SimCity PC beta next weekend

Maxis' reboot of the Sim City franchise will be getting a closed PC beta (not available on Mac) from January 25 to January 28, offering a one-hour slice of the game ahead of its release on March 5.

Revealed by the SimCity Twitter feed, to participate gamers will need to sign-in to an Origin account and fill out a form on the game's beta page.

Be warned, though - at time of writing the beta page is a touch unstable. "Heads up, Mayors -- if you're having trouble viewing the #SimCity beta page, try a hard refresh and clear your cache," reads the game's Twitter feed.

"We are extremely excited with our progress so far and would especially like to thank you the fans for your continued participation and support," reads the signup page for the SimCity 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."

The SimCity reboot is attempting to create communities of players, but its choice to use always-on DRM has been a controversial one. Maxis has repeatedly said its choice to do so is for the benefit of its users as the game intends to feature an interconnected social world.