Drawing up the blueprints

Tucked away in the upstairs section of the PlayStation Home E3 booth is an area dedicated to the spaces coming soon to Sony’s virtual world. One of the new activities featured is Home Tycoon, a simulation title in development at Hellfire Games.

The preview doesn’t reveal much about the game, but it does hint at some tantalising possibilities. Apparently you’ll be able to build a custom city, with unique roadways and residential blocks. As in other simulation games, you’ll need to create commerce districts for your civilians to work at, in addition to hospitals, parks and more.

But just like Sim City, management will be as important as creation. The booth teases that you’ll need to broker business deals and monitor resources in order to maintain the quality of your city. Those with thriving locations will be able to dominate the game's online leaderboards. Impressively, you’ll even be able to visit and explore your friend’s cities from the Home Tycoon train station public space.

Perhaps most excitingly, it appears gameplay won’t be limited to city simulation. The preview also hints that you’ll be able to drop to the ground level of your location and engage in high octane car chases to decrease the amount of street crime in your world. That sounds pretty impressive for PlayStation Home.

Unfortunately, there’s very little other information available about Home Tycoon, but it’s definitely the type of massive experience we want from the virtual world. Hellfire Games has a pretty good track record with PlayStation Home games, so we’ve got high hopes for this.