SimCity Lead Engineer Explains Why Offline Mode Took So Long

Back in 2013, EA and Maxis launched the latest version of their popular SimCity game. It featured some pretty nice graphics and features, but if there was one issue that bugged many gamers is the fact that it required an internet connection. SimCity, for the most part, has been a single-player game so the need for an internet connection seemed weird, and the fact that it was mandatory as opposed to option made it even worse, especially when the game was launched and there were many server issues causing it to be unplayable.

Well the good news is that after so long, an Offline Mode for SimCity was finally announced, despite the developer’s initial claims that an offline mode would be “impossible”. The update will be part of Update 10 although there is no word on when that will be released, especially seeing that the offline mode is currently in alpha testing, suggesting that it could be a while before we see it arrive, but what exactly is taking them so long? For those more technically-minded, the reason has been posted on the SimCity website by lead engineer, Simon Fox, but for those less tech-savvy, basically by removing the online component of the game, there was a big chance that it could mess everything up.

The original concept of SimCity was to allow players’ cities to communicate and interact with one another, and by removing the communication, it could lead to many problems. According to Fox, “Even things that seem trivial, like the way that cities are saved and loaded, had to be completely reworked in order to make this feature function correctly […] I wish it were as simple as flipping a switch and telling the game to communicate with a dummy client rather than our server, but it’s more than that. Entire calculations had to be rewritten in order to make the game function correctly.”

So there you have it, that’s one of the reasons why it is taking so long, and why it has taken them so long to implement it. Either way if you have not completely given up on the game just yet, be sure to keep an eye out for Update 10 which will bring about the much asked for offline play.

Tyler Lee
Categories: Gaming
Tags: EA, simcity