Cities: Skylines II will add changing seasons, climates and natural disasters

Cities: Skylines II, the upcoming city building and management sim game, will let players have a lot of control over their locations. However, there will be some elements that will be mostly out of their control.

In the game's latest dev diary, developer Colossal Order and publisher Paradox Interactive go deep into the game's seasons and climate features.

The dev diary talks about the new Climates feature:

It brings changing seasons to the game and makes each map a unique gaming experience with its own Climate that is based on real-world locations, ranging from the Finnish countryside in the North to Brisbane in the South. Climate controls the changing seasons, length of the day, and weather patterns so they match the seasons and latitude of the map.

There will be three regions where you could place your city. One is the Temperate Climate region, where there will be a wide variety of temperatures and noticeable differences in seasons.

The Continental Climate region will have more "significant annual variations in temperature." Lastly, if you put your city in the Polar region, be prepared for long winters and very short summers.

Each climate will have its own weather patterns, and it will affect gameplay as well. Your city's residents will want to go indoors when it's raining, for example.

The game will also have day and night cycles with one such cycle representing one month. Each season will last about 3 months, so that means a year will take 12 in-game days.

Players can also turn on natural disasters, which will randomly generate a crisis to be dealt with. They will include things like forest fires, hail storms, and tornados (no mentions of kaiju monsters or aliens, however).

Cities: Skylines II is due out on October 24, on the PC, Xbox Series X|S, and PlayStation 5 platforms. It is also coming to Xbox Game Pass and PC Game Pass subscription services. You can preorder the game now on Amazon.

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