The new, and long-awaited return to the Sim City series seems like it won’t disappoint.
It is the first entry in the series in nearly a decade, bringing with it huge enhancements and a brand new game engine.
The new engine is called “GlassBox” and will be able to offer a truly immersing experience. For example, pollution from things like coal plants will now start to develop a lasting effect, though their positive benefits will be accurately represented as well.
And that’s just one of what could be thousands of different processes happening and being calculated at the same time. To be specific, it’s possible for tens of thousands of what Maxis calls “agents” to be running concurrently at any given time.
The new title will allow players to build winding roads, among many other highly customizable options that were simply not possible in 2003.
The game wants to simulate a real-life city as realistically as possible, and one of the aspects involved in that is creating a global economy that changes dynamically based on how everyone around the world is playing the game.
There will also be numerous multiplayer modes that allow players to connect directly with other virtual city-builders, and developer Maxis wanted everyone’s experience to be the same.
So players will need to be online at all times, but should their connection be interrupted while playing, they will not be kicked off.
In the new Sim City, which is simply being called “Sim City” and not Sim City 5, players will be able to give their city a “specialization” so they can tailor it very specifically to what they want – whether it’s a casino town like Las Vegas or a very working-class town like Youngstown, Ohio or rural Pennsylvania, or a luxurious place like Beverly Hills.
The Simcity franchise was one of EA’s cash cows, but it was usurped by the even more popular “The Sims” series. Since the original title in that franchise was released, the life simulation game has eaten up all of Maxis’s resources. Now it finally has time to go back to Sim City.
