The best of the summer seems to be over. The nights are drawing in, with an 8.25pm sunset tonight, and the weather ahead looks grim, we have heavy hail showers arriving in Manchester on Sunday. However, to brighten up your life, a couple of games are coming up to make the most of the long dark nights; Battlefield 4 Night Operations and the Cities: Skylines After Dark night-time expansion. So draw those curtains, tweak your monitor gamma and get ready…
Battlefield 4 Night Operations
You are invited to "enter the combat in darkness," as EA releases Battlefield 4 Night Operations as a free download to BF4 players next month. The night operations are based around a new map called the Zavod: Graveyard Shift, "a night version of Zavod 311". EA teases that "When the old Russian tank factory is shrouded in darkness the tactics change drastically".
The night time scenario is said to bring more tactical combat to the fore and players can use specialist low light equipment like night vision scopes and other enemy revealing tech, or even flares to light up the scene. Alternatively sometimes you will want to deepen the black of the night, by taking down enemy search light and lamps.
EA says that the new map supports Conquest, Rush, Obliteration, and the infantry focused game modes Team Death Match, Domination and Gun Master.
Cities: Skylines After Dark expansion
Also due next month, or more precisely on 24th September, is the After Dark night-time expansion for Cities: Skylines by Paradox Interactive. The city simulation will realistically represent the slowed pace of life after dark with lighter traffic after a time and the concentration of night time activity around entertainment and city centre facilities. Undesirable elements such as crime can go up at night and police patrols have to be adjusted to reflect this.
The game dev diary notes that "taking the cities from daytime to night is not as simple as one might think". As well as the game play factors changed due to the considerations above, the developers had to add a new texture layer to every building for the window lights, and place neon signs and other lights realistically around the cities.
The developers are still working on 'awesome' graphics and balancing for night time play. Cities: Skylines After Dark expansion will be sold for $15 but a "major patch with free content," will also be launched at the same time.
