The Sims 3 Comming Soon

The best-selling PC game franchise of all time just got a bit more best-selling. EA announced today that The Sims series has now sold 100 million copies worldwide since it launched in 2000. Since the first game, the series has been translated into 22 different languages and sold in 60 countries around the world. According to the New York Times, the franchise has generated over $4 billion for its publisher, Electronic Arts--or around $500 million per year.

The third stand-alone game in the Sims series will feature a new engine, which EA has been slaving away at for three years, and the biggest new feature will be the ability to seamlessly move around an open neighbourhood. Previous games in the Sims series were expanded by packs such as The Sims: Hot Date, and The Sims: Vacation, which let gamers take their sims on holiday or into town with a beau, for example, but these communal zones were always separate from sims' abodes.

In the next game, the sims will be able to walk freely around their neighbourhoods, visit their pals, and venture to new locations such as City Hall and the local park. There will also be a "deeper" system for governing how sims behave, called the Realistic Personality System, which will let gamers manipulate five character traits when creating their sims. This opens up a number of possibilities, or as EA puts it: "Will you create the nosy, inappropriate, kleptomaniac grandmother who loves to meddle in other people's business? Or the commitment-phobic, hot-headed punk rocker whose rude nature and childish disposition keeps him from scoring a date?" Apparently, 700 million different combinations await.