The bigger your city the bigger the tunes in new Sim City

Music in a game like Sim City doesn’t really feel that important, it’s not required to heighten the tension like and FPS. However, there is more to it that you would think according to a new developer update from Audio Director Kent Jolly .

In the new Sim City the game’s jukebox functionality has been ramped-up and the music will react to various conditions. For example, the larger your city, the larger the available playlist will be. The game looks at the population and picks a tune appropriate for the size of your city. As the population increases, the playlist also increases with more “dramatic” tunes appearing in the playlist.

The music will also change based on the zoom level and data you may be viewing . The development team have split the music into what they call “stems”  which can be layered. Viewing zoomed in data will crank up guitars and if players zoom out expect a full orchestra. Basically single instrumental elements are added or dropped based on the zoom level which is pretty clever.

There is an audio sample available on the Sim City site to demonstrate.

Sim City is due out on PC next spring.