In the annals of the Sims franchise there’s been plenty of entries, expansions and spin-offs. But there’ve also been a few that never saw the light of day, yet still cast a long shadow over the franchise and its dense history of inspiration. In this article, we’re going to dig into one of the most intriguing spin-offs and ask what exactly was the cancelled Sims spin-off Simville, and what it brought to the series despite being axed.
What was Simville?
Simville started development just after the roaring success of the original Sims, which had taken the gaming world by storm, and was intended to be a mid-point between that and Maxis’ city-builder franchise SimCity. Slated for a 2002 release it would provide a stepping point between the metropolis-level planning of SimCity and single household drama of The Sims.
Simville would, rather than focusing on an entire city or a single household, let you build and manage your own small town. Sims would populate it, and while not as detailed as the mainline Sims title they would have their own needs, appearance, and happiness which you needed to keep topped up.
You’d do so, naturally, by designing and building your own small town and managing it as you would your own metropolis in SimCity. You could even jump down to the individual level and check out a Sim’s day-to-day life as they travelled around town, be it for work, leisure or to socialise.
Unfortunately, between continued development on The Sims, the upcoming SimCity 4 and The Sims Online focus soon shifted away. Eventually the planned 2002 release date was quietly retired alongside further development of Simville.
The Simville influence
By now, many of you are probably dumbstruck at how Simville sounds so familiar. After all, visiting different lots, moving to other locations to socialise or fraternise, and even the town-level social aspects with the aptly-named ‘townies’ populating the world, has been pretty much standard since the original Sims.
But you have to remember that this was before Hot Date released and shifted the focus from just your Sim’s household to the town outside it. Before that, the focus was firmly on their day-to-day life, and the world outside was a mystery. However, with the release of that aforementioned expansion, the world outside expanded for the Sims, and Simville’s raison d’etre was pretty much null and void.
Therefore it’s somewhat unsurprising that Simville was eventually cancelled. Unlikely to meet the desires of either those who liked the granular detail of The Sims, or fans of city-building and planning, it was a strange chapter in the early history of The Sims franchise. Even so, reading through old previews of SimVille presents an intriguing picture of an almost-finished release.
Feature-rich
It’s not exactly new to say that The Sims 4 has often struggled with slowly trickling out old features in new expansions. With that in mind it’s shocking just how many features we’ve seen in expansions as recent as Businesses & Hobbies were already present, such as night schools for adults to gain skills and personalised businesses.
At the same time I think it would be a misnomer to say that Simville doesn’t still boast some interesting features. The town-level planning for example is much more detailed than the indirect control you have over building on your own lot, and in an echo of SimCity your perfect little town could even fall victim to crime and vice!
So, would Simville work if it came out today? I reckon that if it had released either then or now, it would have been a fond addition to the franchise; which isn’t exactly new to odd spin-offs. But, for now it’s a ‘what could have been’ that has interesting echoes of what the current Sims franchise now boasts in terms of features.
