Plus The Sims insider reaffirms that there will be no new Sims 4 Expansion Packs.
It’s been two weeks since we last heard from The Sims insider on new The Sims Project X development updates and behind the scenes information on The Sims Studio. The insider returned last night on ATRL with new “tea spills” about a new Sims 4 Kits Collaboration on the way. Confirming that The Sims 4 Kits Collaborations will be the last form of paid released content for the game until it “sunsets”.
The insider also talked about the research EA took for an upcoming Open Neighborhoods System for The Sims Project X. Confirming that their reason for choosing Open Neighborhoods VS Open Worlds is simply out of the fact that there’s more play hours and stability. The insider mentions that EA developers were closely watching the recent launch of Paralives and mentioned how at the moment they don’t feel threatened for what they have in store with The Sims Project X.
Unless someone tries to come for the Open Neighborhood system that they’ve set out to make for this new single player base game entry.
A lot more interesting talks and information about the current development outlook and future plans for The Sims Franchise are all collected below. Take a full read:
Table of Contents
On InZOI and Paralives Competing With The Sims Project X
Statement: Just watched the Paralives trailer and nglโฆ they really should be worried about Project X if their whole strategy is just “better graphics” and “open neighborhoods”ย Meanwhile Paralives has a FULL open world, a bunch of genuinely interesting build mode innovations. Lowkey hoping Paralives scares EA enough to finally throw a bigger budget at Project X and make actually competitive features, because otherwise this thing is gonna flop HARD
The Sims Insider: I’ll answer this one first, but the short version is; EA don’t care about Sims 3 competitors.
The long version is; EA (and of course Maxis) know from their experience with The Sims 3 and their various prototypes of Sims games that have come up from time to time, that the Sims 3 set up of “one ongoing open world” is simply a recipe for disaster when it comes to game/stability.
While EA are obviously interested in specific aspects of inZoi and Paralives and adoptable features, EA doesn’t see these games as a threat, simply because they already know from experience with The Sims 3 that the game play set up pretty much has a 90% failure rate, with only a lucky few being able to play long term with no game or save breaking issues.
They already knew inZoi would have the players it does now, regardless of how good it is, they have fairly solid expectations the same will happen with Paralives. Because it is incredibly hard, and requires hundreds and hundreds of man hours to develop an open world life simulator to run indefinitely reliably.
It’s why The Sims 4 and Project X were never going to open the door to Open World concepts or ideas.
The more you fill in a single playable space at any given time, the more variables that open up. Limiting the variables makes it controllable, not limiting them makes them uncontrollable. On top of that, never allowing your game to reset is just asking for an eventual error or corruption issue.
People say “How come I have to have a loading screen just to visit my neighbour, the house is already loaded?” in regards to The Sims 4, but what people don’t realise is the entire world unloads and then reloads fresh, in order to keep things simple and manageable moving between venue types or families.
Same even with player built Apartments. There’s probably a very easy solution to make the Apartments in For Rent load without a full reload, but if a player continues to load between them for long periods of time without leaving the lot, you open the door to more potential issues that can unfold by not having any kind of hard reset.
In summary, EA have no interest and aren’t even afraid of publicly welcoming the competition when it comes to games like inZoi or Paralives, because they have no interest in being in competition with Sims 3 inspired games. They know the issues that will come from that set up.
I will say not a single person at Maxis or EA would be surprised the #1 reported issue with Paralives is save corruption or issues caused by longer/larger save files, because they predicted it before it went live. They know the audience will likely dwindle as casual players run into issues or lost save files, and walk away.
The only thing at this stage that would actually make EA nervous is a competitor that focuses on a Sims 4 or Project X ‘neighbourhood’ type approach (open or closed), because they know it suddenly becomes actual competition simply from having a set up that could actually hook casual audiences in long term. I’m sure me saying that publicly will cause a bad omen for them and one will actually ariseย
I’m sure someone will say something like “but The Sims 4 has save corruption issues too!” but a very tiny percentage of players actually encounter it, and there’s a reason why you hear people refer to hearing about it, but not a lot of players actually reporting it’s happened to them. The fear outweighs the actual chance of it occurring. Players being able to have large and long term save files with an incredibly low risk of failure is something EA have no interest in moving away from, they contribute that long term player investment into the long term success of The Sims 4.
I believe EA was nervous about Grant Rodiek working on a Life Simulator as he had first hand knowledge on the direction from open world back to closed, and I’m sure their was a sigh of relief when the project was revealed to be nothing like The Sims. He has the knowledge to make a really good Sims 4 competitor.
New Sims 4 Kits Collaboration
Question: Hey legend do you know anything about another expansion pack coming this year re the above?
The Sims Insider: No Expansion Pack is in development as far as I’ve been told. Another collaboration Kit bundle is in the works if EA managed to secure the licenses.
I’d love to give a hint, but I’m clueless about what it could be, I’m sure it will be one for the books
On Marketing For The Sims 4 Fixes
Statement: Just wanna document this moment and point out how badly The Sims marketing team is handling this content drought… they’re literally posting reminders of things they did back in March, as if anyone’s been sitting there waiting for a recap
If this is the strategy until the end of the year, their main communication channels are gonna be absolutely dead
The Sims Insider: It’s not for nothing, there’s a direct correlation with players entering the game whenever bug reports are posted, even for ones fixed. It might seem pointless, especially for bugs that are non-issues but it does have a purpose that has a working track record.
The Sims 4 hasn’t seen any drops in the last 3 months, despite all the buzz around Paralives, EA are quite content right now and even somewhat surprised there wasn’t at least some drop. They even saw really good new player numbers with the Bridgerton collaboration news.
Defining The Sims 5 And The Sims Project X
The Sims Insider: EA have been very public that there will not be a Sims 5 (X may be called 5, but it will be name only). But a proper Sims 5 will likely never happen.
EA did extensive surveys and workshops in 2019 and early 2022, and it was unanimous that a Sims 5 was not going to fly. Majority of people aren’t Sims players, they’re Sims 4 players exclusively.
The reason why the latest EP wasn’t just a Royalty pack, but was instead a pack focused on Royalty and Legacies, is because EA know how deep players get into The Sims 4 and how a substantial amount play with legacies and long term families or multiple long term families. They also know players aren’t willing to give those up, so as X will be very much sharing the Sims 4 DNA they will find ways to incorporate the abilities to bring your families with you. This is such an important audience to EA, they know a Sims 5 where players will need to start a fresh save won’t appeal.
The same way there is no Minecraft 2. They know players are attached to what they’ve created and a brand new game creates a huge hurdle majority of players don’t want to jump. If EA could have their way, X wouldn’t exist and the Sims 4 would continue to be updated indefinitely. Unfortunately, the backlog is just too resource intensive to maintain and smaller fixes like Direct X upgrades were proving difficult to achieve any improvements. Project X is definitely reluctance and a gamble. But not a projected throw away flop that Sims 5 would be based on extensive market research.
Kit Bundles Until The Sims 4 Is Over
Question: As for the other question… People sourced this as EA looking to find employees to work on Sims 4 expansion pack
The Sims Insider: I believe EA were already forced to take down Job Ad’s that mentioned Project X (when they were hiring for Gen AI engineers) and as it’s not ruled out that Project X won’t continue the Sims 4 branding, I’m not sure if there’s any juice to this yet.
I haven’t spoken to many people since my trip has been my main focus, but I’ll ask around and see. But my understanding is Kit bundles are serving the Sims 4 into sunset.
What is your opinion on the new insider information shared for The Sims Project X, The Sims 4 and the future of The Sims Franchise? Let us know in the comments below and stay tuned for more Sims News and Updates right here on Sims Community!
To be fair, when you have a decent pc, the loading screens are like what? 5 seconds? That doesnโt bother me at all. IF this means the game’s stability is great. The limitations of creativity due the lack of a colourwheel and such, is way worse in my opinion as it limits you.
So I can perfectly move with closed lots/worlds as long as I can finally match colours, which is my biggest pet peeve with TS4 lol. Nothing in that game truly matches and it drives me INSANE.
As for collab KITs, as long as the brands are good, I’m in. Talking about Ikea/H&M type of collabs in TS2, not Mosquito stuff lol.
might be a long shot but perhaps the next collab kit will be for Kpop Demon Hunters? Both it and Bridgerton are netflix properties so they’ve already got connections, and it could placate people still wishing we got a band expansion pack. CAS kit could be a mix of their casual stuff and idol outfits, build buy could have some new guitars/keyboards and a huge couch. Bundle it with City Living like Bridgerton did with R&L and call it a day.
It’s kinda odd to me that the rest of the gaming world considers paralives and inzoi to be Sims 4 competition and yet this rep is blatantly saying they’re Sims 3 competition. That was a lot of talking for just saying “we think ours is better than everyone else’s regardless of what the community thinks”
The choice to compare it to sims 3 only is strange. I think you are right and most people just see a life simulation vs a life simulation.
The ‘we think ours is better’ feels arrogant. Just because EA thinks it is not profitable enough for them, doesn’t mean it’s impossible. When comparing games with open world, I think paralives has the advantage that everyone has the same game, there aren’t dozens of game setups due to DLC combinations.
I don’t think its strange. Neither of them are trying to be Sims 4. Inzoi is pretty much trying to be sims 3 and Paralives sims 2.
Sims 3 was built on sloppy coding with an old obsolete engine for its time too. Even if it was closed off it would still suffer from technical complications. The Sims 2 also has this issue with coding as the game is barely held together with scotch tape and paperclips. If you dig into The Sims 2 code you’ll find some of the worst stuff imaginable. The Sims 2 Complete Collection and original build were plagued with problems. They’ve seemed to have done good with the most part in regards to Legacy Collection version as it runs better. Also every Sims game becomes more unstable with each DLC this isn’t just a Sims 3/Sims 4 issue.
everything i hear about sims 4.5 confirms i won’t be playing it. i just wanted gameplay objects and instead i get kit collabs
EA saying they are not worried about Paralives because they know an open world will cause stability issues on the long run, when the Sims 4 is right there…?
They are going for a Open neighborhood to avoid issues created by the open world but what if the same happen to that Open neighborhood?
Besides, Paralives thought things tho … The world is kind of Open world but other lot doesn’t stay open like Sims 3. You actually have to loads tho other lot and then they close once you’re not going inside.
Also, we can have an open neighborhood-ish with Sims 4. The modder Tyjokr prove it. I will be ok if it comes with limitations like not opening all the lots of the neighborhood at once. Maybe a few extra lot, like 2 or 3 being open thank to a loading render.
For how Sims 4 went, I’m not interested for What is coming after
I think EA/MAXIS ask him to say all the cr….p. ๐ Don’t believe a word… Thanks to these companies for all these years of gaming.- NOW we are at INZOI and PARALIVES… It’s more perfectly made games. Take Care guys.
Is the collaboration something normal?
Give me an Expedia Collab with some nice resort themed items, clothing, and swimwear for summer with an event based around collecting trinkets from around the world and curating an international travel collection to display at home in a study or at a museum.
The hell am I supposed to do with SpongeBob?
I hate this attutide of, Sims 3 was poorly optimized therefore it’ll never work. Here’s a thought. You’re a billion dollar company. Put some time, research, and work into making a system that does work. Use the Sims 3’s open world programing as an example of what not to do, and actually be innovative. They should’ve done this before they knew they’d be inheriting a 50mil debt.
And again, how is it NOT starting over going to a 4.5? Sure, import families over, why not. But the new game isn’t going to have everything from the start. You’d still be starting over. I know it’s all rumors and leaks, but still it makes no sense. This franchise could’ve been amazing, but the creatively deficient corporate overlords and the player base have settled on a sub bar status quo.
How can it be possible to import families? Will my spellcasters, werewolves and fairies be available in the new game from the get go? What about the traits from various packs, will they all be there? Given their track record, I don’t think pets will be there either, those are most likely to be in a DLC later on. Perhaps you can import the looks but I don’t expect more than that.
Pets might actually become base game if they want to sell pet-related stuff as DLC that way (without the outcry around My First Pet Stuff). But I doubt occults will get the same treatment. Maybe theyโll make occult packs compatible with the new base game?
Exactly! There is zero logic in how this is supposedly to keep people from starting over. This might as well be a Sims 5. They really need to officially adress this because what is their endgoal here? Giving people the illusion of an updated game while their actually starting over?
This is really, really stupid. It is, without a shadow of a doubt, The Sims 5. Likely not in name, or marketing, but a new single player next gen sims game is exactly The Sims 5. Is that too hard to understand?
They are foreshadowing that it will be a bad product with minimal changes, and not live up to what people would expect from The Sims 5. And then they even manage to blame players for the things happening this way.
Idk, maybe they should’ve just made a sims 5. Don’t know what 4.5 will be but without new packs for 4 people will sooner or later lose interest and wait for something new. Not releasing a new game and just keeping 4 alive will not work that well I guess.
EA seems to be really, severely, underestimating that it is not 2012 anymore. They have an insider advantage wrt open world life sims, but their competitors have 14 years of tech upgrades, player behavior, and player feedback on their side.
For eg Paralives doesn’t load every lot in its open world at once. It’s actually running smoother for me even on a laptop even in early access than the “final” base game release of TS3 ever did back in the day even on a desktop PC.
But open worlds aren’t even the biggest draw for either of Paralives or InZoi. EA really isn’t interested in paying attention.
On a side note, I’m surprised they didn’t see any drop in Sims 4 players with Paralives release. At this point, I’m just logging into TS4 for the login event rewards but when I have any time to play I choose to spend it in Paralives. I racked up 40+ hours in 2 weeks despite being a busy mom with two jobs, so that’s saying something.
Only problem that I’ve had with Paralives so far is that, on my gaming laptop, it was stuck on the “Reimporting assets” screen! But so far, none of that! And on my rig at home? No problems at all!
Don’t use mods in Early Access and you won’t have such issues.
Mine is only stuck on the “Reimporting assets” screen with specific mods. I don’t have the problem when I move those mods. Paralives is also working on a fix for it.
I bought it and played it once. I’m hoping that it’s better when it’s not early access but I never disliked sims that much. With mods I really like it even.
“if a player continues to load between them for long periods of time without leaving the lot, you open the door to more potential issues that can unfold by not having any kind of hard reset.”
Sorry but this argument is nonsense and makes me doubt the authenticity of this leaker. An open world can still have regular hard resets, for example at a certain time every night, or after a certain amount of play time, or even by giving control to the player. Similarly, a loaded lot can be unloaded when not in use. Meanwhile, you could play on a single lot for hours and not reset once.
When people say they want an open world, they’re not saying they never want the game to pause or load, they’re saying they want to be able to play with one sim on a community lot, while still controlling the rest of the family back on the home lot.
I’m not convinced this leaker knows what they’re talking about.