SimCity Societies Demo

The SimCity series is quite legendary among PC gamers, mostly because it truly redefined the concept of freedom and sandbox, due to the fact that it practically allowed you to do anything. Hence, building a city was but a small part of the experience, given the fact that you also had to manage the infrastructure and its population, while also dealing with natural disasters and various other real-world situations.

SimCity Societies aims to build on the success of the franchise and steer it into a different direction, in order to try out some new ideas and see whether the public is open to them. However, the developers also chose to ignore the fact that most of the hype around the original series came from the fact that it was insanely difficult to keep a city running smoothly, albeit rather easy to build it in the beginning. Hence, dealing with a large population and a variety of problems quickly became incredibly demanding, which delighted the fans to no end.

Societies destroys this by oversimplifying everything and turning the mechanics into a basic clickfest, since you do not have to deal with zoning or power lines anymore. Instead, you just have to place buildings and make sure that your settlement is eye-candy and at least easy to navigate, although it is not really a must either. Hence, the challenge is pretty much gone in this regard and the fans of the old series might not be too comfortable with it.

On the other hand, one might argue that the game at hand tries something different and it wouldn't have worked with the old mechanics, which can be true. The focus in this sequel, as the name clearly implies, are the people and the communities that inhabit your settlements, rather than the water pipes lying beneath their houses. Hence, you have to work in order to keep their productivity, creativity and prosperity high, as well as make sure that they get along with each other.

The new purpose does not change the fact that everything is very rigid and set in stone this time around, leaving you very little room for choice and personal input. The amount of gameplay options is pretty limited and you cannot really get lost in your projects for month after month, because they lose their charm in a matter of hours.

SimCity Societies could have been quite the success and the idea lying at its core a pretty neat one, if the developers would have taken the time to include the same amount of freedom as they did with the previous episodes. The lack of choice severely undermines its popularity, though, which is quite a shame, considering the potential it held.