Preview code used with many thanks to Johnny Atom PR.
During Paradox Interactive’s announcement show earlier this month, a sequel to Cities: Skylines was announced, much to the delight of fans like myself. Also, Paradox and Colossal Order announced that Cities: Skylines, which has just had its eighth anniversary, will get a proper send-off before Cities: Skylines II is released.
True to their word Paradox and Colossal Order are continuing the World Tour that started last year with the release of the Content Creator Packs Heart of Korea and Skyscrapers. Now we have the release of Africa in Miniature, and Content Creator Packs, Shopping Malls and Sports Venues, which are set to release on the 22nd of March, along with Radio Stations – 80’s Movies Tunes, Pop Punk Radio & JADIA Radio.
I’ve had access to the packs for this preview (but not the radios) for the last few days, and I’ve been playing around with the new buildings and sports venues. So let’s take a look at what is in the packs.
Africa in Miniature – Content Creator Pack
Starting with Africa in Miniature, this pack is the first Content Creator Pack from long-time Cities fan, 3D Artist Setonji “Prince Set” Hotonu. It allows you to explore Africa’s exceptionally diverse architecture, vibrant colours, and unique urban mix.
Furthermore, the pack contains 11 unique buildings, two monuments, four service buildings, nine growable buildings and two props.
There is an Eco City Market and a large Conference centre along with other unique buildings such as Orumila Towers, Royal Museum and Sanctum of Oduduwa. The buildings in the pack are well designed, and the addition of the conference centre is excellent. However, while I like Africa in Miniature Pack, it isn’t a must-have content creator pack. The design of the buildings will be down to personal choice if you like them or not.
Shopping Malls – Content Creator Pack
The Content Creator Pack: Shopping Malls was designed by Community modder KingLeno. This pack will bring your cims shopping experience to the next level by adding a variety of shopping malls to your City.
At long last, we can build dedicated shopping areas in our cities. This pack includes four unique buildings: a Shopping Plaza, Large Grocery Stores, Medium Grocery Stores, and a Mall of Marvels, a massive shopping centre taking up a large footprint on the map. It’s probably the largest building in the game now.
Additionally, 53 growable buildings have been added to the commercial zone in the same pack, allowing you to zone a dedicated commercial area with these new modern-looking buildings. For instance, there are neighbourhood malls, big box stores, modern luxury malls, and outdoor pedestrian malls.
This content creator pack offers over 60 assets and additional theme-related props. Also included are department stores, shopping plazas, and fast food restaurants to populate your Shopping areas.
Some of the buildings in this pack have a couple of different designs. You can change the design of the building once the building is placed. The buildings look more modern than the base game’s generic commercial buildings.
The shopping mall pack is a much-needed addition to the game; it fills a significant gap in the game that the generic commercial buildings don’t. Plus, it has KingLeno’s name attached, so you know you’re getting quality designs in this pack.
Sports Venues – Content Creator Pack
Finally, we have the Sports Venues, a Content Creator Pack by another great community modder BadPeanut. This pack features unique stadiums and community sports parks. It’s about time stadiums got added to the game. Otherwise, you had to use assets from the workshop or have the University Campus DLC with the Varsity sports buildings to have a few stadiums.
The pack has a mixture of different-sized sports facilities. There are six large unique stadiums for football, baseball, and American football. In addition, there are six mid-sized unique stadiums and ten Community sports parks. The community sports parks can be placed anywhere in your City as they are much smaller.
The smaller community sports fields included are soccer parks, American and Australian. Also, there are cricket pitches and community baseball fields. Furthermore, the stadiums and community sports fields have realistic football, baseball, and American football animation.
I really like the Sports Venues pack; it offers so many possibilities to bring a sports area to your City. From building significant sports and entertainment areas to smaller community parks dotted throughout the neighbourhood.
Update Hubs & Transport
The base game and the DLCs, After Dark, Snowfall, Natural Disasters, and Mass Transit, also get a free content update called Hubs & Transport, adding new roads, transport hubs, and vehicles.
The update includes Harbor-Bus Hub and Ferry hubs and hubs for Metro-Train-Tram-Monorail combined. Also, there are newly designed Vehicles such as Trams and Monorail, and the menus have been updated to include how many passengers each mode of transport carries.
New roads for the base game include a Three-Lane One-Way Road with Bus Lane and three new medium roads with four lanes and wide sidewalks, with or without grass and trees. The Mass Transit DLC gets nine new roads with new highway options, new asymmetrical roads, and more monorail roads. There is quite a lot in this update, too much for me to list here; if you want to know more, you can read about it in Colossal Orders Dev Diary here.
The new update is a fantastic addition to the game; new roads and network hubs are always welcome addtion to the game.
Quality of Life Features
The devs have also added a few quality-of-life features to the UI. For example, a search and sort box allows you to search for a particular park, building or road in the build menus. In addition, a capacity text has been added to all the transport options, which lets you know how many passengers each transport carries.
Overall, these new content creator packs are good to have. While the design of the buildings in the Africa Miniature pack will be down to personal taste. And whether you like them or not and if you think your gameplay will benefit. I like all the packs. I recommend you look into adding the Content Creator Packs- Shopping Malls and Sports Venues to add to your game.
Is there an easy way to search for games reviewed in this site which can be played on iOS?
Hi Cherie, no I’m afraid not. We primarily review on Steam and Switch, and we do put info whether a game is available on mobile too in its info. But you can’t search on that.
A few have specifically reviewed on mobile, and you will find them when filling in Mobile in the search box.