Those who experienced the launch of SimCity recall the horrors of trying to install and play the game. Many have complained that the forced multiplayer feature, which also (obviously) requires constantly playing online, is stupid and unnecessary, especially for a SimCity game.
They aren’t wrong. Multiplayer in SimCity isn’t actually building a city together or participating in a meaningful way–you just build cities on adjacent plots and sometimes volunteer or sell resources to your neighbors. It’s nothing terribly awesome.
Well, that’s changing.
EA has finally done something semi-right. Though the plots sizes will remain miniscule, offline mode has officially launched for PC and Mac, meaning that players can now take their experiences into a single-player mode.
Some changes to note:
- Offline means no achievements
- Offline means no dynamic pricing for items on the Global Market
- No cloud saving when playing offline
- Obviously, no multiplayer
- No access to SimCity World or leaderboards
- Regions may not be transferred between online and offline modes.
While these changes might be annoying in some instances, I’ll take them whole-heartedly in exchange for being able to play single-player. Half of the regions in multiplayer are like graveyards, anyway.
However, this does open up a lot of opportunities for modders. Currently, there’s a sandbox mode for multiplayer that allows you to change some aspects of the game, but gamers will “…now be able to Mod components of the game without harming the integrity of the Online game. It’s more than just buildings and palette swaps, they’ll be able to dig into the UI, modify the simulation and more. “
If you need some help figuring out Offline Mode, try the video below:
