The Ultimate DLC Guide for Cities Skylines – DLCs Ranked!
Have you been thinking of purchasing a DLC for Cities:Skylines, but been unsure which is the most essential to purchase? This is the guide for you! In this video, I walk through each of the DLCs – including Airports – and deep dive into things I like and dislike about each of them. I then rank them against one another and show how my perspective has changed since creating the Ultimate Beginners Guide to Cities Skylines.
*** Playlists ***
– Clearwater County – https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLXdi-Ns7w3jgLqJHKmgLckRtDqgusX089
– Verde Beach – https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLXdi-Ns7w3jinCyFeq5KlZYhUBdR3tl8s
– Bluffside Crossing – https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLXdi-Ns7w3jgB59YW6H6e9-qrhdBqbpLz
– Starterville – https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLXdi-Ns7w3jgkSQYQJvAQsTifif-gOg20
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*** Chapters ***
Introduction – 0:00
After Dark – 1:06
Snowfall – 3:26
Natural Disasters – 5:43
Mass Transit – 9:15
Green Cities – 11:49
Park Life – 14:37
Industries – 17:30
Campus – 21:22
Sunset Harbor – 25:01
Airports – 29:01
Conclusions and Final Thoughts – 33:54
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Are you missing any DLCs? You don't need to choose for the next few weeks! Grab the Humble Bundle here – https://tinyurl.com/CSHUMBLE ! This is not a paid promo, just a GREAT deal!
How does your ranking compare to mine? Would you move any DLCs up or down the list?
What makes this game great are the mods made by the community not the dlc's necessary imo
I agree with you on snowfall. I don't think I've ever used it for anything except trams, and putting in heating when my city complains about not having enough heat. Overall I think Industries is probably the most game changing but one thing I think Industries misses on hard is farms. They are wayyyy too small and generate too much traffic. Even the large modded farms you can find on steam aren't quite realistic enough. I think thats one thing SimCIty did better.
the biggest flaw on all modular stuff is that you have to draw outlines and, like you said, can mostly ONLY build inside of them. you cant even mix industry-areas, which is borderline stupid sometimes…
CPP: "Biofuel Buses are not the future, electric busses are."
My spastic ass: "TROLLEYBUSSES!!!!11!!1!"
Pretty much agree on the rankings, but think you're a bit harsh on Snowfall. True, it doesn't really serve it's original purpose (they really should have added seasons to the other maps except tropical), but the trams alone make it worthwhile. They are pretty much the only sensible high-capacity transport until you get metro, and are much cheaper and more flexible even then.
I think you forgot the most important thing about After Dark DLC, which completely changed the entire lighting of the base game. And I'm not referring to the day/night cycle lights here 🙂
Base game have an awful lighting, that is why on consoles, this DLC is included with the base game.
Joke's on you, I didn't even need to consider which DLC to buy because of the bundle! But I'm very happy to know about all of the ones I missed since I stopped playing the game a few years ago due to a bad case of toaster PC. Fortunately, that is all cured now and I'm loving watching your channel to learn about all the cool new DLC and mods to play with.
Persenaly l think industries and mass transit is the best
Sunset Harbor honestly seems like the collection of all the assets the developers couldn't get right in time to release with the assumed DLC.
Thanks for helping me out with the dlcs! Helped me a lot! Just one question. I don't want to play with disasters on. I don't want my city to be burned or destroyed. If that's the case which one just should I buy. I have the first 7.
Right now I don’t have any DLCs, and it will probably be a while before i get any
It's weird that you complain about the lack of space for parking LOTs for airports while the glaring omission is the lack of parking garages. You know the actual thing that exists in almost all the airports in the world. The lots you are showing are insanely huge wouldn't make sense for any skylines city anyway, no matter how big of an area you can build on
Thanks for the rundown! I only have industries so far I’m looking to grab another.
Question? Can a Visa Gift Card be used to purchase the bundle instead of a Debit/Credit Card?
You should do a ranking for content creator packs!
electric buses are dumb
Eh, the lack of parking for airports seems a touch too nit-picky in my estimation. Few buildings in base or DLC seem to have even semi-realistic parking, and having massive parking lots taking up large swaths of land in an airport that already likely takes up considerable space might aesthetically look nice, but would likely just be annoying to accommodate, especially if they were a mandatory asset. If nothing else has realistic parking concerns (at least as far as I could tell watching the beginners guide series) then why make airports the singular exception? Why not have large parking lots for stadiums as well? Or the various parks?
Let me add a critique to the industries DLC: it seems you have to put the extractive industries' (oil, ore) ancillary functions right on top of their resource areas while such uses for the growing industries' ancillary functions such as furniture factories and bakeries can be placed outside them so long as the area is zoned for the specific industry.
Not sure why I watched this video; I already own all the DLCs.
Maybe it was to justify my purchase order. Maybe it was to hear Phil's soothing voice. Either way, I was thoroughly entertained. Well done!
Thank you for this video! I have been binging your videos recently…
Everytime I watch a video from City Planner Plays I feel extremely motivated to play the game, however there are so many details, the game is so complex that I kinda give up haha… so I go back to watching his videos instead. Either way, amazing content as always, thanks a lot!
The fact that this game had 10 dlc's and still allows mods and custom assets is the real winner here. Take note other developers/publishers.
Love the amount of effort you put into these videos. but my only critique is, you harping on the no grass on the assets in Green Cities. It's quite simple, in places that have low levels of water due to severe drought, they have stone / sand for their yards. This helps with the fact that having a grassy lawn eats up the fresh water supply under the towns in the water table.
In fact, places in the Midwest and in California, are paying people to rip up their lawns to conserve water. I'm not exactly sure if the dev considered this as the reason for no grass except on the roofs, or not. But my hunch is yes, just not sure.
I generally agree with your list. Though I was surprised that Mass Transit dropped. I personally bought every one of them as they came out (I just happened to be able to and I understand that not everyone can). This means I get the pros and cons of every DLC.
I do agree that we should have a beach park available to us. It's so frustrating to use a map that has some absolutely beautiful beaches on it but not be able to take advantage of it. Having a specific park type for beaches would be smart enough about not leveling the ground and have assets contour to the surface. But I digress.
I can't imagine going back to a non-DLC game though. I think I'd miss Park Life and Industries the most because it appears I use them the most. I love the new garbage management assets from Sunset Harbor so I would definitely miss those.
Honestly, I hope that we get a dlc like Parklife and Industries but with hotel resorts. They could have luxury hotels, beach resorts, forest lodges, and ski resorts that you could level up and build onto.
At 13:26, you mention the eco water treatment plant still pollutes, but on screen is show that it doesn’t. Only the cheaper of the 2 new wastewater management options actually pollutes. I think this makes the expensive one a good addition.
I love these! I wish you would’ve added in a section for the content creator packs though.
If the snowfall DLC had introduced seasons instead of just constant winter maps it would have been great
Yeah. I agree. The 1st dlc i ended up getting was industries, and sunset harbor. At the time I knew nothing really about them, but getting the Industries was the best 👌 move I could have made. It totally reinvigorated my motivation to play, added a lot of depth and pretty much solved my income issue in any city. After getting that dlc, it's real easy to get income to pretty much unlimited status really easy. Getting a 4k pop city to 15k a week makes expanding the city np. I used to struggle with that prior to haveing that expansion. I have all the expansions now and I can agree 👍 with this list. Park life and industries in every build no matter what.
Been waiting on this!
The pricing of all this stuff is still really egregious.
this video makes me want to just load up my PS5 and start a new city
feel a bit overwhelmed thinking about like how and where to start something that can turn into a massive city
Green cities DLC, having a restaurant called "Soy & Lentils "? Really? Ever hear of the movie soylent green? Great vid!!
You really nailed my feelings on all of the dlcs there. Some of the "bads" are fixable by using mods and assets, but tbh they should have been part of the dlc packs, especially modular parking lots in the airport dlc
I completely agree with your list. Although I haven't bought Park Life, Campus, or industries; they kinda intimidate me, I'm more of a middle ground player, I will definitely buy Park Life after watching this video. Thank you!!!
It took you 18.36 sec to turn on the pc, and "fire" up the city ❤️
The Humble Bundle for Cities Skylines was the best thing ever – got all the DLCs except for Airports! Now if only we could get one for the Sims 4! 😭
Very interesting seeing you update your list! Especially since we FINALLY got a new DLC.
Here's a question!!
What would you want to see in a new DLC? Thoughts?
Industries makes or breaks a city, and the vanilla industries are just god awful. Trying to manage traffic without Mass Transit is just pure insanity. I would rank the first five as: Industries, Mass Transit, Park Life, After Dark and Campus. I fully use these five in every build ever without fail. The rest of the DLC's really depend on what kind of map I'm building on.
You can park life buildings outside of park area if you place them on roads.
100% agree with Mass Transit. imo Trams and Bike Lanes should be swapped into Mass Transit, and the niche transportation like Blimps and Cable Cars can be swapped into Snowfall so it fits its theme as a niche DLC. as for After Dark's losing Bike Lanes, I think it needs its own Leisure and Tourism content improved dramatically.
Hello new subscriber here and I have got to say I really like your channel! You have saved me a lot of time and frustration with your step by step precise and easy to follow tutorials. Not to mention also your fantastic review on the many DLCS. I am recently new to the game and I can’t believe I have not played this until now. I’m so addicted to the design, functionality the continued problem solving- it’s both challenging and rewarding. Anyway thanks again for this DLC review I now have a better understanding on them and which ones to get or pass. aloha from Hawaii
I literally was looking for a video just like this two days ago. Then you upload this. THANK YOU
The only dlc I don’t have is natural disasters because of verde beach lmao
Excellent video! There are still a few DLCs I haven't purchased and this really helps. Thanks for the hard work on this one Phil! The only change I would make is to the Mass Transit Included Asset score. I'd give it a 10. The roads are so critical that not only is it a must have, the roads are probably the best DLC assets in the game.