Sim City 4 Going Offline

In the gaming industry changing the core of a popular title can make or break the series, and when Maxis decided to develop the next installment in the Sim City franchise as an always online title, it clearly didn't bode well with the fans. The launch of the game was simply catastrophic, and even though the situation called for concern, Maxis simply shrugged off the possibility of changing the game over to an offline structure.

It seems that along the way, their decision changed (or the publisher changed it for them), and they opted to finally release a patch to turn the game into an offline title. But why did it take so long? Maxis lead Engineer Simon Fox stated that core architecture of the game had to be rebuild from the ground up, which took over six months to make. The next update for the game will include the offline feature, so if you re one of those fans who opted to not buying the game on launch, you can go ahead and buy a copy and wait for the update.