It’s been some time since the announcement of the new DLC for Cities Skylines Plazas & Promenades. Let’s take a look at the Colossal Order developer diaries, where they show us more of this DLC and take a closer look at the game feature called pedestrian areas.
Pedestrian zone marking out
The first thing you will always have to do is to mark out the pedestrian zone. This will be done in the same place as the district planning and apparently we will be able to do it anywhere. I think the appropriate use of pedestrian zones will be in downtowns, river edges, or office districts.
At the beginning of the game it will probably be more difficult to create a pedestrian zone because you need to create a functional city, so I think the pedestrian zones will open up gradually as your city grows. And the more I see the current concept, the more I think it will be a big challenge to make big car-free districts.
Service point
However, setting up a pedestrian zone will only be the beginning. Second, you’ll need to build a service point, which will serve as a gameplay link station for supply trucks and garbage trucks that won’t be able to get into the pedestrian districts.
There are 3 types of service points in the game:
- Pedestrian service point (all in one)
- Cargo service point (freight-focused)
- Garbage service point (waste-focused)
These centers will be essential to the functioning of the pedestrian areas and sufficient transport infrastructure will need to be built around them as congestion is likely to occur (as with the freight train terminal) – so think in advance about where you build these centers.
In total, there are 7 of these service points in the game, and they will gradually open up depending on the characteristics of the pedestrian zone, how it will grow and how it will prosper.
More about Service Points in Cities Skylines
Pedestrian districts
To influence prosperity, there is a dashboard over the pedestrian district, where you can see basic information and it has the power to influence the ground rules. There are following information:
- Satisfaction
- Level of entertainment
- The focus of the area
- Service point usage
- Policy settings
- Unlocking new resorts and other things
Under the “unlocking” tab, not only are there more service points, but also by gradually populating and taking care of the pedestrian zone, you unlock more special buildings that are coming to the game with this update.
Under the “policies” tab there are basic rules for the pedestrian zones (currently 4):
- Slow driving > decreases noise pollution
- Sugar ban > increases health but increases crime rate
- Street music > increases happiness and noise pollution
- Deliver everything > more traffic in service points
Road building, walking paths
The next major improvement are the roads. In total you get 3 types of paths – Bluestone, Sandstone and Cobblestone. These are the classic roads we know and the only thing that changes is their color.
The pedestrian paths also include a special path with a red stripe in the middle, which is used by buses to transport people from/to/through the pedestrian zone. Definitely more sophisticated bus routes will need to be built to make this all work.
To make expanding pedestrian zones more convenient, a new option is available when building paths. You can automatically expand the pedestrian zone where you are building pedestrian-only paths.
From one of the videos, I observed that in a normal city, it might not be possible to combine and build pedestrian paths. From my perspective, I would definitely use pedestrian paths more as a replacement for today’s sidewalks.
It is important to mention that police cars, fire trucks, ambulances, in short all important services will be able to enter the pedestrian zones, they will just have to wait at the entrance for a while before the barriers are extended and retracted.
About the new buildings
We have already introduced the service points, but realistically there are many other buildings in the game. A total of 10 new squares are brought, some opening immediately and others later. These squares are also usable outside of the pedestrian zones.
In addition to the new squares, there are 43 other things you’ll be able to build and do in the zone. These should lead to even nicer pedestrian zones.
But that’s not all, in addition to the decorative buildings we will also get new service buildings. Specifically, 6 service buildings that will bring new services to your residents and 5 buildings that will provide public transport. All of these buildings will have a modern style and high capacity.
Below you can see images from the developer diaries…
… it seems to me that they have done a great job with this style overall and I really like the cities that we are going to build. I think it’s a nice revival and I definitely welcome it.
At the end
I hope you like the new DLC as much as I do and that you now know more about the pedestrian zones. We will gradually update the article for you as more and more game mechanics related to pedestrian zones become available.
