Before Cities Skylines took the city-building genre by storm, Maxis' SimCity franchise dominated the market. The series was the king of urban city builders, but the franchise has faded into obscurity in recent years. Now, Maxis solely focuses on The Sims, but there was a time when there was no escaping the SimCity brand.

SimCity helped put Maxis on the map, and it practically created the city building game genre. It was a great franchise, and would go to spawn other mega-popular franchises like The Sims. However, the SimCity franchise would sadly come to an end with 2013's SimCity. It was once the biggest name in the genre, but it seems like the series has now become a part of gaming history.

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SimCity Was On the Top of the World

SimCity 2000 Special Edition

The SimCity franchise began in 1989 with the aptly titled SimCity. It was developed by Will Wright, and was the second game from Maxis. After struggling a bit at launch, the game would go on to become a bestseller, earn numerous awards, and kickstart the urban simulation genre. Players were drawn to its innovative and engaging city-building gameplay. Its success would put Maxis on a new path that would see it release all sorts of new non-linear simulation games, and change the industry forever.

Maxis would launch a sequel to SimCity in 1993 called SimCity 2000, which took everything good about the first game and made it even better. It was met with critical acclaim, would once again be a commercial success, and would help redefine the genre all over again. EA ended up acquiring Maxis, and the studio went on to release SimCity 3000 in 1999. It continued to expand this city-building franchise in new ways and once again set the standard for the best city builders.

In 2000, Maxis would release its most successful SimCity spin-off The Sims. The Sims spawned its own acclaimed series that would rival that of SimCity. Three years later, SimCity 4 hit store shelves. It transitioned the series to 3D, vastly expanded the core mechanics, and would once again show the industry that SimCity and Maxis were here to stay. It continued to push the city-building genre to new heights, and would go on to become one of the best-selling games of 2003. It seemed like there was no stopping this franchise, but that all changed in 2013.

SimCity 2013 Killed the Franchise

Maxis Teases Offline Mode SimCity

The SimCity series would see a couple mediocre spin-offs between 2007 and 2012, including a Facebook game called SimCity: Social. Maxis was focused on developing Spore and The Sims 3, but the main SimCity series would not stay dead for too long. In 2013, Maxis would release a SimCity reboot that was supposed to usher in a new age for this iconic city-building franchise. However, it would end up burying the series instead.

It seemed like Maxis had big plans for this SimCity reboot. It was developed in a brand-new engine, reimagined the core SimCity gameplay, featured a full online mode, and was far more detailed than its predecessors. It promised a lot, and it failed to deliver. Players quickly learned that the online play was mandatory, the size of the cities was limited, and the engine was filled with technical issues. At launch, players were met with constant network outages that would result in long loading times, disconnections, crashes, and the loss of saved games.

SimCity's horrible launch state resulted in reviewers not being able to review the game and players not being able to play it. Various critics urged players to avoid it until the issues were resolved, and Maxis had to spend months getting the game into a playable state. Eventually, the studio let players play in offline mode and finally let them save their cities on their own device. It was such a mess that EA offered players a free game to compensate, and SimCity would only receive one DLC pack before Maxis Emeryville was closed.

The only other SimCity game to release since 2013 was a mobile game titled SimCity: Buildit. The franchise is essentially dead, and its failure led to the rise of Paradox's Cities Skylines series. It is sad to see an iconic series like this fall apart, but at least the genre lives on. Maybe SimCity can rise from the ashes one day, but probably not for a long time.

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