Cities: Skylines developed a vibrant community, and came about as a direct response to a certain other city builder that went down the opposite path, making it our Community Champion of the year. We'll be posting the rest of our awards and personal picks daily as we approach the end of the year, which we're collecting on our main GOTY page.

Chris Livingston: 2013 s SimCity was an ugly exercise in what not to do. With online-only play, strict limits on city size, and no mod support, EA frustrated and angered fans of the city building genre. Thankfully, the tiny development team of Colossal Order stepped in carry the torch while deftly avoiding all of EA s blunders. Offline play means no worrying about servers or connections, yet there s still a communal feel to Skylines thanks to extensive mod and asset support, which means players can easily download the custom creations of others (now 60,000+ in number) including a mod that expands the already large buildable area. In fact, there s even a mod in the works for multiplayer support! See, we like online play, when it s optional.

Colossal Order also listened to player feedback, later adding a much-missed day/night cycle (alongside paid DLC) and the ability to tunnel underground. Most importantly, they understand what still seems to elude some publishers: mod support is healthy for both sides of the equation. It extends the lifespan of the game, keeps people talking about it months after release, can increase sales, and lets players fix problems, tweak gameplay to their liking, and contribute and share their own work and creativity with others.

The game itself is one I ve kept dipping back into months and months later, in part because there are so many new mods and assets every time I pop into the Workshop, and in part because I find it incredibly enjoyable and satisfying to play. I m not a great city manager or a master builder, and the game is definitely tipped in my direction, difficulty-wise. None of my cities have failed, really, and I understand that many players want a bigger challenge, but for me it s about the enjoyment of watching something continue to grow, albeit a bit crookedly, even if I m not watering it in all the right places.

Tyler Wilde: I spoke to Cities: Skylines lead designer Karoliina Korppoo earlier this year, and she told me that the dev team uses popular mods as inspiration for official updates. What a lovely, symbiotic relationship: modders make the game more fun for everyone, and Colossal Order can direct its update efforts toward the most desired changes and additions with that feedback.

The whole thing—the game, the mods, Colossal Order s patches and After Dark add-on—is about as PC gaming as you can get. On an open platform, no one has to settle. If we want to add something to a game, we mod it in. If we think it d look nice with a bluish tint, we inject one. And if it just isn t the game we want (and launches about as well as my first Kerbal Space Program rocket), a small developer steps in and makes the game they wanted to play. If there s passion for something, it ll find it s way to the PC, the way Xenonauts recalled classic X-Com, and Black Mesa brought us back to Half-Life 1, and Cities: Skylines gave us a city simulator without overzealous online aspirations.

And aside from how well Cities has served a community hungry for a better city builder, it s just a good game. It s not especially challenging—you might try Prison Architect for that—but it s full of little details to manage and soothes me into a creative rhythm of balancing and designing and building that can last hours. It s exactly the feeling I want from a city builder.

This week on the Mod Roundup, build deadly robots like Securitrons and Protectrons to defend your Fallout 4 settlements, and make the paramedics in Grand Theft Auto 5 provide medical assistance instead of just staring helplessly at your victims. Also, a custom map for Cities: Skylines challenges you to build near a beautiful coral reef, and a new combat overhaul makes a remarkably well-timed appearance for Star Wars: Jedi Academy.

Here are the most promising mods we've seen this week.

Robot Home Defence, for Fallout 4

Download link

Considering your ability to whip up sentry guns, water purifiers, and power generators, it seems logical that you'd also be able to build robots in Fallout 4, right? This mod, along with the Robotics Expert perk, makes that dream a reality. Now you can craft bots like Protectrons, Assaultrons, and Sentry Bots to protect your homestead. Best of all, they don't count against your settlement population cap, so build as many as you like.

Real Paramedics, for GTA 5

Download link

Ever hurt or kill an NPC in GTA 5 but wish you could take it back? Maybe once in a while? This mod makes the paramedics actually do their job and actually provide live-restoring medical services to your victims instead of just staring at your handiwork before leaving. In the video above, you'll see Trevor whomp two guys with a bat, then politely call for an ambulance. Sure, the medics only help one of the two victims, but Trevor makes sure they won't make the same mistake twice.

Paradise Reef, for Cities: Skylines

Download link

This is a map for Cities: Skylines, but it does require a number custom assets so I figure, hey, close enough. Mainly, it's just really beautiful. There are colorful reefs, improved waterfalls, and sandy beaches, which create an additional challenge: how the heck do you build a thriving city, with all the paved roads, belching smokestacks, and garbage-generating citizens that come along with it without ruining the natural beauty?

Evolution of Combat, for Star Wars: Jedi Academy

Download link

This total conversion mod for Star Wars: Jedi Academy adds a new class system to the game (based on the movies), adds widescreen resolutions, better bots, improved lightsaber duels, and a host of new animations and effects. It looks like it takes a bit of work to install, so be sure to read the instructions carefully.

This week on the Mod Roundup, we're given an easy way to change our FOV (and other settings) in Fallout 4, and a way to use Fallout 4's VATS combat system in Grand Theft Auto 5. Plus, a mod for Cities: Skylines lets you view your city like a real map, and a full-conversion mod for Ark: Survival Evolved that turns the dinosaur park into a pirate-based paradise.

Here are the most promising mods we've seen this week.

Configuration Tool, for Fallout 4

Fallout 4 is here, and with it the start of what we're sure will be years of community tweaks, fixes, and original creations. For the moment, the mod you need most is the Configuration Tool, by modder Bilago, that lets you punch in your desired FOV and have it immediately saved to your .ini file. The only thing easier would be if Bethesda had just included a flippin' FOV slider themselves. The mod also allows other tweaks like a toggle for mouse acceleration, custom resolution, and more. Find it here.

For more, check out our list of the best Fallout 4 mods so far, and the Fallout 4 console commands.

Fallout: San Andreas, for GTA 5

Speaking of Fallout, even if you're not playing it you can get a taste of the action in Grand Theft Auto 5. The Fallout: San Andreas mod is still in the works, but already has a rough branching dialogue system, NPC companions, stealth mode, and even Fallout's VATS combat, where you can slow down time, target various body parts, and see your chances of hitting them. Again, it's still in alpha but it certainly looks promising. You can find it here.

Cimtographer, for Cities: Skylines

Want your city to feel like a real city? The Cimtographer Mod for Cities: Skylines allows you to export your city into OSM format. OSM (OpenStreetMap) means you can view your city in the same eye-pleasing way you would any real-world location. Your map will display all your bus stops, train stations, highways, airports, and even cycling paths. Neat! Subscribe and find out more here.

Pirate World, for Ark: Survival Evolved

I guess not everyone is into dinosaurs. Pirate World is a full-conversion mod for Ark: Survival Evolved that transforms the dangerous dino sandbox into a pirate playground. With solo and multiplayer, you can sail pirate ships and do battle on the open sea. It's still being developed—and so is Ark, which is currently in Early Access—but it's worth a try if you want to replace the stegosaurus with swashbuckling. Here's the official site, and you can also find it on the Steam Workshop.

The After Dark expansion for Cities: Skylines made changes that increased the land value of waterfront property, which is great for the coastal areas of your cities. Now you can do the same for the areas of your cities that don't happen to be near water, thanks to a collection of ploppable European-style canals. The Canal Blocks mod collection, created by modder CGVos, lets you access canals of various sizes and plunk them into your metropolitan areas.

In addition to being quite lovely looking, especially at night, these canals will increase the value of the buildings place alongside it, meaning those structures will have an easier time leveling up. You can find the new canal blocks in the Parks menu. Keep in mind that these canals do require upkeep (paid out of your Parks budget), have power requirements (there's a lot of lights at night), and contribute a small amount of sewage to your city's water grid.

On the plus side, you don't need to terraform or mess with water. They just plop right in like other parks. There are a number of sizes to choose from, so you'll have some flexibility when building them into crowded existing cities. There's a 16x4, 12x4, 8x4, and several 4x4 units to act as corners or turns. The 16x4 canal even has a little rowboat. It's adorable. There are plans for more in the future, including s-turns and a transition if you want to connect your canal to a real body of water.

Another nice thing: the land doesn't have to be entirely flat to plop in your new canals, and there's no increase in noise pollution, which seems especially useful for commercial areas that are close to residential zones. Mainly, though, they're just really nice to look at, add a bit of personality to your city, and are a nice and easy way to get nearby buildings to level up without doing any major construction.

You can subscribe to the Canal Blocks collection right here. If you do, anything else added to it in the future will automatically become accessible in your game. The collection currently includes a little outdoor restaurant and cobblestone plaza, and some nice pedestrian pathway bricks you can use to accent your new canal areas.

So you've built yourself a swanky modern Cities: Skylines metropolis, full of glass and steel and the hippest sorts of digital urbanites, and now you want to show it off to your friends. You could share your map through the normal channels—or you could fire up the new First Person Multiplayer mod, and then invite them over for an in-your-face tour.

The video above is from April, but the creator, Fr0sZ, said on Reddit that it accurately illustrates what the mod looks like in action. It's far enough along to share but still "in really early stages," he added, and so users may run into some bugs or notice a lack of polish in places. It supports other mods, but since there's no way to force clients to download any mods being used by the server, he recommended that anyone who wants to play with them keep their multiplayer server private.

The character animations aren't the most lifelike I've ever seen, but the city itself looks great, and the level of detail is especially remarkable given that the game was never meant to be seen from this perspective. You can even use the built-in grappling hook to latch onto a seagull and take it for a ride. That's just weird enough to make it must-play stuff in my books.

Cities: Skyline's first expansion, After Dark, is out next month on September 24. At PAX Prime this weekend, we had a chance to talk to Cities' lead designer, Karoliina Korppoo, about the expansion and how the flourishing modding scene provides ideas for official content. Check it out above.

They say New York is the city that never sleeps, but it's not as if Chicago, London and Beijing hunker down for an eight-hour kip at 12am. In each one, a big invisible godcursor is managing traffic, rubbish, buses and crime, and in Cities: Skylines' upcoming expansion that could be you. After Dark, as mentioned previously, has more neon, one more moon, and slows the pace of the game to reflect that fewer people are out and about.

At this weekend's PAX Prime, developer Colossal Order released a trailer to show a night-time city in action. The above is in-game footage, but it doesn't show a person actually playing it—still, you probably know by now what that involves. After Dark is out September 24, and it looks pretty damned relaxing. I like the thought of flying over a tranquil night-time city, occasionally prodding at wind turbines and recycling trucks.

Paradox Interactive has announced that the Cities: Skylines nighttime expansion After Dark will be out on September 24, with a price tag of $15. Developer Colossal Order has also posted the first in a planned series of dev diaries explaining why there's a lot more involved with making the expansion than simply turning down the lights.

"Taking the cities from daytime to night is not as simple as one might think," Lead Designer Karoliina Korppoo wrote. "While the change from day to night is visually stunning, there's much more going on under the hood. Each and every building in the game received a new texture layer to have the windows light up nicely. In addition there are new lighted signs, neon signs and other lights to make the city look interesting during the night."

Changes to the underlying city simulation will more realistically depict the slower pace of the night. Most people stay indoors, and those who do go out tend to head for entertainment hot spots. The lighter traffic makes the night an ideal time for services like garbage pickup and road construction, but crime will also increase. Dealing with these issues will be made somewhat easier through the addition of a separate "night time budget," which will enable time-based scheduling of services, such as bus lines that only run at night.

"The night time creates new challenges and changes the way traffic behaves to alter the way the city works," Korppoo wrote. "We want to create more variation to the game and make the cities feel alive, with ever-changing needs and a constant, but changing, stream of citizens traveling to their desired destinations."

Publisher Paradox Interactive said at Gamescom last week that Cities: Skylines will follow the same expansion strategy as its Europa Universalis and Crusader Kings games: The paid expansion will be accompanied by a "major patch with free content," although what it will include hasn't yet been revealed.

At Gamescom last week, Colossal Order announced After Dark—the first expansion for Cities: Skylines. Alongside the paid-for DLC, the studio will release a major update containing a number of free new features—including a day/night cycle. It's a release plan that should be familiar to owners of Paradox's internally developed games. Both Crusader Kings 2 and Europa Universalis 4 have balanced large, paid-for expansions, free updates and minor cosmetic DLC. 

"We're going to work with the same strategy as Europa Universalis and Crusader Kings," Cities: Skylines's brand manager, Jakob Munthe, tells me. "When we release the expansion, we're also going to release a major patch with free content." Exactly what is in that patch hasn't been decided yet—although the needs of the modding community are being taken into account.

"What we won't do, unlike CK2 or EU4, is content as graphic assets DLCs," Munthe says. "We're so much made by our modding community that it doesn't make sense for us to charge for it." Munthe does say that they could do "very special" customisation DLC. "I'm not even sure what. Maybe new music, for example. But we won't ever sell assets as DLC."

Also like CK2 and EU4, Colossal Order would like to use expansions to extend the life of the game for years to come. "It's one of those practices I think is right," says Munthe, "and we make sure players get stuff for free as well."