The Sims 4 Character Artist Discusses Paralives & Diversity in New Interview

With The Sims being a major cornerstone in the gaming industry for diversity and inclusivity, the topic has been brought up time and time again as of recent. In the wake of a fully greenlit EA Buyout to highly controversial investors and the release of competitor Paralives, which added many diverse features not previously seen in The Sims 4 or other mainline Sims games, questions about the current state and the future of The Sims have popped up from players.

One Senior Character Artist for The Sims 4, Jess Hyland, has provided insight and opinions on both at a recent Develop Conference, earlier this month in July 2026, bringing renewed hope for the state of inclusivity and diversity in The Sims 4 and The Sims series in general. Thank you to Rock Paper Shotgun's Editorial Director Julian Benson for publishing the interview with Hyland at Develop Conference.

The Sims 4 Character Artist Discusses Paralives & Diversity in New Interview

Senior Character Artist Jess Hyland

Jessica 'Jess' Hyland is a Senior Character Artist for Maxis Studios under Electronic Arts with nearly two decades of experience in Character Design and 3D Modelling, including previously working for Wonderstruck Games (Polycraft, Marvellous Miss Take, Boundless) and Jagex (Transformers Online, FunOrb).

Hyland has been with Maxis as a Character Artist since 2022, and was promoted to Senior Character Artist in 2024. Recent work of Hyland's on The Sims 4 includes working on The Sims 4: Royalty & Legacy and The Sims 4: Business & Hobbies expansion packs, including designing characters, in-game fashion choices, overall pack and character style and design, etc. with many Create-A-Sim items and other parts of these packs being designed by Hyland.

Jess Hyland at Develop Conference 2026

On July 15th, 2026, Jess Hyland spoke at a Session at Develop Conference: Brighton, the Session titled "Shaping The Sims: The Tech Art Behind A Flexible Character Creation Tool".

Senior Character Artist Jess Hyland on Paralives

When asked about her first impressions of Paralives and the features they added to the Paramaker that do not appear in The Sims 4's Create-A-Sim, Hyland stated:

"I opened up the character creator and I was like 'Oh, they can do asymmetric earrings, I wish I could do that, or asymmetric shoes' - Because they've set up their characters so they can have one left shoe like this, and one right shoe like this, they can also do things like a prosthetic leg, which doesn't require them to replace both feet. That's something that we can't currently do on The Sims."

"It's something I would really like to be able to do in the future," Hyland stated, referencing asymmetrical accessories.

"It would be a lot of work, but worth it. So, yeah, [Paralives Studio] have done some things with that base underlying system where they've gone, 'Actually, we could do it like this...' and I'm looking at it like 'Yeah, that's a good idea.'"

"The number one thing that I would actually love is for us to finally do away with the masculine and feminine binary that's baked into the game, - Unfortunately, I know how much work that would be. But to have a single base mesh that we can just use for all situations.... that would save me a lot of work for one thing, but it would be easier then to make Sims that are truly agender or somewhere in between masculine or feminine, which currently requires a lot of tweaking on the player's part."

"A pack that came out a couple years ago now is Lovestruck, which overhauled a lot of the relationship dynamics in the game. The Sims have always been bisexual by default. So, Lovestruck was actually the first time that we introduced straight people in The Sims – we were blazing trails for wokeness here – but there were a lot of assumptions in the underlying relationships code. I heard my designer friends complaining about it and saying, 'Oh, this is so much work to unpick', but they did unpick it and they put together something that was a lot more flexible, and just making fewer assumptions about what Sims are going to do."

Jess Hyland at Develop Conference in July 2026; "I wish I could do that": A developer on The Sims has been eyeing up Paralives' characters' asymmetric shoes and their wider possibilities by Julian Benson at Rock Paper Shotgun

Senior Character Artist Jess Hyland on Diversity in The Sims 4 & The EA Buyout

When asked about the EA Buyout and if she was concerned that the deal moving forward could lead to mandates to studios to reduce diversity and inclusivity, Hyland stated:

"I can't talk about the acquisition specifically - The latest information about that is on our website EA.com. And, honestly, I don't know what's happening with it at the moment. I will say that I don't feel like I've ever had a mandate from on high about what we're making, in terms of 'that's too diverse', and I don't think we will. I mean, fingers crossed, but I haven't heard anything coming down the pipe. I don't think it's gonna happen and I would fight it tooth and nail."

Jess Hyland at Develop Conference in July 2026; "I would fight it tooth and nail": The Sims artist would challenge any mandate to reduce diversity after EA Saudi buyout by Julian Benson at Rock Paper Shotgun

Regarding the "latest information" Hyland referenced in the previous quote, a newly released page on The Official Sims website titled "Who We Are" appeared last month, restating Maxis & EA's commitment to diversity, inclusion, etc., in The Sims and other titles.

Do you think we'll see changes to Create-A-Sim in The Sims 4 or the yet-to-be-revealed character creation system for Project X that take inspiration from Paralives? What features would you hope to see most? Let us know, and keep a tab on The Sims Community for all your The Sims and Life Simulation games news!

Another thank you to Editorial Director Julian Benson at Rock Paper Shotgun for articles providing these quotes and insight into Jess Hyland's Session at Develop Conference: Brighton!