SimCity Update 10 in ‘final testing’; brings offline mode

SimCity's long-awaited Update 10, the one that adds offline play functionality, is in "final testing," developer Maxis revealed today.

While Update 10 will likely contain numerous fixes and tweaks, the big feature is the addition of an offline single player mode. As announced back in January, Update 10 will allow you to play solo in Regions on your own, or in Multiplayer with people from around the world.

"What’s new is the Single Player Mode, which allows you to play the game Offline by yourself," general manager Patrick Buechner explained at the time. "And because your saved games in this mode are stored locally, you can save and load to your heart’s content."

The addition of offline also means that the modding community will be able to make modifications to the game and its components without compromising the integrity of the Online game. Enabling offline mode is said to have taken Maxis over six months. "Entire calculations had to be rewritten in order to make the game function correctly," lead designer Simon Fox said back in January. "Even things that seem trivial, like the way that cities are saved and loaded, had to be completely reworked in order to make this feature function correctly."

As usual, we'll be sure to let you know when the update is pushed live.