The folks over at Metro UK had the opportunity to interview Rachel Franklin on numerous topics of The Sims 4 and The Sims 4 Get Together.
(Q) I was quite addicted to The Sims 2 for a while, but then I didn’t really like the open world element in the previous game – and I know that fans are divided on that issue.
Rachel Franklin: It’s been a contentious issue. But my feeling is that with the open world it’s harder to feel as connected with the town and your sims.
(Q) It’s like it stopped being a virtual doll’s house and started turning into GTA without guns or something. Which for me started to miss the point, because it’s not like it was all supposed to be hyper real – you’re not supposed to confuse it with reality.Rachel Franklin: I think you’re spot on, right? We went for… how can we get that personality to come across, and the best way to do that, we felt, was to have it feel more intimate – more relatable. And that’s gonna come through playing even more close up, it’s gonna come through the environments playing out more richly when you’re in an enclosed space, and the way to do that is how we did it in Sims 4.
And not having that open world allows us to create… for example you’ll see in the Get Together expansion pack, that when we have something like a cafe it’s gonna feel rich and it’s gonna feel like there are sims around and they’re in groups and their doing things and having activities. And it gives that intimate feel, and that’s purposeful.
(Q) So you’re satisfied that not having toddlers was the right choice?
Rachel Franklin: That’s the decision that we made based on all of the information that we had at the time. So absolutely, I feel like it’s the best decision for the game to date. I’m not talking about future stuff. But I do think it’s important to know, that players play in very different ways. We see all kinds of different play styles and family players are very passionate, so are players that play other ways.
And I want to make sure that all of those voices are considered when people are thinking about whether or not we’ve included the right things. Because we do, we take it very seriously about whether or not we’re approaching all of those different play styles. We take it just as seriously as the players do that are asking for the things that they want.
Continue to Metro UK…
