With trends moving toward more and more online play, Maxis is considering going against the grain and introducing an offline mode into SimCity for gamers, saying “we’re listening.”
When it was announced that Maxis’ new SimCity edition would feature only online play, this led to many in the community to speak out in hopes of garnering some type of single-player mode. In what can be considered a lukewarm sentiment, Maxis General Manager Patrick Buechner took to the forums saying, “I can’t make any promises on when we will have more information, but we know this is something that many of our players have been asking for.”
This comes in the wake of gamers also having a similar beef with Microsoft when the company announced that its Xbox One would be an “always on” console and require an Internet connection. It’s clear there is a culture of gamers who still want to stay un-plugged and enjoy their gaming without the necessary online component.
After a poor launch and ongoing technical issues, Buechner feels an offline mode could be the extra shot in the arm the struggling franchise may need, largely due to the involvement of what a single-player campaign could do for the modding community. “While the server connectivity issues are behind us, we would like to give our players the ability to play even if they choose not to connect. An offline mode would have the additional benefit of providing room to the modding community to experiment without interfering or breaking the multiplayer experience” he said.
Source: SimCity Blog