Colossal Order and Paradox Interactive launched Cities: Skylines earlier this year, and for many it quickly became the go-to alternative to the (previously) online-only SimCity. Driven by developer support and a strong modding community, the game has thrived since launch. Now the team has released a DLC expansion called After Dark, which brings, among other things, a day and night cycle to the table.
Upon launch, it's not immediately clear what's different about After Dark. Pretty much all of the new features take time to realise; most are new buildings that won't be unlocked at a city's onset (unless certain options are enabled). When they are, players will find things like harbours, hotels, airports, bike lanes; a few different means of travel infrastructure or specialisations and different visual props for them, primarily. Long before unlocking those, however, night-time should kick in. The sun goes down, traffic slows, lights come on, the visuals change drastically and behaviour changes very slightly.
“Slight” is perhaps the name of the game here, although some might prefer “subtle.” Cities: Skylines – After Dark doesn't change much about how things are played, it just makes tweaks and changes throughout. Besides placing new buildings and watching the downright gorgeous transitions between night and day (or the city lights in general at night), new gameplay consists almost entirely of a series of sliders under the “budget” menu; different budgets can be assigned for night over day, meaning wannabe-mayors can crank down the power and water budgets at night for when their city sleeps, for example. It's a new layer of complexity, but it's not a very engaging one; after getting a city off of the ground, it isn't something that's likely to come to mind frequently, but it does fit proceedings naturally.
