‘Tis the season. Well, at least ’tis rapidly approaching the season. For those who don’t know yet, ‘the season’ is that period during winter when many religions and different places around the world celebrate their winter festivals. Diwali, Hanukkah, Ramadan, Kwanzaa, and of course, Christmas. Basically, anyone who is anyone will probably be celebrating something at this cold time of year.
Well, if you’re looking for wintery games to play for ‘the season’, then you might just be in luck. That is, you might be in luck if you also want the game to be a city-building game. Snowfall is the second DLC for Cities: Skylines and has finally made its way to the Xbox One, so let’s take a look.
The first most noticeable addition with this DLC is the snow. Obviously. While playing any of the three included maps, you will notice that snow will sometimes fall, turning your city into a winter wonderland. Well, sort of. The three maps that are added by the DLC are the only places where you will see any snowfall at all, and they’re already covered in a layer of snow 24/7 anyway. It is quite disappointing that the DLC didn’t include snow as a weather cycle to be enjoyed on your other maps. Having this new feature relegated to only 3 maps feels like missing a trick. If you were buying this DLC to enjoy snowfall on a city you’ve spent hundreds of hours working on, you are surely going to end up disappointed. The three maps that they do include with the ‘snow’ features are at least interesting to play in. The snowy areas look beautiful and are sure to put you in a “Christmassy” mood (or wintery mood, if you like). The maps are probably not the first thing you’ll want to do with the game as they do have limited space for building, not to mention the extra requirements of keeping your citizens warm. Once you’ve had some practise with the game and you feel more confident, you’ll probably get a fair few hours of enjoyment out of the maps.
A very minor feature added by the DLC is a couple more bird avatars for the fake in-game Twitter that shows your citizens’ opinions of what you’ve been doing. Now you can choose from either a Christmas hat or a winter hat with ear flaps to get your bird in the mood (okay, that didn’t sound good). There is also a new building type under the health heading: saunas. Basically, all they do is increase health and happiness in an area, the same as many other buildings do. It is nice to have the extra theming though. The final new feature is the inclusion of trams, a new form of public transport for your cities. These are actually very useful and might be the best part of this DLC. They can be added to a very large city for a cheaper price than most other public transport systems, and they do a decent job of easing traffic congestion in your city.
Really, that is all there is to say about this DLC. It includes 3 new maps, some very restricted snow features and a couple of universal new building options. The sauna might be a little underwhelming, but the tram system is pretty standout, all things considered. If you like to look at pretty snow and want to play some cities over the holiday period, then you should definitely consider picking up this add-on, especially since it’s only £10.
Developer: Colossal Order
Publisher: Paradox Interactive
Platforms: Xbox One, PS4
Release Date: 14th November 2017
