The city sizes of Maxis' upcoming SimCity will be limited to ensure that the game can run smoothly on ordinary computers, according to creative director Ocean Quigley.
Speaking to Inc Gamers, Quigley said that because of the detail and high visual fidelity presented by the game's GlassBox Engine, the team decided to restrict the size of the cities so that players with ordinary computers can enjoy the game's complexity.
"The most important thing about SimCity is the depth and fidelity of the simulation underneath it," Quigley said. "So it's a matter of trade-offs. The game has to run smoothly on ordinary computers, and I decided that it's better to make cities with dense activity and visual detail over cities that are sprawling, but low resolution and inert."
Quigley said in a tweet that the city sizes will be similar to the medium cities in SimCity 4, adding that as computers become more powerful in the future the development team could potentially create bigger cities.
SimCity will release on Windows PC on March 6 in North America and March 8 in Europe. A Mac version is yet to have its release date confirmed.
