If you were to take a look at many publications' "Biggest Fail of the 2013" award, it's quite likely that EA's SimCity will be listed near the top. After all, the online-only game made one of the worst launches in video game history with servers that were plagued with problems, and a change to the SimCity formula that, by and large, most players hated. Now, after almost a year after the initial release, the company is finally doing away with one of players' biggest problems, the online requirement.
In a blog post, EA announced that with update number 10, a single player mode will be added for free to players who have already purchased the game. The post says EA is in the "late phases of wrapping up its development and while we want to get it into your hands as soon as possible, our priority is to make sure that it’s as polished as possible before we release it." After the snafu that was the initial release, that seems like a good call.
Unfortunately, EA did not provide a ton of details on the update, simply saying that tit will allow players to create offline zones where they can save and load games locally. The company says it will outline exactly how this will all work in the near future.
EA says one of the major beneficiaries of the move will members of be the modding community, who "can now make modifications to the game and its components without compromising the integrity of the Online game." This means that perhaps modders will be able to create a game mode where the constricting city sizes can be done away with, and gamers can actually get the SimCity game they were hoping for in the first place.
Time will tell if this update reinvigorates some of the excitement that we saw for SimCity before it was actually released. It might just be too little, too late, but for gamers who already purchased the game, this should certainly come as good news.
Source: SimCity
