SimCity 5 announcement trailer

[Simon]

It’s finally official, SimCity is back! EA announced yesterday that a new SimCity (5?) game is being developed by Maxis with a planned release date sometime in 2013.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kztNWdhRdnw

From the announcement trailer it’s clear that the new game will look and behave significantly more different than SimCity 4. Besides the new looks, the most obvious new change seems to be the option to choose between two factions, or corporations.

Simtech is the first faction that is being shown in the trailer. Obviously this faction is striving to be a high-tech, clean and science-oriented society that enjoys the finer things in life. And from the looks of that weird energy plant (shown at 0:41) they probably also have a more environmentally friendly and sustainable city approach.

Simcorp, the other faction, looks completely different. They have dirty factories, trashy cultural events and lots of cars roaming around the city. And as shown at 1:05 they also seem to rely heavily on dirty coal.

This whole approach reminds me about Anno 2070 and their two factions the Ecos and Tycoons. A gameplay like that works in Anno 2070. But truth be told, I am not so sure this approach would fit in a game like SimCity. It’s not realistic and it portrays the different choices we must make in a simplistic and ignorant way.

Another interesting thing is the public protests shown at 0:53. Maybe we’ll get to see more interaction between cities and their people? Maybe this will deepen and extend the interregional relations that SimCity 4 introduced? I hope this is the case and that we will also see more direct consequences from the various actions we take in our cities. For example, if a Simcorp city builds a dirty coal plant right next to the border of a Simtech city they just might face protests from the more ecofriendly citizens in the neighboring city.

I am not that happy with the way they are portraying nuclear energy at the end of the trailer. Hopefully they will have a more realistic approach to this outdated, none-renewable and dangerous energy source in the new game. But somehow I doubt it.

Please EA, don’t turn this into a crappy SimCity societies version with different city types. And don’t make it into a Origin Exclusive!