SimCity offline mode is "almost there Mayors"

The impossible will soon come to pass: SimCity's offline mode is "almost there Mayors" and will arrive as part of Update 10, which is now in "final testing", according to the offical SimCity twitter account . The long, arduous journey of SimCity's offline mode (it's like The Hobbit but with DRM) will soon be over. With Blizzard finally ditching Diablo 3's stupid real-world auction house on March 18th , this is shaping up to be a particularly good week.

If you've been following the saga (dammit, now I owe King.com some money), you'll know that EA/Maxis have previously said that an offline mode for SimCity would not be possible , that they were "exploring the possibility" , that OK we're making one anyway , and that it's a substantial undertaking and the result of six and a half months' work.

So it's been a hell of a long time coming, and EA/Maxis seem to have begrudged it every step of the way, but SimCity's offline mode is finally nearly here. With any hope, modding the game will soon be a less Draconian process too. (Thanks, IGN )

Tom loves exploring in games, whether it’s going the wrong way in a platformer or burgling an apartment in Deus Ex. His favourite game worlds—Stalker, Dark Souls, Thief—have an atmosphere you could wallop with a blackjack. He enjoys horror, adventure, puzzle games and RPGs, and played the Japanese version of Final Fantasy VIII with a translated script he printed off from the internet. Tom has been writing about free games for PC Gamer since 2012. If he were packing for a desert island, he’d take his giant Columbo boxset and a laptop stuffed with PuzzleScript games.