Cities: Skylines - Natural Disasters (PC) Review

The first two expansions, After Dark and Snowfall, brought primarily cosmetic changes. Natural Disasters proves to be a more interactive expansion, with a variety of dangers facing cities, and different ways players can both prepare for and respond to these situations. These disasters will occur randomly, and will have potentially devastating effects on cities.

Fires will spread from building to building, sinkholes can appear, and citizens will need rescuing. All of this will put a damper on citizen happiness and city income, which adds a level of pressure not previously present in the game. Disasters can set off chain reactions of unfortunate events; before, a city manager's biggest worries seemed simple, like running out of power or water. Now, any disaster can cause those smaller issues down the road, leading players to adapt and build on the fly to compensate for anything lost due to a disaster.

It's often difficult to assign the worth of an expansion to an RTS; these are games that, for lack of better terms, involve a lot of sitting around and waiting, so an expansion sometimes means just different things to sit around and wait for. Fortunately, Colossal Order attempts to offset this with a constant stream of free content, offering incentive for players to buy their add-ons.

New features are also present, such as the radio system, which provides a few different stations for citizens and players alike to listen to. A scenario editor has also been added, which acts like the game's terrain and map editors, but for creating different play scenarios, which can be shared with other players.