She spent a significant amount of time talking to Finnish studios, Housemarque and Remedy among them, asking how they worked and how they got there, then taking the parts that fit a small young company.
Hiring into a small place "in the middle of nowhere"
Around 30% of Colossal Order's staff comes from abroad, and Hallikainen is honest about why. Competition inside Finland is fierce and budgets differ significantly - what the studio offers is long-term projects and a good environment rather than the top salary.
Then there's geography. Tampere, she says, is a very small place out "in the middle of nowhere" - which produces a counterintuitive result.
"It's actually easier for us to get experienced developers to join from abroad than for example from Helsinki," she says. Someone already prepared to relocate is a candidate; someone in Helsinki mostly isn't.
The founders were students without roots in Tampere, but people started families, kids started school and moving got hard.
What does help is being the only one doing what they do. "If someone actually wants to work on simulation games, they tend to like the idea of working at Colossal Order," she says.
What comes next
Colossal Order has only ever made simulation games for PC and that isn't up for change. "Simulation games is something that we're extremely passionate about and we are very knowledgeable on," Hallikainen says. The plan is to take 17 years of experience and build a new title in the genre.
She confirmed a new game is in development, and said nothing else about it. "We will be sharing what it is later in time, but it's not time yet."
“There are different player types and different sizes of audience, she says, and it's about finding the one you can cater to and building on it.”
Her message for the Nordic industry, ahead of her PGC Nordics session, is optimism - specifically about market opportunity and about audiences being findable if you stop trying to reach all of them. There are different player types and different sizes of audience, she says, and it's about finding the one you can cater to and building upon that.
You can catch Hallikainen at PGC Nordics in Helsinki, October 20th and 21st. Secure your spot.
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