After frenzied anticipation and a series of delays, the next huge franchise from the creators of The Sims will arrive on store shelves on the weekend of September 7th, 2008. The game will be released for PC, Mac, and even Nintendo DS and mobile phones.

"We're in our final stages of testing and polish with Spore," game designer Will Wright explained. "And the team at Maxis can't wait to see the cosmos of content created by the community later this year."

Spore, which we've previewed in 2005, 2006, and 2007 after its explosive introduction at GDC 2005, is a groundbreaking sandbox game where players can create their own unique life form. Evolving their creature from a microscopic organism in the primordial soup to an intelligent creature capable of building its own society, players can even go so far as building their own UFOs with which to explore (and perhaps conquer) the universe.


Along the way users can create their own content. Not just their creatures, but the cities those creatures inhabit and the vehicles they drive. All of that content can be shared with the community at large, making Spore one of the most experimental games in production today.

Expect to see more of Spore as the release date crawls near...