SimCity is a multiplayer computer game in the city-building simulator genre, developed by Maxis Software. The global publisher of SimCity is Electronic Arts. The publisher in Russia is EA Russia. The game was released in March 2013.
SimCity is a reboot of the famous game series centered on city building. Despite the overall similarity with previous installments, the 2013 SimCity project features several differences, with the main distinction being its complete reliance on multiplayer gameplay. The creators of SimCity initially focused on developing an online game; there was no intention to create a purely offline project. The departure from single-player content is the key "feature" of SimCity, although the list of changes in this city-building simulator is far from limited to this. Thanks to the new GlassBox engine, Maxis Software has added many new features to their game, including the ability to lay roads not in straight lines as before, but as you please - whether crooked or slanted. But that's just an example.
As mentioned above, the emphasis in SimCity is on online mode, which allows extending the gaming boundaries and elevating the city-building process to a whole new level. A metropolis (town, village, etc.) is no longer an isolated entity, conserved in itself, but just one of the areas on the regional map where several cities are located. Each can be controlled by a different player, allowing two, three, four, or even more settlements to grow and develop simultaneously in one region.
Of course, you can simply watch how your neighbor develops (biting your nails from envy or being glad that they're not doing so well), but the fact is that there are no formal boundaries between metropolises. A player from one city can interact with a gamer from another: negotiating joint development, exchanging resources, and developing infrastructure considering common needs. If a building is on fire in your neighbor's city, and they have no fire services? If they can't cope with rampant crime, or their city's residents are injured due to a natural disaster, and there just aren't enough ambulances? Then it’s easy to send any services to help deal with whatever consequences arise. Or not send them, since competition is sacred.
Everything else is more or less familiar. The player must actively develop their domain, build industrial, residential, and commercial zones, ensure residents are happy, solve constantly arising problems (tornadoes, fires, earthquakes – and that’s just part of it), calculate income and expenses, and lead the city to a bright future. Thanks to the aforementioned GlassBox engine, doing this is truly engaging. Firstly, SimCity offers stunning graphics. Secondly, metropolises now truly feel alive: thousands of detailed residents walk the streets, cars roll down the roads, and something is always happening everywhere. The city truly lives, which is very exciting. Thirdly, due to GlassBox, the approach to construction has changed too – there’s no longer a need to build several identical structures, as any given building can simply be expanded with new additions. However, that’s already going into the enumeration of innovations, of which there are indeed many in SimCity.