The main sticking point for the upcoming SimCity is the restrictive city size. Speaking to IncGamer, SimCity’s creative director, Ocean Quigley, stressed that the restriction ““is just a performance decision. […] we could certainly make the city sizes larger” but he also said that, as a mainstream game, “it has to run in your Dad’s PC as well”, which is why they’ve initially focussed on the small scale.
Though, he went on to say that Maxis will expand the maximum city size. He just can’t make a promise as to when.
The troubling maximum city size of just two square kilometres has been a noticeable concern when we’ve had hands-on time with the game, it even worried Sim City’s creator Will Wright when he first played the finished build. So it’s great news to hear that Quigley has confirmed Maxis will “eventually get around to expanding the city size”, and that it’s not simply a pipe dream for the players. It’s a tad frustrating, though,that there can’t be a set date for this update, nor even how much of a priority it is for the developer.
Another concern is that, with EA’s recent announcement that EA are planning to build microstransactions into all of their games,there’s a possibility that the update to expand the cities will only be available after a little coin has changed hands. It doesn’t seem like this would be the sort of thing that should be charged for but EA’s recent talk of microtransactions has seemed to suggest they’re gearing up to take a fairly aggressive approach to monetisation. This is, of course, pure speculation.
SimCity is due out in just three short days, 5 March.