Cities: Skylines - Snowfall

With the addition of Snowfall on top of the After Dark expansion released last fall, Cities: Skylines is starting to take shape as an expansive city-building franchise that offers something for any wannabe mayor. One caveat here is that you don't really get a tremendous amount of content, and that what's present is pretty much relegated in specific maps, leaving the impact of this expansion on the overall game fairly minimal. That said, the winter wonderland atmosphere does freshen up the visuals so even while this expansion is not essential, spending a little time in a virtual snow globe city remains awfully appealing.

With more pronounced effects than the first expansion, Snowfall adds new challenges and complexity.

The biggest drawback to Snowfall, much like After Dark, is that it will probably find a way to clash with one or two of your favourite custom additions. But if you're a modder, I guess you already live life on the edge. Otherwise, it's a charming and worthwhile expansion for what is already an excellent city-builder. I have nothing but warmth for it in my heart.

Cities: Skylines just keeps getting better. Thanks to lots of dedicated fans and modders, and the official After Dark and Snowfall expansions, the game offers endless fun and creativity. For the price, Snowfall's content is right on the border of being a just little thin and non-essential, especially if you don't really care about adding trams or transportation hubs, but the snow effects are nice and I will be happy to have added them come August when I'm sweltering in late summer heat.

If the original base game, Cities: Skylines piqued your fancy, then this new Snowfall DLC is a fairly small, yet robust, expansion that should bring gamers back for more. The new management and maps, as well as the new update to all users, reinforces the already solid main experience, making it a greater purchase. Overall, it's a thoroughly recommendable expansion pack.

Everlasting winter: who will break first - your city, or you?

Ultimately, the large problem with Snowfall is the price. It's not a bad addition to the overall game, it's just a very limited content drop for the asking price. Most of the additions are visual in nature and the snow is limited to a few maps instead of being spread throughout any map via a dynamic weather system.

That's what is really at the core of the discussion on Snowfall—not simply if it added enough, but if it added enough for its asking price. At $13 on Steam right now, Snowfall is a difficult case to make for bang-for-your-buck, even while recognizing the amount of work I'm sure went into this expansion. Still, I'm left with a positive takeaway because Colossal Order never seems content with its already-enormous amount of moving parts. They continue to add more factors and more elements if only to show that they can juggle as many objects as you want to throw in their path. It's truly an impressive circus act, both playing and developing Skylines, and Snowfall is yet another example of Colossal Order flexing its muscles.

Overall there's a lot more to love here in Snowfall than there was in the slightly meagre After Dark, and from a visual standpoint alone it's almost worth the price of entry just to build a winter wonderland. Adding in the numerous additional points of depth such as clearing roads, heating homes, and building trams and you've got a meaty add-on on your hands. One year on, Colossal Order has done it again with Cities: Skylines - Snowfall.

Snowfall is a generally well executed if rather mistimed expansion to Cities: Skylines, allowing you to build expansive cryogenic creations but unfortunately doesn't go far enough in terms of providing a wintertide chill to truly remember.