We caught up with Colossal Order's game designer Karoliina Korppoo to talk about the success of Cities: Skylines and its upcoming expansion After Dark.
"Having so many players actually makes it easier to find the valid information on what the players want to do and what kind of things they need in the game," says Korppoo of the success the game has seen. "And the whole modding community is absolutely awesome, because we have such a small team we can't do that much content so having people kind of help out, and it's a way to play the game also - to create something."
Interestingly developer Colossal Order and publisher Paradox Interactive have opted for an approach where some content and updates will be free for everyone, while some new mechanics are reserved for those buying the expansion.
"Because players can make such awesome content we don't really have to do anything [content wise]. We just want to give them tools to create more freely different kinds of content. And giving these things that they can't have with the current tools, like I know there are a few mods about the day and night cycle even now. But since the buildings didn't have the texture layer to actually react or light up as they should they didn't look really nice and for one modder to actually go to all of the buildings in the game and add texture maps - that's a bit too much work. So now we have made the system and they can make day and night versions of all of the buildings they want and I'm expecting awesome results."
free
- New day and night cycle
- shorelines now raises land value
- reworked crime system
- more crime during night time
- 70 free zoned buildings
- updated economy functionality
- Modders can now define their own building sets like "European buildings" or "medieval"
paid
- Several new landmark buildings
- Prison & attached functionality
- International airport
- New large cargo hub
- Massive bus station
- Taxis, taxi stand & depot
- Bikes and bike paths
- Roads with bike and bus lanes
- Leisure specialization + buildings
- Tourism specialization + buildings
- New beautification (parks and other ploppables)
- New props, vehicles, citizens and more!
Cities: Skylines After Dark is due out on September 24.