Natural Disasters are coming to Cities Skylines in a new expansion

Bit odd to be celebrating natural disasters but then the Cities Skylines community has wanted them for ages. And here they are, in the imaginatively named expansion Cities: Skylines - Natural Disasters.

There's no release date I can see beyond "coming soon", which isn't helpful, nor any particularly detailed information about the contents of the expansion. I mean, we know we'll try and steer cities through "doomsday" situations, using early warning systems and radio broadcasting networks; and we know there will be a new Scenario Editor and gameplay mode, and new Cipher hats - but we don't know much more than that.

Fortunately, Chris Bratt has a date with developer Colossal Order at Gamescom this week, so we should know more soon.

Cities: Skylines prospered in the upset left by the naff new SimCity. It wasn't perfect but it was much closer to what people wanted from a city building game, and as a result was very successful, shifting more than 2m copies.

"Cities: Skylines is a competent city-builder that lacks a vision of its own - though it leaves space for its community to fill in the gaps," we wrote in our Cities: Skylines review.

An expansion called After Dark was released last autumn, adding much visual variety, but didn't do a lot to change the underlying formula. "In the end, After Dark is a night out you'll undoubtedly enjoy, but one you may not remember much of by the time morning comes around," wrote Rick Lane in our Cities: Skylines - After Dark review.

A snowy expansion dubbed Cities: Skylines - Snowfall came out in February this year but we haven't reviewed it.