In a recent podcast with Radio Times, the vice president of franchise creative on The Sims 4 and its upcoming sequel, Lyndsay Pearson revealed that the team is working on a multiplayer aspect for the next Sims game (at this time called Project Renee).
According to the podcast, Pearson said that the developers are “exploring a lot of different spaces” for how multiplayer could work in The Sims and that they are looking at games like Animal Crossing and Among Us for inspiration. They want to create a multiplayer experience that is “fun and positive” and that feels “Sims-y”.
“We definitely want to introduce multiplayer, and not multiplayer in the big, scary ‘jump in a world full of strangers’ kind of way. But literally, how do you and your friends want to do some play together… Because playing together can look like so many different things, right? Even our chat now, we’ve talked about, like, trivia games to fighting games to racing games, playing together and social can mean so many things.”
Lyndsay Pearson
Pearson said they are still working out the details of how multiplayer will work in The Sims, but they are excited to introduce it to players. Adding a multiplayer mode would be a major change for The Sims, which has traditionally been a single-player game. However, it is clear that Pearson and the other developers are taking the idea of multiplayer seriously.
They are carefully considering how to implement multiplayer in a natural and fun way for Sims players.
“And we’ve seen throughout the last few years of Animal Crossing, people inventing ways to play together that the game doesn’t specifically support, but they’ve made up scavenger hunts or whatever, which is amazing… We actually look at a lot of games that are doing multiplayer in clever ways, like Among Us even, which is this sort of mystery thing, but you have to talk about it and solve it.”
Lyndsay Pearson
It is still too early to say when or if a multiplayer mode will be added to The Sims 5 in the end. However, the fact that the developers are even considering it is a sign that they are open to new ideas and that they are committed to keeping The Sims franchise fresh and exciting.
I am excited to see what the future holds for The Sims 5. I’ve been a loyal player since the first game, and while I’m not a big fan of the fourth, I’m hoping Sims 5 can really be the sequel that Sims 3 deserved.
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