Cities Skylines Sunset Harbor Review

Cities Skylines Sunset Harbor Review

So I’ve been playing Cities Skylines Sunset Harbor DLC for two weeks and I think I’m ready to share some impressions in this Cities: Skylines Sunset Harbor review

First of all, forget about continuing working on your city which you started before buying Sunset Harbor Cities Skylines DLC

The problem is that the expanded healthcare system triggers a death wave crisis for a city built with old tools. I assume this is due to the new elderly and child care building introduced in Sunset Harbor DLC without which your city will start dying. Probably, you may fix this by placing those new buildings everywhere but I didn’t try this.

What’s New in Cities Skylines Sunset Harbor DLC

I’m going to list the new features and share my impression on them

Fishing industry. Well, it’s not a game-changer but what I like is that it adds more usage for your waterfront. Also, the fishing industry adds a cool fish market and a bunch of traffic problems next to my shoreline. So, it’s rather fine but not a game-changer.

Trolleybuses. I just failed to come up with a reason to use them besides my desire to test a new feature. They’re not very common in modern cities and they don’t bring any distinctive features to make me choose them instead of buses or trams.

Healthcare. Yep, it ruins your old save. Also, I’ve found out that now I’ve started building medical complexes instead of just placing healthcare buildings here and there. Now there are many buildings you need to place in each district thus I dedicate some land to make a nice localized complex with a park. As for the realistic impact of child and elderly care on the health of my citizens – that’s a very unobvious thing. Usually, each of those buildings is attended by up to 10 people in my new 35k+ city.

New water treatment features. I love the big water tower. It looks cool and I need to dedicate less space for those. Also, new inland water treatment facilities allow avoiding placing sewage on the shoreline and crapping into water. There are unexpectedly pleasant features!

New waste treatment system. Didn’t use it too much because of the pollution, I prefer those recycling centers from Green Cities.

Metro. It’s not only about adding new overground options, but it’s also a revamped approach to the metro. The new trains are one car longer than before and can carry more passengers. The new approach to placing tunnels brought us a larger curve which sometimes makes things more complicated. And sure the new awesome overground feature. To summarize, I love the new metro, it adds more flexibility and realism to this core transportation system.

Intercity buses. That’s a feature I wasn’t fascinated with when the DLC was announced but I changed my mind when I tried it. Intercity bus terminals and entry points for tourists traveling by ground. Their implementation adds more control over touristic traffic in your city meaning more depends on your decisions when it comes to handling traffic issues.

Hubs. As for me, that’s the coolest part of Sunset Harbour Cities Skylines DLC. We’ve received cool hubs for just about all transportation options. The biggest problem is handling your desire to use all of them right away! That’s a real present for people who like organizing smart transportation in their cities.

Helicopters. Suddenly, I liked this new feature. Transporting people by air is very lucrative but I never liked blimps as that’s just unrealistic. Placing a helicopter pad in some transportation hub and connecting it to a touristic landmark makes your people use it actively and you can unload your land transport to some degree.

Metropolitan airport. Awesome but it is very hard to find a place for it on some maps in the late game. It comes with two metro stations and a helicopter pad. 

Air club. Nothing special except for adding small planes to your skies.

New Cities Skylines Sunset Harbor maps. There are 5 new maps. One of them is a desert one (!) but it lacks a significant waterfront so I decided to try Сities Skylines Azure Gulf map which is awesome so far – an interesting flat terrain with lots of rivers, sandy beaches, and a seashore. The Azure Gulf Cities Skylines map is a great sandbox to test new features.

Conclusion on Sunset Harbor DLC

If they didn’t mean it’s the last DLC for this game then I’d say it’s a very strange choice of title. There is no proper focus on the waterfront in this DLC which may be expected. We still don’t have a working marina, beaches (even SimCity had them!), or probably a zoneable harbor. In fact, I still have to place city parks on the sandy shores playing on the new map which is strange after releasing an expansion named Sunset Harbor.

The coolest thing in this DLC is the new transportation features which should have been highlighted in the title. That’s the biggest step forward since Mass Transit and for me, it adds a lot of great features.

Also, devs could be more accurate with breaking existing cities due to such not crucial new features as elderly care. Some people have been working on their masterpieces for a while.

I would say that this is a good DLC but you need to have proper expectations from it. You won’t have a cool sea resort city but the new transportation options are just amazing.

Bonus: Cities: Skylines – Content Creator Pack: Modern Japan Review

Together with DLC, a new content creator pack was released. Speaking shortly, I loved it.

You’re getting a bunch of Japanese skyscrapers that suit a tourist or business district. Also, there are big commercial buildings which are usually located next to railway stations, a bunch of small commercial enterprises as WOK restaurants (they have parking lots!) and a great temple which is perfect for placing it on the top of a hill.

Definitely recommended even if you’re not a Japanese geek.