Behind The Sims: June 27th, 2023

It’s time for another episode of Behind The Sims! This edition takes us behind the scenes at the development of The Sims 4: Horse Ranch, as well as a look into the ongoing development of Project Renee.

You can also read the official recap of everything in this episode here.

Horse Ranch

Horses are an entirely new creature in The Sims 4, bring a new set of complexities and challenges to the development of the game. Special attention has been put into the animation work for both the adult horses and foals, such as the new “banking” locomotion effect as horses turn tight corners. The animation team has put in a ton of work to ensure that horses maintain their “unique and graceful way of moving.”

Extra attention has been put into the vocalizations for horses as well, with humans being responsible for the sounds rather than actual horses. The team found that the emotional variances that a human can put into their voice allows the sounds to cover a wider range than what horses themselves typically do.

A look at some of the options available in “Create-A-Horse”

Horses are highly customizable!

Project Renee

Taking a peek into the future of the series, we get some new looks into the development of Project Renee!

The team states that they are going for a “Read The Room” effect, where interactions and animations are designed to be immediately recognizable by the player in order to understand what their Sims are feeling/thinking.

In addition to how the Sims themselves are behaving, special attention is being given to the visual style of the game, with a current focus on lighting.

Currently, the lighting and visual style looks quite a bit more realistic than what we have in TS4, in both how it reflects off of materials, and how shadows are cast around the room.

However, as this is all still labeled as being exploratory prototypes, who knows how much of this will make it into the final game – especially with the considerations that the game is supposed to be cross-platform across mobile devices as well.

Community Voted Kits

Finally, we have two more kits! These were chosen by the players from a community vote earlier in the year. The two winning themes: Gothic Fashion, and Medieval Castle Building! These kits will be releasing in 2024.

Can’t wait for the kits? Don’t worry, we’ve got you covered!

TSR has already released a collection during Summer 2022 featuring over 300+ free Gothic-themed items in the Oh My Goth! collab.

Likewise, TSR already has a medieval-themed collection released in the Spring of 2023 that contains over 600+ free Medieval-themed items in the YeMedieval collab.