Electronic Arts announced a new free-to-play mobile version of the popular SimCity franchise earlier today. According to the publisher’s page, the game will allow you to build cities on the go with full 360 degree control on your iPhone, iPad or Android device. There is no hint of how deep the game will be compared to its desktop counterpart, but the move to mobile platforms may just be the shot in the arm SimCity needs.
If EA is refusing to take SimCity back to its heavy simulation roots, this free-to-play mobile model makes total sense for the game. The latest SimCity on PC was terribly received with barely functioning mandatory servers and severely stripped down functionality and city sizes. While those changes were terrible for the once lauded franchise on desktops, even a gimped SimCity could be a great mobile game.
Being that the game is free-to-play you can bet it’ll be chock full of microtransactions. So far EA does not have a great track record with implementing fair ways of charging for free-to-play games, but the city building genre is already popular and well-done on mobile. It’ll be interesting to see if they copy these established games in the genre like The Simpsons: Tapped Out or Megopolis or if the game will take direction from previous SimCity entries and just be a slimmed down port.
Also mentioned on the announcement page is the fact that you will be able to interact with Sims residing in your city and they will react to your decisions. This has been a staple in the franchise for a while now, but they could be used in unique ways on a mobile game. For one, they could be used as a creative way to notify you that you’ve been neglecting your city too long. Because who doesn’t love push notifications?
No release date announced, but we’ll be sure to update this post when and if any more information comes out soon.
[button type=”link” link=”http://www.ea.com/simcity-buildit” variation=”btn-danger” target=”blank”]Source: Electronic Arts[/button]Last Updated on November 27, 2018.
