Cities: Skylines – Campus – PS4

Cities: Skylines – Campus DLC is another way to boost and customize the city of your dreams, and it’s time to educate your populace. It looks good, and It’s a nice addition to your existing game with many new buildings that allow you to customize and manage higher education. Hardcore fans will want to pick this one up, but casual players may not see enough to warrant the price.
When I jumped back into Cities: Skylines, I had forgotten what an amazing package it is. There are so many options to tailor your game, and the amount of freedom is incredible. The level of detail and excellent controls haven’t changed.
These filter down to the campus expansion as well. After reaching a city population of 5,500, the new icon on the menu will unlock, and unlocks will be a continuing presence in the Campus DLC with new schools opening at certain population thresholds.

You start by painting an area for your campus. The only school you can make at first is the Trade School, but the liberal arts college unlocks next with the university last. Populating your campus with buildings plays a critical part in growth and each tier has its own dorms, study buildings, and groundskeepers.
The campus has its own management and goals outside the rest of the game too. There is an overall recognition level that you want to increase. You do this by creating academic works, adding more buildings, and having a sport’s team. You can add more faculty and new policies help to make your school more attractive to students. As your institutions rise in prestige, you’ll unlock an art gallery, science center, and museum to display your achievements.
Varsity sports are another big attraction. You can choose to hire more staff and cheerleaders at your school to boost your wins over the season. You can change your team color, your mascot, and ticket prices as well. There are multiple sports from aquatics to American football, and you will need to keep a careful eye on expenses and income, which are listed separately from the rest of the economy.
Eventually, you’ll unlock universities and new varsity sports with new buildings and policies. All of those academic works can be displayed in museums, art galleries, and science centers that you can build, and it all ties back into the campus’ level. If you want to gain these, you’ll need to spend some serious time and money, and I’m not sure a casual player is going to derive the same enjoyment as someone with a sprawling metropolis.

It is a new chunk of content, but you are going to repeat the process for each school type and sport type after it unlocks. There are some small changes, but it’s a lot of the same too. They all look good, the interface is easy to navigate, and it’s seamlessly integrated. Value judgments are very subjective, but, at $12.99, you’re going to have to decide if that’s worthwhile.
The Campus DLC is another layer in an already deep city builder sim that adds the college experience to your town. It’s very good, and if you’re a big fan of the game with scores of hours invested, this is another cherry on top of an excellent experience. More casual players may want to take the step up to higher education.

Cities: Skylines - Campus PS4 Review

• 7/10
  Overall - Very Good - 7/10

7/10

Summary

Cities: Skylines – Campus lets you educate your citizens in several different schools with options to manage them and create the ideal campus and varsity sporting team, and unlocking them all will keep you busy for a while. Although it’s very good, I would like more variation between the different school types, and the value is not going to be there for everyone. For hardcore fans, it’s a little more to help you make your city yours.