New information about Maxis developing a brand new Sims Game (or The Sims 5 as we call it) keeps on surfacing!

We’ve already done a few reports about The Sims 5 and what it might include, such as:

• Maxis opening up plenty of job positions for the next Sims Game; will be prototyped in Unreal Engine
• Maxis is preparing development for The Sims 5’s CAS
• Talks about The Sims 5 potentially being Cross-Platform and Subscription Based
• Hints at The Sims 5 having a Competitive Mode

All of this information came directly from plenty of new job listings that have been posted on the official Maxis Careers website. Today, there’s a brand new job opportunity listed on the website searching for a Senior Narrative Designer to develop prototypes and final versions of, what appears to be, a Story Mode for the next Sims game.

Before I dive deeper into the interesting information that was listed in the new job opportunity please note that this is almost certain information regarding the next Sims game. Career opportunities listed on Maxis Careers that are meant for The Sims 4 are marked as such while the opportunities for the next Sims game are marked just as “The Sims” and mention information such as creating a whole new game, prototyping, new software development tools that are outside The Sims 4’s software scope and more. It’s also worth mentioning that none of the talks about the next Sims Game will impact the current development and content release for The Sims 4 considering that Maxis has different teams working on different projects within the studio. It was also confirmed that Packs will continue to be released regularly as before, along with the new Kits that will have a more frequent release schedule compared to Packs.

Now that we have all the disclaimers out of the way let’s talk about what was mentioned in the Senior Narrative Designer opportunity!

The introduction to the Senior Narrative Designer job opportunity briefly explained what the role is all about, mentioning:

As a Senior Narrative Designer on The Sims, you’ll report to the Creative Director and work with a team of enthusiastic industry craftspeople from all walks of life. You will use your passion and knowledge to lead the development of the narrative experience from initial prototypes through final design.

You will work with your engineering, design, XD, UXR and Production partners, along with using feedback and research insights to create experiences that surprise, delight, and invite millions of gamers around the world to Play with Life.

This vaguely confirms that the next Sims game will have a “narrative experience” and that the future Senior Narrative Designer will have to help develop this new experience from initial prototypes through final design. However, this just scratches the surface of what Maxis is planning for this game. The responsibilities of a Senior Narrative Designer talk a lot about the game having a “narrative vision” within a “non-linear simulation experience”. Some of the other key responsibilites have been highlighted below:

Responsibilities

Guide the delivery of the following:

• Define and and maintain the narrative vision of the project.
• Explore new ways to bring characters to life and create emotional experiences in a non-linear simulation experience.
• Work with multiple disciplines to direct and implement the characters, settings, goals, and conflicts from drafts in game.
• Work with the tools team to improve workflow and processes.
• Create design documentation to support prototyping efforts.
• Partner with Development Directors to track tasks, identify risk, and clarify changes in work.
• Partner with UX to design, research, and implement features, particularly for introducing narrative elements and decisions.
• Aid team leadership in gathering presentation materials.
• Playtest, attend UXR sessions, and participate in organizing feedback/insights.
• Document findings for future use in Sims development.

Still, that’s not all. The qualifications section of this job opportunity have revealed which knowledge and qualifications should the future Senior Narrative Designer have.

Qualifications

• Significant Narrative Game Genre design experience, especially in the area of creating the production pipeline to integrate story with the gameplay.
• Significant experience writing fictional stories, ideally interactive experiences.
• Capability to lead cross-discipline prototyping and idea iteration, actively participating in the development of a feature from start to finish.
• Experience with young adult fiction, pop-culture stories, in particular romantic narratives.
• Hands-on implementation for an interactive experience or mod.
• Excited by and helping define new business and distribution models like live services through the lens of narrative elements.
• Knowledge of popular interactive story machinima or mod communities a plus (ex: The Sims, Episode, Grand Theft Auto Online).
• Excellent communication and presentation skills required.

All of these qualifications hint heavily at the possibility of the next Sims game having a story-based feature that’s more than just pre-made household lore that we’ve been met with in the past, especially The Sims 2 and The Sims 3.

Considering that they’ve mentioned decision making, interactive narrative experience all within different story types that are popular today could mean that the game will have a whole Story-driven gameplay – something similar to what we’ve had in The Sims Stories spin-off era.

Be aware that none of this is 100% certain on what the final game could turn out to be considering that the new team at Maxis is still prototyping various features. EA’s CEO Andrew Wilson confirmed that the game will stay true to its core while also exploring new ways to play The Sims.

Considering that so far we’ve had clues and information about the next Sims Game including…

• “The game will stay true to its core”
• It’s being prototyped in a massive, Unreal Engine software used by major game developers
• Will have competitive, online and “subscription-based” features
• …and now is planned to have a non-linear Simluation, Narrative, Story-driven experience

…It’s almost certain that the next Sims game will be more than just one thing.

There’s a lot we don’t know about for The Sims 5 and the game is still early in development but it’s definitely interesting to see what Maxis is planning for the game.

If you want to stay in the loop about the next Sims game make sure you check out our The Sims 5 News Category!

Tip: PekeSims

More news regarding the development of the next Sims Game, or as we call The Sims 5, have surfaced on the official website for Maxis Careers.

3 new job positions have opened up in EA Redwood, EA Austin and EA Canada all looking for a Backend Software Enginner who will help develop features and prototypes for an upcoming Sims game. In the listing they’ve stated that they’re looking for software engineers who are capable of developing massively scalable and reliable web services that will support millions of players, as well as other responsibilites during the game’s development.

In the listing they’ve mentioned a particularly interesting task regarding web services and “cheating prevention”:

• Develop responsive, resilient, massively scalable, and globally available web services that support millions of players
• Creatively blend security best practices and original techniques to keep user data secure and prevent cheating

In case you’re out of the loop in regards of other competitive video games, cheating is something that video game companies are battling with in their competitive, multiplayer and online video game franchises. There are plenty of 3rd party tools out there that illegally allow players to advance and “cheat” in their game and developers are always looking for new solutions and updates that will prevent players from doing so.

This isn’t the first time that “competitive” features have been mentioned for the next Sims game. Andrew Wilson, EA’s CEO has stated in the beginnning of 2020 that they’re actively thinking about bringing competition features to the next Sims game, inspired by the features of The Sims Online that was present in early 2000s.

As Maxis continues to think about The Sims for a new generation – cross-platforms and a cloud of a neighborhood world, you should imagine while we will always stay true to our inspiration, escape, creation, self-improvement, motivations – that this notion of social interactions and competition like the kind of things that were actually present in The Sims Online many many years ago – that they will start to become a part of The Sims experience in the years to come.

We are very excited. This is a game that really doesn’t have any competition in its category for delivering and fulfilling these motivations for players and we think of the tremendous growth opportunities for us for many many years to come.

There’s plenty of more clues and information regarding the development of the next Sims Game. You can catch up on that information in our The Sims 5 News Category!

You can find the full requirements and information for future Backend Software Enginners for the next Sims Game down below:

Job Summary

At Maxis, we’re looking for a software engineer to work on cloud web services to help us bring exciting new features to life. You will work with an experienced team that has collectively built Maxis games for more than two decades. You will work with multiple designers, producers, and client engineers prototyping and shipping features that expand the gameplay possibilities of The Sims. You will report to a Development Director for the backend services team and the bulk of your work will be done in Java and Kotlin, using the Spring Boot framework, deployed to Kubernetes in the Google Cloud Platform.

As a Backend Software Engineer at Maxis, you will

• Develop responsive, resilient, massively scalable, and globally available web services that support millions of players
• Creatively blend security best practices and original techniques to keep user data secure and prevent cheating
• Apply and improve service deployment and troubleshooting strategies that maximize uptime
• Drive design and implementation of APIs and protocols that are consistent, formalized, and testable
• Demonstrate excellent technical problem-solving skills under iteratively changing requirements during game development
• Author and review technical design documents and API specifications detailing software requirements
• Maintain a suite of automated tests that validate the correctness of backend services

Qualifications

Please note that you do not need to qualify for all requirements to be considered. We encourage you to apply if you can meet most of the requirements and are comfortable opening a dialog to be considered

• Bachelor/Master’s degree in Computer Science, Computer Engineering or related field.
• 3+ years of job experience in a hands on coding role
• You’ve shipped and supported scalable web services hosted in the cloud
• You own large systems and features from design to deployment, including live service support
• You develop high-quality, testable software
• You have a desire to work with client engineers and designers to iteratively add features and improve APIs
• You develop APIs for products that release new updates with zero downtime strategies and tools
• You have experience with load testing, troubleshooting, and optimizing performance of web services
• You work on software that requires developing and optimizing queries and database access patterns
• You’re willing to iterate quickly and develop multiple short-lived prototypes
• You have excellent written and verbal communication skills
• You’re a motivated self-starter; able to operate with autonomy
• You have a desire to teach and learn from your peers