It’s that time of the year again; time to go back to my city that I’ve cared for and loved with all my heart, if only to see how my dear residents of Lostville are faring. You see, I’ve done this a few times now since the base game of Cities: Skylines released on Xbox One, building a city from scratch, making sure all the foundations are in place and that the residents’ needs and worries are catered for at every turn. Then I come back as Mayor and Lord Creator, after a long sabbatical, to find I can’t remember how to rule, everyone is dying and the only humane thing to do is send my city to a virtual grave and start it all again. Yes, welcome to Cities: Skylines – Industries.
A few years back I reviewed the main Cities: Skylines game and really loved it. It was a unique game in the Xbox One library at the time and delivered a really enjoyable sim experience unlike any other. In that time it’s proved to be extremely popular, gathering up a huge fan base as well. There have been quite a few DLC packs that have been released over the years too, just now we have a brand new one that focuses on the Industries.
Cities: Skylines – Industries on Xbox One promises to offer fans one of the biggest updates in the history of the game so far. This DLC pack is aimed at the business moguls among you, those who like to see a thriving industry and the big bucks coming in. Now, you can – like me – start the game from scratch and begin building anew with your new tools, or you can place the new industrial area in your beloved city, with a choice of specialisations to choose from, like oil, farming or forestry. You then start to set up the basic main building to kickstart the industry treadmill and you’re on your way to success.
Say if you concentrated on forestry as your main industry of the city, your first point of contact will be a main forestry base, with the need for trees to be cut down, timber yards to be built and a chain of supply to be put in place. The details in this production line are very detailed and are brilliantly displayed for those obsessive gamers who like to utilise every element of their sim games. You can then sell your goods in the city or export them to create lots of lovely money. It also creates jobs for your city, boosts the economy and makes those residents very happy bunnies indeed.
As you progress – much like in the main game – you can level up your industry to open up a whole range of new buildings and products to make. There are also new policies to involve yourself with, seeing the industry pack selling practices for the shops, or covering automation and the benefits that has for your business even though it loses jobs. The safety side of things is covered as well, especially how it affects hospitals with work related accidents. It’s very complex, but can give the sim lover hours of new content with new maps, buildings, vehicles and policies.
With Industires, Cities: Skylines still looks great and I will never grow tired of the sun rising and setting on my glorious city. I will also never get bored of zooming in and out of the action, whereby one second I’m looking at the whole city like an angry god, and then in an instant, I’m down on the ground, taking in the minute details of the smallest house with a family going about their daily lives.
The sound is still excellent throughout, but there is a little extra found accompanying this pack with the Synthetic Dawn Radio station DLC added in. Here you have 16 new tracks that feature a mixture of instrumental and vocals songs. DJ Jessica Statler mixes tracks that cover 80’s Electro, Vocoding Electro, Breakbeats, and Futuristic Synths. It has to be said I’ve really enjoyed having these tracks as my background music for my god building – they are easy on the ear, and not ever distracting enough to take you away from the game. In fact, they work as a perfect complement.
Overall Industries is another excellent package for Cities: Skylines, with the DLC train once more delivering the goods. Veterans will have a great time diving into the industry world, giving reason to drop more hours along with those already invested in this enormous game. I do however think it’s better to start a new city than try and introduce the Industries pack into an existing one, mainly because of the lack of space, but then, I am an awful town planner and others with a better sense of space management will no doubt fare a lot better.
If you’re looking for an extra bit of challenge to your Cities: Skylines game then with Industries you’re in for a treat.
