Maxis Develops Sim City 5, Uses New GlassBox Engine

Video game developer Maxis is working on a new game in the long-running Sim City series, which will use a brand new engine and will include a number of new mechanics.

Lucy Bradshaw, who is an executive working at Maxis, has apparently confirmed that existence of SimCity 5 to GameStar, a German publication, adding that the publisher Electronic Arts plans to launch the game during 2013.

An official announcement is expected to take place at the Game Developers Conference, which takes place during the coming week in San Francisco, where a sponsored session called “inside the Glassbox” is being planned by Electronic Arts.

The description of the event mentions that the GlassBox engine was “built from the ground up to power the next entry in one of the most beloved franchises” and includes speakers Ocean Quigley, Andrew Willmott and Dan Moskowitz.

It is not clear how the GlassBox engine is linked to Frostbite 2 and other technology that Electronic Arts is currently using to power its games like Battlefield and Need for Speed.

The latest Sim City game was the fourth full one in the series, which was launched during 2003, and since then the publisher has launched a spin-off called Societies and ports of the older games to mobile devices, handhelds and the free-to-play browser space.

Sim City 4 was well received by the player base and reviewers and the game even received an expansion, called Rush Hour, but many players felt that it failed to introduce any real innovation to the veteran series.

Presumably Sim City 5 will pair the introduction of the new GlassBox engine with a revamp of the core game mechanics, allowing for a more organic city creation experience and focusing on clear interaction with the citizen set.

So far Electronic Arts has not commented on the reports about Sim City 5.