Maxis: SimCity "built from the ground-up for multiplayer"

So the SimCity reboot requires an always-on Internet connection - so what? It's a multiplayer game.

Producer Jason Haber told games.on.net that the new SimCity isn't the single-player affair of previous iterations.

"This was built from the ground-up to be multiplayer," he said.

"I think by having it be a multiplayer game, it allows you to specialise your city in a region and really have your influences affect other people who are playing in the region with you."

As well as the MMO or social side of things, SimCity's always-on Internet requirement encourages you to invest heavily in terms of time and effort.

"We can save your game in the cloud so you can go and play it anywhere wherever you want. If your machine blows up, your game won’t be gone and you won’t have to start over," the producer noted.

Haber added, "In this day and age everyone’s connected all the time, so we felt like it was the perfect time and it would be fine to do that."

SimCity is expected in the first quarter of 2013.