Nothing burns like the cold

As winter comes to a close (and comes to a peak for some of us) Cities: Skylines’ Snowfall expansion sets out to bring the wonder, beauty, and civil engineering struggles that come with the ice cold weather. This new DLC comes packed with new winter themed parks, monuments, and transportation options as well as new gameplay mechanics that complement the seasonal change. While all the new aesthetic inclusions are as wondrous as ever, the new gameplay Snowfall brings isn’t as gratifying or fun as those seen in the last expansion, After Dark.

With the Snowfall update, everyone who owns Cities: Skylines will receive new dynamic weather, trams, and changing temperatures that adds a new element of citizen pleasing gameplay — heating. Now temperatures will dip during nighttime and will require buildings (especially residential) to be heated by the use of boiler plants or geothermal heating stations. It’s a novel idea and adds an extra layer of realism to Cities: Skyline as it slowly continues to inch towards total city simulation perfection, but I have a bit of an issue with how the game had me implement heating into my city.

One of the most tedious things about Cities: Skylines is laying down water pipes. It takes no skill and is more of a chore than an exercise in skillful city management. So it makes me wonder why the method in which I had to install heating was through the task of laying down water pipes with heating. Yes, yes I know this is how real world heating is handled, but that doesn’t make it any less brain-numbing to sit there, click the water pipe with heating option, and drag out waves of pipe. Even worse, if you have a city with a fully developed and laid out pipe system, upgrading them is as tedious as upgrading roads — there is no mass select system and no “upgrade all” option of any kind.

Aside from that, the temperature also brings in some new city ordinances for things like free insulation for a zone or constraints on heating usage. What’s also strange is temperature just sort of fluctuates however it damn well pleases and doesn’t correlate with the seasons. 85 degrees Fahrenheit in late Decemeber? Ok Cities: Skylines.

The dynamic weather is also a letdown. With the free update, everyone gets rain and fog. These effects are really nice and look great but don’t add any new gameplay elements whatsoever. But I will say it’s quite soothing to sit back and watch my city grow accompanied by the soft pitter-patter of rainfall.

Finally, the last major update are trams. Trams operate like trains that can have tracks and pathways on streets, just like real trams do, and simply add a new way for citizens to get around. They’re nothing too special and don’t differ greatly from busses, but building up a nice Chicago-like tramway system that bobs and weaves throughout city skylines can make for a pleasing sight.

Now let’s get into the paid stuff of Snowfall and jump right into the biggest addition and reason to pick up this DLC — snow. I was hoping Snowfall would bring that Christmas feeling to any city I had previously made, but unfortunately snowfall and snowy regions can only be found in the snow themed maps. So that means if you want your glorious metropolis to become a winter wonderland then tough tits; you’ll have to start from scratch.

Four new winter themed maps are added which are accompanied by some very festive and excellent music. However, these maps are perpetually trapped in a snow covered bliss. So I hope you like snow because these maps are covered with it 24/7/365. Oh but what a glorious sight it is! It truly is beautiful and seeing houses and streets covered in snow is a pleasing treat for the eyes especially at night. You may tire of the look after a while, but the new decorations and city services may keep you too busy to care.

Now being from Detroit, I am all too familiar with cold weather and what problems it brings. I’m pleased to see Snowfall understood the struggle of city services and structured the winter regions to reflect the toll winter brings on roads. With Snowfall the new service of snow plows is added to alleviate the streets of snow buildup. Without snow plows other services like police and fire will get stuck in the snow and have trouble getting to any emergencies that may arise. The snow plows operate like garbage trucks or hearses (just going around in a patrol area and cleaning up snow) and are just as “exciting” to manage, but I do appreciate the attention to realism the developer had for the cold weather when they decided to add snow plows. It would’ve been cool to see other snow service vehicles like gritters or de-icers but I digress.

Finally, the place where most content of Snowfall is found is in the new winter themed ploppable buildings. A smorgasbord of new parks has been added such as a ski lodge and bonfire pit. New tourism attractions have also been added which include a hockey rink and snowmobile track. These new buildings are beautiful detailed and really add a small town, northern Michigan type feel that I really enjoy. Of course you could always build up a massive snow covered metropolis and get that winter apocalypse, Detroit feel if you’re like me.

Snowfall is a very simple expansion which sets out to do one thing — snow. And while that new addition is very beautiful and brings that dynamic change to a city that winter brings in real life, it doesn’t really add enough features aside from some pleasing aesthetic changes. Sure the winter theme is nice, but it just sucks that I have to have a city that is always caked in white fluffy goodness. The snow plows are a nice addition and so are the numerous new buildings, but the dynamisms in gameplay are very slim in comparison to After Dark.

The free features are also great, especially the trams, but implementing heating is just boring and tedious. There is also a lack of options when it comes to choosing when weather changes will occur; I wish I had options to have it always raining or another to turn off fog completely. Temperature year round is also strange and doesn’t correlate realistically with the time of year, but I suppose that can be fixed in an update.

For 13$ I’d say it’s worth it just because building a winter themed city is not only something unique but is a quite a sight to see in Cities: Skylines. This is pretty much the equivalent to a Stuff Pack found in The Sims. It’s mostly new aesthetics items meant to spruce up the look of the game with very minimal gameplay changes. Now we just need disasters because as of right now, the inclusion of weather is simply a minor inconvenience when it could’ve been a city crippling terror in the form of blizzards or flash floods.

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