Cities: Skylines – After Dark expansion contains a day and night cycle

By Stephany Nunneley

An expansion for Cities: Skylines was announced today at gamescom and the central feature is a day and night cycle.

Titled After Dark, the first expansion will expand upon the current features and customizations with a day and night cycle. This alters the approach to managing the player’s city.

This means there will be “perils and misadventures” associated with the night life, according to the trailer.

After Dark includes a spruced up crime mechanic, fun on the beach, and commercial areas specialized for nighttime.

Here’s a list of features:

• Day and Night Cycle: Day and night changes in the city and affects citizen schedules. Traffic is visibly slower at night and some zoned areas do not work with full efficiency, further easing the traffic. Service vehicles move around as usual. A free update for all users.
• Leisure specialization: Commercial areas can specialize in leisure activities. Leisure areas are especially active during the night, but work like regular commercial areas during the day.
• Beach specialization: Commercial areas such as beach bars and restaurants, small marina and fishing tours on the shoreline can specialize in beach activities.
• Expanded City Services: Criminals will now be taken to Prison from Police buildings. Taxi service will help citizens and tourists travel around the city. Cargo hubs are harbors that accept cargo trains straight to the terminal. International airport is a huge airport, allowing much more traffic than the previous airport. It has a metro station attached to it. Bus terminal allows citizens to transfer to other bus lines in the terminal building.
• New transportation options: Bikes and dedicated bike lanes and bike ways let citizens opt for a faster alternative to walking. Bus lanes can be used to help the public transportation run smoother.

Current players will receive a free update to the game which contains the new day and night cycle. The rest of the new features will be included only in the DLC, which doesn’t have a price attached yet.

Publisher Paradox Interactive has more information on the expansion through here.