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Cities XL launching in North America on Oct. 9th
This year's October seems like a busy month for gaming, and if you're into city building games it just got a little more crowded. Monte Cristo Multimedia has announced that Cities XL will be released in North America on October 9th and that it will come in two formats. You can either get it through a digital download or by mail order in case you prefer a boxed copy, and shipping is free. Both options will be available through the official website, but it's also possible to get the digital version from Steam, Direct2Drive, Trygames, Impulse Driven and Gametap.We're sure plenty of you are excited to hear this news, or at least the small legion of you who've been building (or have wanted to be building) massive cities for the past several months.
Cities XL announces delay, new October 8 and 9 European launches
It looks like our European readers are going to have to wait a bit longer to get their hands on Cities XL, a new title that will bring MMO elements to a city-building game. Cities XL developer Monte Cristo Multimedia announced today that they're pushing back that September launch date to early October. The game will release on October 8th for these European countries: France, Germany, Belgium, the Netherlands, Luxembourg, Switzerland, and Austria. The French and German language versions of the game will be distributed by Focus and Flashpoint. October 8th will mark the Australian and New Zealand launches as well, with Namco Bandai Partners distributing the English language version of Cities XL. The English version will also launch the following day, October 9th, in the UK, Norway, Finland, Sweden, Denmark, Spain, and Italy.
Cities XL feature set and subscription pricing for European release announced
Paris-based game developer Monte Cristo Multimedia is only a few months away from releasing Cities XL which will potentially bring something fresh to the MMO scene: persistent world city-building. We've reported that some of Europe's French and German-speaking countries will get their hands on Cities XL first as of September 3rd. Monte Cristo has dropped more details today about the online play they'll deliver with Cities XL with their online/persistent world "Planet Offer". We suspect the feature set will remain much the same when the title releases for North America, however subscription pricing has only been announced for Europe:
Cities XL gets September 3 launch date for French and German-speaking countries
We've been seeing MMO developers prepare to fill different niches in the industry with a number of science fiction, post-apocalyptic, and even horror titles in the works, to name just a few avenues that are being explored. One area that seems unique to us is the concept of a city-building MMO which is on the way with Cities XL, currently in development at Monte Cristo Multimedia. Is this game an MMO (or virtual world) as we would typically define it? Perhaps not. But it will offer persistent world gameplay as well as economic interaction between player-created cities, further enabled by social networking options, which we think may be of some interest to our readers.While we don't have release dates for the North American market yet, Monte Cristo Multimedia got word to us today about the game's European release dates. They state: "Monte Cristo is very happy to announce that Cities XL, the next generation city builder, will be released on September 3rd 2009 on PC DVD in the following countries: France, Germany, Belgium, the Netherlands, Luxembourg, Switzerland, and Austria, in French and German languages. A release is planned for other countries, we will announce a precise date as soon as possible."%Gallery-50213%
Cities XL dev blog explains integration of gameplay with social networking
Cities XL is a game in development at Monte Cristo Multimedia that's ... well, it's a little hard to explain, as it's quite different from the titles we typically cover at Massively. Essentially, Cities XL is an MMO variant of popular 'builder' games where players can create urban landscapes with all that entails, plus businesses and industries, even determining the makeup of city populations (age, education, wealth). The cities designed and established by players can become part of a global, interconnected system, giving rise to all sorts of interactions in this persistent world. (It should be noted that Cities XL can be played in single-player mode as well.)There's a Cities XL dev blog at IGN that's taken a look at some of the features that will be in place with the Planet Offer (fully interactive), namely how a user's profile page will integrate social networking into Cities XL play. The blog entry states: "You will be informed in real time of everything that is happening around your game."
