[typing]
Cities: Skylines is still one of the best city builders in a decade
and one of my picks for the game of the year.
But there were still several things that could be improved
and while many of those have been addressed via free patches and Steam Workshop mods,
sometimes a game just screams for an expansion pack.
Well, say hello to After Dark,
the first expansion pack for Cities: Skylines
from Colossal Order and Paradox Interactive.
And while it may not feature any flying toasters,
it does boast an assortment of new items and features appropriate for nighttime
AND daytime... what???
First thing's first.
The big daddy of awesomeness introduced here is a day-night cycle
which takes place over the course of several in-game days
and it... is downright gorgeous.
The first time saw a city I had spent dozens of hours on in the dark,
it just made me grin ear to ear. I love it.
This is one of the biggest things I wanted in the main game
and I am SO glad it's been added.
Half the appeal of a nice city skyline
is how it looks once the sun passes under the horizon,
and they made sure that it looks awe-inspiring.
Buildings light up in staggered intervals,
street lights glimmer with various hues,
traffic and service vehicles dot the roadways,
and neon signs glow convincingly.
About the only thing I'd critique here is that some of the buildings look a little *too* bright
and have too many rooms lit up at once.
Another thing is that is does make doing actual work more difficult,
like laying down zones and placing ploppable buildings.
Darkness also affects how your city functions,
like lowering traffic and the income of certain zones,
while increasing things like crime and nightlife leisure activities.
Each service in the city budget can also be adjusted
for both daytime and nighttime individually,
although I really didn't see much need to do this in my cities.
In fact, there's a clear incentive NOT to mess with nighttime funding,
since if you lower it, citizens will complain about lower land values every night.
And that's not the only qualm I have.
There are all sorts of little things,
like all schools staying open 24/7,
and the fact that solar power plants don't store energy for use during the dark.
Other city building games typically just feature a day-night cycle as an aesthetic only
so these aren't issues, but
here they've tried something more and kind of missed the mark in slightly irksome ways.
While I appreciate the idea of making nighttime affect gameplay as well,
if you grow tired of this, you can just disable nighttime outright in the options menu, but
if you simply want to adjust, say, the length of nighttime hours,
or fix the gameplay issues,
then you can just download a mod.
So it's not a deal-breaker, though it is annoying.
But don't give up on the challenges of the twilight hours just yet
since there are two new district specializations to make use of.
The first is Leisure,
which can be applied to any city district by passing an ordinance.
This will convert commercial zones of both densities into pubs,
night clubs, gyms, bowling alleys and
some red light-looking spots that are sure to attract some shady types.
Likewise with the new Tourism specialization,
which is a very welcome addition,
seeing as tourism was more or less useless when Skylines first launched.
Bars, restaurants, hotels, museums and tchotchke shops
all pop up to entice out-of-towners into wasting their money.
There's also a variety of new ploppables to accentuate this,
like beach volleyball, horse riding stables,
skate parks, fishing piers,
jet ski rentals, marinas and more.
In addition, there a handful of new specialized buildings
that really bring in the pleasure-seeking touristy types,
including a casino, a driving range,
a fountain park, a massive hotel,
and a zoo.
And finally,
beachfront property now comes with a higher land value attached to it,
which makes total sense and I have no idea why it wasn't in the game until now.
To address all this extra demand, there's an international airport added,
which is about twice the size than the one already in the base game
and has its own built-in Subway restaurants–
er, its own–
Oh, its own built-in subway connection. Sorry.
Several other additions to mass transit are on offer too,
like bus stations that give multiple bus lines
a central point to drop in and let citizens transfer lines.
Taxis are now a thing as well,
so finally you've got a way for folks to get around your city
in tacky yellow cars that smell like stale popcorn and old farts.
And you now have bus and taxi lanes to apply to your city's higher traffic roads,
which until now you needed to mod the game in order to do.
This also applies to bike lanes,
which are another new transportation option,
and one that promises to lower overall traffic density even further.
You can also place bicycle paths in the same way as pedestrian pathways,
and I admit, I am entirely addicted to creating massively complex pathways of all types,
so I welcome cyclists with open arms and beefy calf muscles.
The cargo hub is the final new option for transport, and this applies to industry,
bringing in freight from both cargo ships and trains in one convenient location.
And if you also happen to import some criminals,
there's now a prison and prisoner rehabilitation systems in the game.
Police will now round up crooks and place them in jails,
but you'll need a prison to transfer them to, if you want them to stay locked up.
And you've got a variety of new city policies to micromanage all this stuff,
which is just great for those of you that can't get enough government intervention into people's lives.
You've got everything from harsher prison sentences to cyclist management,
to ordinances that allow you discourage education in certain areas for job needs,
and minimize noise from leisure zones.
This is all excellent stuff when combined with the game's district system,
allowing you to control your population more precisely than ever
without having to painstakingly manipulate service buildings and zones like you had to before.
And on top of this, you also have some new music,
new growable buildings,
new atmospheric effects for things like clouds and smog,
and a system for applying different architectural styles
to individual districts, encouraging a more diverse city look.
Oh, yeah, and have I mentioned that a good chunk of this you get for free?
Just download the latest patch and you'll get the day-night cycle,
reworked crime system, new buildings and styles,
and the tweaked economic and land value additions.
The rest of it will cost you about $15,
which is more than fair if you ask me.
If Cities: Skylines is a large scrumptious cake
and the free patches are icing on top,
then After Dark is the generous allotment of sprinkles and filigree on top of all that.
It's not absolutely necessary, but dang it, why not go all out?!
This pack alone has given me another dozen hours of throughly enjoyable gameplay already
with plenty more to come as I continue playing.
So if you dig the base game and want some awesome stuff that modding doesn't provide,
then I recommend After Dark without hesitating.
And if you enjoyed this video on Cities: Skylines After Dark,
perhaps you'd like my review on Cities: Skylines, or
other various related things here on LGR.
There's new videos every Monday and Friday, so
you can check back here or subscribe if you'd like to be notified,
And you can also check out Twitter and Facebook
for social stuff,
and Patreon for supporting the show monetarily
and being able to see videos early and such.
And as always, thank you very much for watching.