The EA and Maxis game SimCity launched last year, and it received mixed reviews, mainly because the game forced players to play online, on servers that weren’t always up for the task. Players have already managed to mod the game and make it somewhat available offline, but no official singleplayer offline mode has been supported. In fact, EA declared back in March that the game couldn’t possibly support offline play.
@simcity #asklucy So when are you going to give a real answer regarding offline modes?
— Christopher D (@KCBiker72) March 9, 2013
EA’s response back then was highly controversial, and somewhat of an outrage was created as a consequence. Things seem to have changed since then, since the next major and free patch to the game, mainly Update 10, will introduce offline play and a functioning singleplayer mode. You’ll even be able to transfer your current progress into the offline mode. Not only that, but it seems official mod support will be introduced, and running mods will no longer interfere with online play. Solving this will be no small feat, as it’s fairly difficult to manage individual player-installed mods in an online environment. Still, if Torchlight 2 makers Runic managed it, we know it can be done.
This information comes directly from Patrick Buechner, the General Manager of Maxis, who sheds some light on what the update will feature:
“Offline is coming as a free download with Update 10 to all SimCity players. When we launch it, all of your previously downloaded content will be available to you anytime, anywhere, without the need for an internet connection. We are in the late phases of wrapping up its development and while we want to get it into your hands as soon as possible, our priority is to make sure that it’s as polished as possible before we release it. So, until then… testing, testing and more testing. In Update 10, you can still play solo in Regions on your own, or in Multiplayer with people from around the world. What’s new is the Single Player Mode, which allows you to play the game Offline by yourself. And because your saved games in this mode are stored locally, you can save and load to your heart’s content.”
Even though he states that development is in a late phase, testing hasn’t properly begun yet. This is why we’re pretty sure the patch is still far away from being released. Still, it’s at least something to look forward to. We’re still wondering why a year ago this concept was entirely impossible from EA’s point of view, and now we see an entirely different approach.