By Jason Venter | 08-22-2012 | 3:30PM
Electronic Arts and Maxis are rebooting SimCity, the one city builder to rule them all, and you can expect to play the game sometime early next year (February is looking likely). If that’s not soon enough to suit your tastes, however, perhaps the opportunity to participate in the closed beta will help.
“We are extremely excited with our progress so far and would especially like to thank you the fans for your continued participation and support,” Maxis posted on the site, by way of introduction to the impending beta. “We are humbled by your passion, it fuels us to work even harder to make the game we’ve been dreaming of, and deliver the SimCity you’ve always wanted.”
If you’d like to play, the first thing you’ll need to do is sign up for an Origin account. For those not already familiar, Origin is the Electronic Arts equivalent of Steam. You likely already have an account if you’ve been playing a lot of The Sims or Mass Effect on your PC. Otherwise, registration is quick and mostly painless.
Once you have an Origin account, you can sign into it and then you’ll need to accept a lengthy closed beta agreement. When that part of the application process is out of the way, you’ll then need to fill out a brief survey that also requires you to attach your computer’s Dxdiag file. You can find information about creating and then obtaining the file on your computer right here.
When all of that is done and the form is submitted, all you have to do is wait. Maxis will contact approved beta testers by their account email “in the near future.” Good luck!
