'The Sims 4' preview: First look at the most lifelike 'Sims' yet

The Sims 4 comes five years after The Sims 3 originally launched, and 11 expansions and countless items packs later, it's time for a full sequel in the colossally successful life-management franchise.

Rebuilt entirely from the ground up, the new instalment sees great strides have been taken to improve the Sims themselves – making them smarter and more emotional – and creation tools that are powerful but incredibly easy to use, for the most lifelike entry yet.

It's also designed with online connectivity you'd expect today, offering a built-in online "platform" to easily share content, alongside a traditional, offline experience.



Introducing emotions to The Sims for the first time

Perhaps the most powerful additions to The Sims 4 are emotional states. Sims can be happy, angry, inspired or confident, and each state will change what interactions are available to them at that time.

For example, if a Sim is angry, they might not socialise as well, and options to get into fights or tell nasty jokes will become available.

"They push back on you - they tell you that they are sad or depressed or angry or confident, and it's going to have a big impact on your gameplay," producer Ryan Vaughn told Digital Spy.

"It's really about making them more believable, like real beings, but also has an impact on gameplay."

Such states aren't necessary negative; anger can be used strategically, allowing the Sim to channel that energy into a better gym session, while a depressed Sim could create more unique art pieces or write moody novels.



Sims will also look and act different too, carrying themselves with a slump when sad, or sport a quivering lip when particularly upset.

Emotions are intended to flow between each other naturally, and are influenced by several factors, from social situations to certain environments.

While emotions aren't binary, players can snap Sims in and out of states efficiently using items; by playing sad songs on a violin, using a voodoo doll, watching specific TV shows or gazing upon flirty posters means Sims can switch emotions in a pinch.

Smarter, more sociable Sims

Sims are now designed in a way to be more intelligent and lifelike than ever before. Two of the biggest specific improvements are multitasking and conversing with others.

Multitasking allows Sims to do two things at once in certain situations. For example, a Sim can use a treadmill and converse with another person, allowing them to grow their athletic and social skills at the same time.

Copyright: EA

"It involves a brand new strategy with how you go through some of the skill building through the game, now you can multitask as a Sim," said Vaughn.

Sims will now behave more naturally in social situations with multiple other people.

Pathfinding as a group is massively improved – they'll move up stairs and through doorways without the confused, robotic queuing seen in earlier games – and can take part in group discussions, a first for the franchise, during dinner parties and other social events.

"It's a smaller detail, but I think it's really powerful and it's going to bring the Sims to life in group conversations," said Vaughn.

"Their heads move, and their bodies shift. It's a powerful moment that might go overlooked without it being called out specifically."



More tactics, and accessible creation tools 'like molding clay'

As well as managing a Sim's day-to-day life, a big part of the Sims experience is creating and shaping their appearance and world, and Maxis has taken great steps to make this as straightforward as ever.

The new Create-a-Sim tools are remarkably tactile. Compared to molding clay, you can directly shape Sims' faces and any part of their body with direct manipulation.

Facial archetypes with different underlying bone structures, as well as walking styles are introduced, providing heightened customisation and personality, while in-depth sliders and toggles are still available for extreme fine tuning.

"All the depth and power of the Sims tools are here too – you can get into detail mode on specific parts of the Sims body, and really fine tune it to be exactly how you want it to be."




"Players that have been scared away from these really deep tools in the past are going to have a fun time playing with this because it's so easy."

The build mode looks to be just as tactile, yet simple to use. Instead of building by wall outlines like before, houses are constructed with blocks that can be very quickly placed and reshaped with drags and drops.

Blueprints – which were introduced to The Sims 3 post-release – allow players to insert pre-set, fully furnished rooms, while window placements can be automatically set for the player in strategic positions that let in the most light.

Like Create-a-Sim, there's also plenty of opportunity for fine-tuning. Foundation heights can be adjusted quickly and easily with a slider, while roofs can be changes and tweaked quickly, from the style down to the overhang of the eaves.

"We've tried to take out a lot of the time-consuming parts that aren't necessarily that fun to everybody, and makes it easy to use," Vaughn explained.




Offering an online, connected "platform" - if you want to be part of it

With such flexible but accessible opportunities for creating buildings and Sims, The Sims 4 has big plans for connecting and sharing content with others.

While specifics on this will be shared at a later date, sharing and shopping tools will be fully integrated and internal to the game itself, making it easy to access content.

Vaughn also confirmed that for those who don't want to take part in online aspects don't have to - you can fully opt out of sharing content – and added it will be possible to play everything offline.

"We didn't do anything specific because of the feedback [from SimCity's always-online requirements], but with all of our games we go through a lot of design iterations," Vaughn explained.



"We went through a lot of design iterations and we've settled on a single player, offline experience that's the one that we think is able to give players the best experience, the best gameplay, as well as being a foundation for us to create the content that they want in the future."

The overall intention for Maxis with The Sims 4, it seems, is to create a "platform" and not just a single game.

How exactly additional content will be delivered – whether it's through traditional expansions, microtransactions or both – wasn't specified at this point, Maxis will first deliver a "really strong foundation" and then use feedback from what fans want to help shape its future.

The Sims 4 is available on PC and Mac in 2014.