Ye Olde Symmes, now with an added Medieval flavour and possibly lots of Black Death and Inquisitions added to the mix. Isn’t that tempting?
EA has just announced that they’re releasing a spin-off to the Sims franchise, titled The Sims Medieval. So yes, your little people who speak in a funny language will now be heading, green diamond et al to the Middle Ages, where you will get to decide the fate of their measly little lives (and kill them in absolutely horrific starvation torture techniques).
EA boasts a whole new level of creativity and gameplay experience, but cutting through the PR talk, we find that the game introduces to us some new mechanics:
For the first time, players can create heroes, venture on quests, build and control a kingdom, and play every Hero Sim character in the land.
Does that sound like an RPG to you? The game will appeal to both traditional Sim fans and role-playing ones alike, as the gameplay will be quest-driven and focus on controlling your kingdom. Sounds like they want to take the Sim series beyond controlling people’s day-to-day bowel motions and into city-building games like the Anno series. Fable III, with its focus on playing as a free-wheeling monarch, also sounds like an inspiration.
The game’s scale seems to be rather larger than previous games, with the ability to play as everything from monarchs to blacksmiths to knights. As before, you’ll manage everyday tasks, but also epic quests such as hunting down an evil sorcerer or finding the fountain of youth. Interestingly, you get to pick an ambition at the start of the game. No word yet on whether that includes invading and conquering neighbouring empires, Civ-style. And then maybe locking all their residents away in 4×4 cubicles and betting on which ones starve to death first.
Oh yes, this one will be fun indeed. They also have stocks in it, to make it all medieval-like. And everyone knows that stocks are kinky, right? Right?
The Sims Medieval will be releasing for the PC and Mac in Spring 2011.