Welp. The Cities: Skylines series turns 11 years old today, so publishers Paradox have announced a bunch of stuff designed to celebrate that occasion. Look, look, they’ve said, here’s a brand new expansion for the original Cities: Skylines and it’ll launch next week. Oh and, they’ve also said, recently under-new-management sequel Cities: Skylines 2 is getting a couple of creator packs.
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Yep, the entry in the series from 2015 is the one that’s getting the full-blown DLC, though that’s not entirely surprising given its newer sibling’s notoriously troubled life to this point.
Anyway, said DLC’s called Race Day, has been developed by Age of Empires 2 co-devs Tantalus Media, and is coming out on March 10th. It adds the ability to close off the streets of your city for parades, motor races, cycle races, and marathons. Yes, I might use it as an excuse to add Cities: Skylines to future RPS rundowns of the best racing games.
To set up a race or parade, you’ll need to wind some “event roads” or bits of motor racing circuit through your city, with the former behaving like normal roads when not designated for closure. If you’re making a motor race, you can link smooth racing tarmac to your events roads in order to create a proper street circuit, or you can stick to solely using one of the two if it suits better. Naturally, the DLC also comes with new buildings such as pit garages, stands for spectators, and start/finish lines.
Once things are built, you’ve got tools with which to “choose event types and tiers, set ticket prices, and manage your city’s full event lineup, from past highlights to current happenings and upcoming shows”. Why not set up week’s worth of motor races, then a foot race on the same track the day afterwards, so you can imagine people being really disappointed at the massive decrease in speed. Then, boom, another motor race the day afterwards, this time priced ridiculously to prey on the lust for rapid action you’ve brewed in your populace. Or maybe just have a parade every Friday at 5PM, since it shouldn’t affect the rush hour traffic.
While Race Day’s the headliner, as Paradox have outlined in this Steam post, both C:S and C:S 2 are also getting multiple creator packs as part of this anniversary month. For the former, these are the Iconic Brutalism and Renewed History packs, which are dropping along with a free patch adding roadside fences and a new employment info screen. For the latter, it’s Office Evolution and City Stations packs, plus a patch that’ll add a signature building called the Iceflake Arena and “improve toggle zoning”. Oh, and C:S 2’s getting two new radio stations too.
