Magazine Watching: SimCity Societies coming this fall @ Gaming Target

Written by John Scalzo on June 06, 2007

News: SimCity 5 gets a new name and a new direction.

1UP.com has managed to wrangle a few details about SimCity 5 from their Games For Windows officemates and the results are a bit surprising.

First of all, the game will be known as SimCity Societies and second of all, it won't be developed by Maxis. Instead, EA has turned to Tilted Mill Entertainment and left Maxis to their Spore shenanigans. Tilted Mill is best known for last year's ancient Roman city builder Caesar IV, so they know the territory well.

Other than that, the online report is a little sparse on the details. However, there is this bit, which states that the "Societies" players will have to manage in SimCity Societies will be the city's citizens:

The focus on managing your citizenry almost surely gives a glimpse into where the designers intend to go with the "societies" angle. It's a bold move on EA's part. By stepping outside the established mold this new game holds the potential to attract a whole new generation of gamers in addition to the existing legions of fans for the franchise. Whether this new vision can pull that off will be the big question.

The 1UP report has the first screenshot as well, but the full scoop will appear in the July issue of Games For Windows, which should be hitting mailboxes this week.

source: 1UP