The SimCity reboot is designed to only work when connected to an online infrastructure, and despite the recent bad experiences that PC gamers have had with the system, the development leader at Maxis believes that her team can implement it right.
Lucy Bradshaw, who is leading the
SimCity development team, has told Videogamer that, “I think that’s why we have to be really, really good about the service that we provide. Electronic Arts is investing quite a bit in making sure we’re locked and loaded. If you’ve seen some of our recent launches they’ve been really quite flawless. Battlefield had huge amounts of players and stayed extremely stable, and think SWTOR was one of the most absolutely stable MMO launches.”
She added, “We understand that, when we go down this path, one of the things we have to do is provide really great service. Not only in the steps that a player takes to get into the game, but also in the game services themselves.”
Gamers will need to be always online in order to play the new SimCity, but the company says that it has a good solution for those moments when the service goes out in the middle of the game, designed to allow players to continue from the same spot without any problems.
Bradshaw has described the system as “graceful” but she did not offer any clear details on how it would work.
The new
SimCity is designed to be more social than all previous entries in the series, with gamers now directly interacting with a number of neighbors, dealing with the way their cities affect each other and possibly working together on projects that can benefit all cities within a certain area.
The new SimCity will be launched exclusively on the PC in February 2013, powered by the Glassbox engine.
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