The Sims Project X Inspiration

Question: Hey! I saw that some people got invited to an in-person playtest happening in Vancouver from April 21 to 24. Before signing up, there were questions about The Sims 4 and The Sims 3.

Do you know what this playtest is about? Could it be related to Project X? I’m really curious what they’re planning to test in person.

Sims Insider: It could be! I’m not really in the know for those kinds of things.

The only news I know that I’ve not yet shared is people on the team are using Hello Neighbour 2 apparently for both visual direction and exploration/map inspiration. Not sure what specifically, but outside The Sims 4, that’s being used to gauge what the size and design of the maps could look like, while taking notes on things such as lighting effects and other visual elements.

They’re looking at other games that share a similar stylised look to The Sims 4, while being more modern, as they don’t really have a lot of time to explore their own prototypes like they have done so with previous games. Apparently, Hello Neighbour 2 is one they keep going back to. Never played the franchise myself, but I’ve heard it’s popular.

Question: I haven’t played Hello Neighbor 2 either, but I googled it to see what it’s like and yeah, it actually does look pretty similar to The Sims 4 visually.

I just hope they know how many players have been asking for bigger maps and that they’ll find some kind of compromise.

Sims Insider: They are similar visually. I’m seeing people online already running with “They’re making it look exactly like Hello Neighbour 2, wtf???”

When I say that, I mean elements that make sense for them. Like lighting or textures or whatever else. It’s inspiration. Obviously the parts that won’t work for The Sims won’t be carried over.

I’m glad to see you understand what I meant.

When it comes to world size, my other explanation kind of covers that. But remembering the Sims is designed for casual players, all this extra fidelity is already going to have a hardware cost. Making it too big will price people out of the genre.

That’s probably why they’re also looking at it from a map perspective as well. It’s probably a good size while also being slightly bigger than a typical Sims 4 neighbourhood as well.

What is The Sims Project X?

Question: I am still kinda confused on whether Project X is now The Sims 5 or still The Sims 4.5. I wish they’d just commit fully because this feels like a disaster waiting to happen.

Sims Insider: It’s not a Sims 5. At all. Very Sims 4. It’s not a Remaster but it’s also not a remake. 4.5 is also probably a bad description too.

Best way I can describe it is imagine the Sims 4 base game now is the original Fortnite and Project X is the equivalent of skipping to the most recent version without any knowledge of anything in-between. You’d know it’s the same game and not a remake, but it’s also drastic enough to feel very different. Except X at this stage is being sold as a seperate game unless they decide otherwise.

This game is being designed to keep Sims 4 fans happy, and primarily isn’t designed to bring over anyone who isn’t a Sims 4 fan. Though some changes will likely make people happier to switch from earlier games, they’re avoiding alienating the Sims 4 audience and their primary concern is to effectively keep the Sims 4 DNA alive through this new product.

Do not expect them to try and appeal to people who miss The Sims 3 for example. They know some passionate players about that game are out there, but the numbers don’t lie and they won’t be trying to compete with InZoi or Paralives that are clearly inspired by Sims 3 and trying to fill that gap. EA knows the Sims 3 formula works to build hype but quickly falls flat and people get more addicted when the scale isn’t big for the sake of a selling point.

The Sims 4 ‘Neighbourhood’ design works well as it can “push” players more easily into the gameplay in more isolated environments, getting them invested faster. While Open Worlds seen in Sims 3, makes it harder to isolate new gameplay and push players in the same way. Unless you know what you’re looking for, it can be hard to discover new things in amongst base game and other DLC venues that can automatically place. Once players check out the world, and explore, they tend to check out faster. Pushing goals via a UI feature doesn’t keep players invested for long either. It was explained to us that it was a big reason why The Sims Mobile followed the same approach, over doing something more like Freeplay.

There was a rule they started in the earlier Sims 4 packs that was explained to us that worlds should feel like there’s something new being presented to the player from the view of any lot. This could also include things seen in your Neighbours lots. So immediately once a player looks around from where their Sims move in, there’s some kind of gameplay avenue being pushed to them. So either there’s something in the world, or one of your neighbours houses is purposely designed so you want to visit and see what it’s all about. This seems to keep players playing longer and more in-depth, than UI based goals which had short term success.

In an Open World, this is much harder to do without too many things happening in the world or too many builds doing too much ruining a natural aesthetic flow of the town. 4 doesn’t have to worry about that, because the aesthetics exist even if you bulldoze every lot in a Neighbourhood.

I know this is a long explanation but once I put that developer hat on, it’s hard to not explain.

But tl;dr – very Sims 4, very much not Sims 3, EA very happy for their competitors to go down that route and fill that gap, too niche for EA’s plans for X.

Of course, anything can change. But that’s my understanding of “what is X?”

The Sims 4 Packs and Marketplace Performance Updates

Sims Insider: Just got some clarification, I originally said Adventure Awaits underperformed in a previous post.

Apparently it did really well in the Christmas rush and they’re putting it down to Expansion fatigue since it came so close after Enchanted By Nature which is why it didn’t do so well at launch. People apparently were also hesitant as a previous patch a few weeks before apparently broke a lot of mods due to a pack selector and had to wait for their mods to be updated or something.

Royalty & Legacy had the best launch since Life & Death apparently, people apparently are really engaging with the new world and club tools. EA are happy.

Also something really confusing that I’m not sure I understand what it means, but previously I said the Marketplace was exceeding expectations. That’s still true, but it contradictions another point where EA are unhappy with the amount of virtual currency being bought, and expected higher. God knows what that means but I’m just the messenger. I personally don’t understand it and neither does the person I spoke to about it.

On The Sims 3

Question: Can they remaster Sims 3 with modern fixes like they did for Sims 1 and Sims 2 and just be done with the franchise please?

Sims Insider: Short answer: I don’t think they’ll ever do any kind of update to the Sims 3.

Long answer: The Sims 3 really failed to maintain a longterm audience, and all the DLC (and especially the Expansions) they had planned in advance one by one performed worse and some of it failed to be decently profitable. That’s one of the reasons why the Sims 4 started with one Expansion in production per year (Get To Work counts as a 2014 project) and continued that way for several years. Just to avoid making the same mistakes.

So I don’t see them going back to The Sims 3 in any meaningful way because a lot of marketing deals failed to make a noticeable uplift and later DLCs performed less than what was required to be considered a success. It’s one of the reasons why delaying the Sims 4 was not an option, they pulled the plug on doing more with the Sims 3 because there was just no decent profit to be made and investors wanted the success they were promised.

I think that’s left a sting in EA’s butt that they won’t let go of. It doesn’t surprise me the 25th Anniversary went by and it wasn’t given a lick of attention. I don’t seem them ever doing so.