Sim City 5: Will There Be One?
In early 2007, Warren Jenson, CFO of the EA corporation, stated that a new Sim City is "in the pipeline." This page is dedicated to all future rumors, speculation and information gathered on the development lifetime of Sim City 5.
Early Signs of Sim City 5 Discrepancies
EA's previous title, Sim City 4, featured a "2.5 dimensional" city builder, and was chock full of programming errors and bugs from its initial release date. Between the infamous "zoom crash" error, where the game would shut down to the desktop when the user zoomed out on the map, and the game's overall horrible performance (especially at high populations), fans became skeptical of EA's ability to carry on the Maxis legacy of the Sim City series. Errors with Sim City 4 were never patched by EA, until the game eventually faded from public memory and hit discount shelves in computer stores across the world.Sim City 4 gained a hardcore fan base, which still reside on communities like Simtropolis and SC4Devotion, contributing user-created content that arguably rivaled that of EA's own in-house artists. Community members began to create news-worthy cities with incredible detail, thanks to community content. News of Sim City 5, or the lack thereof, became the most heated topic amongst the Sim City 4 community.
Many topics stated that Maxis co-founder Will Wright had "sold out" from the Sim City franchise - disbanding it entirely, and was pursuing more lucrative venues such as Spore
. The quote that went down in infamy amongst Sim City fans, believed to be the final nail in the Sim City coffin, was as follows:"SimCity kind of worked itself into a corner, (because) we were still appealing to this core SimCity group. It had gotten a little complicated for people who had never played SimCity. We want to take it back to its roots where somebody who had never heard of SimCity can pick it up and enjoy playing it without thinking it was really, really hard." --Will Wright, 2004
Sim City 5 Replaced by Sim City Societies?
In June 2007, EA released information about SimCity Societies
as potentially being the next incarnation of the Sim City line. Previews of the game revealed that it is an entirely different format than all previous Sim Cities combined - no longer are there any micromanagement features; rather, the game is entirely simplistic in nature and is geared toward a younger demographic.Confusion is rampant amongst fans, with the information regarding "Sim City Societies" - is it Sim City 5? Or, merely a separate branch of the series, entirely? This question has gone unanswered. However, note that the path to "simcity.com" now takes you to the Sim City Societies site. Also, a 2006 statement from Will Wright mentioned that he wanted the title to take an entirely new direction. An EA representative stated that if Sim City Societies does not fare well with a large portion of the Sim City fan base, than a new, traditional Sim City title will be planned for the future. This became the last known "official" mentioning of Sim City 5.
Sim City 5 Hoax Screenshot
Amongst all of the chaos after news of a cartoonish resurrection of the Sim City 5 series came this screenshot, alleging to be a sneak preview of Sim City 5. It proved to be nothing more than a hoax: a Photoshop manipulated image of the city of Dubai.
Sim City Socieities sneak preview
This very early look at Sim City Societies, back when it was in a pre-Alpha stage, shows the game's early progression and goals.
A Time Line of Sim City Societies Developments
- November 13, 2007: Sim City Societies became the name of the newest installment of the Sim City series. It is no longer handled by Maxis (which is now dissolved and owned by EA), but by developer Tilted Mill. If this truly is the next game in the SC series, then it has taken a complete turn-around and migrated from urban simulator to slapstick-sociology simulator. Read more about it on the Sim City Societies official site.
- June 15, 2007: Entertainment giant IGN.com reviews a preliminary screening of Sim City Societies, bringing recognition to the recent community uproar about the game. Read their review here.
- June 5, 2007: Game review site 1up.com reviewed a confirmation to the rumor of a new Sim City, currently named "Sim City Societies," with a sneak peek screenshot that can be seen here. It is slated to be a change in tradition and gameplay from the series, according to publisher EA. Much to Sim City fans' dismay, the new Sim City title appears to be one that will be geared toward younger audiences. Numerous message board members from the Sim City fan site "Simtropolis" voiced extreme anger at the game's shift in direction, logging in to developer Tilted Mill's website. Read more about current opinions of the game at Simtropolis.com' "Sim City Societies" discussion board.
- Competitor Monte Cristo's internet director of the "City Life" city simulator [Philippe Da Silva], stated that a new City Life is in development and is heavily based upon community suggestions and requests. Read about it some more, on his blog.
The "Simtropolis 1000" Project
Angered members and hardcore fans of Sim City, from the message board Simtropolis gathered in preparation of creating a fan-made Sim City title that follows in the footsteps of Sim City 4. The motivation for this project is mostly the extreme disappointment in the "shift of direction" that was intended for the series, as well as overall concerns that the EA Corporation has allegedly "sold out" and discarded their original fan base. The project included professional programmers and digital artists, working on a non-profit project to revitalize the series.
The progress of this project spun off on its now-defunct site, UrbsUrbis.com. The site sequentially disappeared after the project was disbanded. Read the original thread that started the hype about creating a fan-made Sim City 4 spin-off.
The progress of this project spun off on its now-defunct site, UrbsUrbis.com. The site sequentially disappeared after the project was disbanded. Read the original thread that started the hype about creating a fan-made Sim City 4 spin-off.
Instead of getting Sim City 5, we got this crap.
Poor Reception of "Sim City 5": Sim City Societies
Sim City Societies, and its new focus toward a younger audience, proved to be unsuccessful. Fans and critics alike, including IGN (5.8/10 rating) and Gamespot (6.0/10 rating), had ill reception to the simplistic dumbing-down of the Sim City series, along with its frame rate issues and "easiness."Sim City Societies released its first expansion set in June 2008 called Destinations, which adds on to the game's transit capabilities.
There is still no current official statement about the future of the Sim City series, a Sim City 5, or mentioning of previous comments stating that Sim City 5 would be a possibility in the event of Sim City Societies' failure. On June 23, 2008: EA released the SimCity Box
, which brought back copies of Sim City 4 and Rush Hour to store shelves, after it had been discontinued for years. Most Requested Sim City 5 Features from the Fans
Based on years of reading message board posts!
It's what could have been: a slightly updated interface to Sim City 4 with these features would have made Sim City 5 a truly epic city building simulation:
- A re-instatement of the Water Tool, River Tool and Rain Tool.
- Adjustable Sea Levels & above sea-level ponds.
- Seasons that change and affect the city.
- Multiple tilesets (USA, Euro and Asian) selectable by city.
- Intricate industrial & commercial categories that are accounted for (like biochem, lumber, media, fishing, oil drilling, etc.), helping regional areas serve more of a purpose.
- The ability to designate state or county boundaries with a boundary tool.
- No more radials - but tile-based ranges, for police, fire, etc.
- Removal of the "grid", ability to freely place zones, buildings and streets that are not bound to 1x1 squares.
- For the game to remain 2D, rather than 3D.
- Additional sub-menus for downloaded custom content, so that everything doesn't have to be crammed into the parks menu.
- Persistent (dormant/active) volcanoes.
- More wild animal types (wild buffalo, etc.)
- The game "Sim Copter 2," for use with Sim City 5 saved game files.
- Tighter programming - no more "zoom crashes."
- Re-instatement of hydroelectric power and functional dams.
- The possibility of a globe, much like that in Spore - where you can create cities within provinces within states within countries within a globe.
- Road and highway types to have natural curves. Bridges to be able to go under and over other bridges. Diagonal bridges. The ability to build and place road and rail under bridges.
Related Pages:
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A Closer Look at the Sim City Game Legacy
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Sim City is a game series of city simulators, created and developed by Will Wright: who also created the Sims, and numerous other Sim games. The first Sim City game was published by Maxis, and released in 1989. On this page: Sim City | Sim City 2000...
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- Warcraft3 Warcraft3 May 24, 2009 @ 4:38 pm
- There was another sim city game recently released, but I think it was more along the line of the "sims". Sim City Social or something like that
