The Sims franchise creative VP Lyndsay Pearson isn't worried about other developers trying to stake their claim in EA's long-held life sim monopoly; rather, she welcomes the rivalry. Speaking to PC Gamer about the series' 25th anniversary and the future of The Sims, Pearson dove a little into why she thinks the life sim genre is such a tough formula for others to crack.
"I think the reason The Sims continues to be so unique is we can offer this breadth of content through DLC and over the years," she said, adding that such a large scope is "really difficult to capture in a lot of experiences, because maybe it doesn't always make sense and it's a lot of things to get to work together."
Similarly to what ex-Sims head Rod Humble told PC Gamer last year while he was making the now-canned Life by You, Pearson pointed to the sheer complexity that making something on this scale entails. "How do you make all those sort of pushes and pulls on the simulation make some amount of sense? And there's this very fine balance between being too smart, and your characters don't need you at all, and not being smart enough where they don't do anything unpredictable," she said. "That is really hard to get right. Even The Sims has swung back and forth over the years, right? Like, you go back and play an old Sims game, it's hard to keep your Sims alive.
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"So there's a balance to find there. And I think that all the teams that I've ever met that have been working in this space struggle to find that, which is partially why they end up going after this particular niche, because then you can really focus towards whatever that story is. So it's really that open canvas that is a little daunting."
But despite the challenges other developers have faced—Life by You's demise, Inzoi's delay into 2025, and even EA's own challenges with Project Rene, Pearson is ready for more contenders in the life sim space. "I'm excited to see more people trying, because I think we can learn from each other, and we can look at what's going on in the space and see what players are reacting to, which is always great," she said. "I like to be challenged and try new things."
I'm glad to see Pearson ready to welcome her life sim rivals with open arms, and I hope those challengers actually begin to manifest themselves this year. After all, we've got Inzoi on the way, hopefully launching into early access on March 28, which is probably the closest thing to The Sims we have in terms of scope. There's also the smaller Paralives, which continues to chug along with a vague 2025 window, and Sims creator Will Wright's recent revelation of his new bizarre-sounding AI-driven life sim Proxi.
