It’s been a few days 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 let’s take a 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 will be a total of 3 types of service points in play:
- pedestrian service point (all in one)
- cargo service point (freight-focused)
- garbage service point (waste-focused)
These centers will be crucial for the pedestrian zone to function and you will need to build sufficient transport infrastructure around them, as there will probably be congestion as it happens at the freight train terminal – so think in advance about where you will build these centers.
In total, it looks like there will be 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 informations about Service Points in Cities Skylines
Information about the pedestrian district
To influence prosperity, we will get a new information dashboard over the pedestrian district, where we will see basic information and have the power to influence the ground rules. Specifically, we will see the 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 there are not only more service points, but also by gradually populating and taking care of the pedestrian zone you will unlock other special buildings, which come into the game with this update and which we will look at below.
Under the “policies” tab will be the basic rules for the pedestrian zones, which are currently 4:
- slow driving > decrease noise pollution
- sugar ban > increase health but increase crime rate
- street music > increase happiness and noise pollution
- deliver everything > more traffic in service points
Road building, walking paths
The next major improvement will be the roads. In total we will get 3 types of paths which will be Bluestone, Sandstone and Cobblestone. These will be the classic roads we know and the only thing that will change will be their color.
The pedestrian paths will also include a special path with a red lane in the middle on which the bus will be able to run, so people can be transported from/to/across the pedestrian zone. Definitely going to have to build more sophisticated bus routes to make it all work.
To make expanding pedestrian zones more convenient, a new option will be available for building paths that will automatically expand the pedestrian zone where you build pedestrian-only paths.
What I observed from one of the videos is that it may not be possible to combine pedestrian paths and build them in a normal city. That seems like a shame, but it’s possible that it was just set up weirdly in the video and will work in the final version. I would definitely use pedestrian paths more as replacements for today’s sidewalks.
What is important to mention is that police cars, fire trucks, ambulances, in short all critical services will be able to enter the pedestrian zones, they will just have to wait at the entrance for a while before the bollards are extended and retracted.
About the new buildings
We have already imagined the service point, but realistically significantly more buildings will come into play. A total of 10 new squares will come into play, with some opening immediately and others later. These squares will also be usable outside of the pedestrian zones.
In addition to the new squares, there are 43 more things you’ll be able to build and do in the zone that 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 are introduced.
