SimCity update finally brings an offline single player mode

It’s been one hell of a ride.

Slightly over one year after the now infamous release of SimCity, Maxis has delivered an offline single player mode. Almost as if the whole always-online thing was just a DRM scheme and this was the plan all along, eh? No, sorry, look that’s dreadfully cynical of me. Let’s enjoy this offline update.

Update 10 should be available to all SimCity players today and adds the following things (mostly an offline mode):

• New: SimCity Single-Player Mode.
o Enables Offline Play.
o Single-Player Mode includes multi-city play, regional interdependence, and city specialization. Regions are saved locally and there is no limit on number of save games.
o Autosave can be disabled in Single-Player Mode in order for players to experiment and load their regions at a previous save point.
o Save As a copy feature. Players can make copies of their regions at multiple save points.
o See FAQ on Single-Player Mode for full details. [link]
• Performance: Optimizations in the simulator to improve performance of both Multiplayer and Single-Player Mode.
• Friends: Friends Search now uses the Origin friend search.

With the game no longer hamstrung by online requirements, you’d imagine that modders may get to work on that pesky issue of small city sizes. If, that is, there’s enough of an interested player-base remaining to make such an endeavour worthwhile.

Any of you out there still playing SimCity? Is this a welcome addition, or too little too late?