Tested the upcoming SimCity Societies

I had the honor of being in a group of 7 people who were the very first outside of Electronic Arts to play a fully-functioning version of SimCity Societies, the next game in the SimCity series. Of course an NDA prevents me from saying anything about what occurred during the test or mentioning anything that isn't already public knowledge, but fortunately there's a decent amount of public knowledge out there already, like this and this.



There are several big differences versus the original series:

• No zoning. Rather than designating areas for given types of construction, you actually go in and place every single building yourself.


• Like other modern entries under the Sim moniker, Societies is fully 3D, and you can freely rotate & zoom with the camera.


• You don't construct a power grid or lay water mains -- fine details of infrastructure are handled automagically.


• Some "The Sims"-like elements are introduced in the form of what they call "societal energies" that influence cultural and technological development of your society as a whole.

Browsing around the web a bit, it appears that serious SimCity fans aren't too happy. In fact, they're quite disappointed, and in some cases outraged. They like being city planners and watching their cities grow, rather than building them piece by piece. We'll have to see how it works out once it's released!