Essay - Why The Sims 5 is in Development
I made this essay earlier this week, and intended to turn it into a video essay in preparation for EA Play Live. Since they confirmed no new Sims content will be announced then, I decided to scrap the...
Forum Discussion
This is the first I've heard about the Project Olympus stuff, but it explains so much. Obviously there was a little time in there that it wasn't literally just Project Olympus with the multiplayer torn out, but they certainly would have had to salvage a lot in order to hit that deadline. Holding back for the sake of network performance would explain several elements of the Sims 4 that didn't improve as much (or outright took a step back) from the Sims 3 as the rest of the industry did.
Of course, that just makes the strong implication that the Sims 5 means to make good on that initial plan extremely disappointing (I mean, not having the direction change partway through has a chance to lead to a more solid product, but it also means it'll have been two games since we had a main Sims game that was built to be singleplayer from the beginning). When the Sims Online was new, I thought the concept was extremely fascinating. To some extent, I still do, but the drawbacks to such an experience far outweigh any enjoyment I get from them anymore. A mandatory multiplayer Sims experience will certainly have some really unique aspects to it, but it's also an entirely different animal.
Your timeline makes a lot of sense, and you may not even be entirely wrong about the announcement. For obvious reasons a lot of things have been disrupted this year, and this isn't the only place I've seen "for sure" announcements not end up happening after all.
Of course, that just makes the strong implication that the Sims 5 means to make good on that initial plan extremely disappointing (I mean, not having the direction change partway through has a chance to lead to a more solid product, but it also means it'll have been two games since we had a main Sims game that was built to be singleplayer from the beginning). When the Sims Online was new, I thought the concept was extremely fascinating. To some extent, I still do, but the drawbacks to such an experience far outweigh any enjoyment I get from them anymore. A mandatory multiplayer Sims experience will certainly have some really unique aspects to it, but it's also an entirely different animal.
Your timeline makes a lot of sense, and you may not even be entirely wrong about the announcement. For obvious reasons a lot of things have been disrupted this year, and this isn't the only place I've seen "for sure" announcements not end up happening after all.
