Love, death, and innovative storytelling: Game design, broadening perspectives, and the future of The Sims 4 with Anna Huerta

In a rare moment of consensus in the modern gaming community, I think most of us can agree on this The Sims 4 2024 is coming to an end.

of release Life and Death Expansion Pack Halloween received near-universal critical acclaim, something the series hadn’t enjoyed since its golden days in the mid-2000s. Turns out, what we were really missing was a grand funeral, which was an ironic way to end the year since EA announced The Sims 4 – Will be 10 years old in September – will not be replaced by the long-awaited numbered sequel, but will continue to serve as the series’ flagship release for the foreseeable future.

Most of The Sims 4’s tweaks this year are based on the game’s two major expansions due in 2024: October’s Dead and Alive and Infatuation EP July. They may not initially seem to have much in common, but look at them together and you’ll see that they both deal with two of humanity’s most important issues: love and death. Completely changing the way both of these are represented in the in-game system would go a long way toward adding a sense of depth that many The Sims players have long felt was lacking in TS4.

Long-running and best-selling series The Sims Of course, there are many, many developers working on it, and a critically acclaimed DLC can’t be attributed to the work of one person, let alone something that didn’t hit the mark. However, certain roles on the team oversee the many moving parts that make up The Sims 4, and their perspectives on what works and what doesn’t provide valuable guidance when choosing courses for future updates and add-ons. So if you want to know about the game’s recent creative direction, there’s no one better than The Sims 4’s senior creative director Anna Huerta.

When I spoke with Anna a few weeks ago, it was immediately clear from our conversation her dedication to inclusivity—not as an abstract exercise, but as a representation of how diverse The Sims has always been Reflections of real people that transform the player base. Anna and her team made a point of incorporating player feedback into the design process, which was one of the considerations that helped inform the overhauled romance system introduced in Lovestruck, which, along with other new features, became a first This is The Sims game that primarily incorporates these elements.

“We’re tapping into players’ desire to see more consequences and more realism in romance,” Anna said. “What we’ve noticed players asking for – and we do ask, a lot of questions when we’re doing patch design – is looking for a more modern lens to love. Love has changed… maybe not. changed. But over the past decade, the way we approach romance and dating, and the conversations surrounding long-term relationships, have really evolved as human society has.

The series aims to simulate the ever-changing realities of life, something The Sims has had to contend with many times over the years as a series approaching its quarter-century mark. The Sims 4 in particular incorporates some of the massive social changes that have occurred over the series’ lifespan, especially in terms of technology: Sims’ smartphones can now do the same jobs as landlines and newspapers in previous generations of the game (There are many more features). So it only makes sense to think about how people change with our gadgets and pastimes.

“Of course, the date has changed,” Anna continued. “We have dating apps now, and the old ways of dating; courtship and dowry, it’s very traditional. Now people really have the power to make decisions, they can go through dating apps and really choose who they want to be with. Dating. Relationship dynamics?

In fact, Lovestruck and its accompanying base game update mark a major shift in the way relationship dynamics are portrayed in The Sims 4, moving away from the one-size-fits-all depiction of commitment and romantic mistrust that sparked so much A simulated slap-fight over the years.

“We discussed: What are the dynamics of a non-jealous partner?” Anna explains. “And introducing things like situations as stories that players can tell. Not exactly polyamory, but touching on those open relationship dynamics. What rulesets can we provide so that players can interpret and decide what type of rulesets they want to tell story?

Hot on the heels of Lovestruck, Dead and Alive also brings some major changes to the way Sims behave. Death, like love, has been a feature of the series from the beginning. But as with many untapped nuances in romantic attachment, the team has only recently turned its attention to the different ways people experience mourning. It’s worth noting that nearly 25 years after the series first hosted weddings, Sims can now also host funerals.

“We’re always trying new things; when players ask for something broader, we definitely hear their voices,” explains Anna. “We have [funerals] On our long list of things we wanted to do. My work with the team goes beyond surface level solutions to truly understanding the context of player requirements. What we know about the death gameplay that existed before this update is that we do have players playing longevity games who don’t allow their Sims to die. I mean, I Live forever like my Sims! So we think about why players don’t do this. Are there any similar players? “I would if we had something more interesting.”? But we will still have players who don’t want to participate in the death game. So how can we tell this story from the perspective of a living Sims?

Knowing that The Sims had very different approaches to death in the game, we took a broad approach in Dead and Alive, approaching the idea from a number of different angles: introducing funerals and mourning (and Expanded ghost gameplay for supernatural The Sims )), while also giving living Sims a lifetime wish list alongside their long-term wishes. “We experience death as a living being. What does this story look like in life?” Anna mused.

“Then it gets very philosophical. How does the concept of death affect the way we approach life and how we live? What resonates with me is living fully, treating things with a certain gravity and, you know, being very Light – there are some stories [were] We can tell those around us that this is important with a backpack like this.

Anna points out that Sims aren’t typically labeled as “gamers” in the more general sense, and while she disagrees with that categorization, she acknowledges that Sims players often have a very unique set of rules when it comes to choosing the games they play. Priorities. Unfortunately, while the “gamer” stereotype is still very narrowly focused on combat, she believes Sims are primarily looking for games that allow them to use their creativity. Not surprisingly, this prioritization of underserved perspectives has attracted many marginalized people to the series over the years.

“This is truly a dream job for me from a diversity perspective,” Anna said. “I’m Mexican-American; I grew up in Southern California. I went to elementary school in Orange County, and I know what it’s like to feel different. I know what it’s like to be looked down upon because I see […] So I’m learning more about how people see themselves and how do we make them feel comfortable and confident in their own skin?

In fact, expanding representation has been a priority for The Sims 4 over the past few years: while still not perfect, there’s certainly more choice than previous versions of the series, or even TS4’s own version, Options ranging from customized gender presentation to adding medical wearables allow more and more players to create Sims that truly reflect themselves. “Our goal is inclusivity, and as well as respecting the players and their requests, I personally want people to be seen. My work philosophy and values ​​are aligned, and that’s really important to me,” Anna told me .

When it comes to overhauling some of the core systems that underpin TS4’s ten-year-old architecture (especially now that work on the game has been confirmed to be ongoing indefinitely), Anna takes a cautious view. Technical limitations may mean that better representation isn’t something that happens overnight, but that’s no reason not to start right away.

In response to my dedicated question about TS4’s ongoing attempts to separate its Create-a-Sim from the underlying assumptions of binary gender, she said of the technical and creative needs to improve representation: “They’re very intertwined. Together. “Computers are largely built on binary, but the world is not binary. There is a lot in between. People are matrices of different representations. No one person, no group is a whole. Tradition This is how the game is constructed. [but] Now we are in a space where we can have more thoughtful conversations. How do we provide more choice? What is the scale? In order to achieve this goal, what aspects of our technology need to be improved? New areas, or fine-tuning existing ones.

Anna is also passionate about making these inclusive advancements available to everyone through updates to The Sims 4 base game, whether or not they purchase the latest expansion packs. She pointed to the sexual orientation updates that came with the High School Years expansion pack — a long-standing project from the team that found a natural starting point in additional content focused on teenage self-expression — and compared the developments in Lovestruck Seen as a natural continuation of the theme.

“When we were making Lovestruck, we were like, okay, what problem can’t we solve in high school? Should this be a base game update? We wanted to have something dedicated to that pack, but we also Want to make sure we don’t restrict certain content,” Anna said. “I don’t want to lock the Envy feature away. Everyone should have it in the base, especially since it still represents the way people live their lives.”

Of course, there are still many avenues The Sims 4 could (and arguably should) take in further fleshing out its characters and story. But what Anna calls “essential elements” like romance and death now benefit from deeper and more diverse mechanics than before, and heading into 2025, the framework that guides creativity feels more stable than ever.