Goliath Games Working On The Sims Board Game
Goliath Games has announced it is collaborating with EA to produce an official The Sims board game. The Sims board game is slated for launch later in 2025 to coincide with the 25th anniversary of the popular life simulation game. Although some fans might be excited by the impending launch of the franchise’s first board game, many will be left disappointed as they continue to wait for the next video game. The last major launch was in 2014 when The Sims 4 hit shelves.
The Sims Phenomenon
The first The Sims game was launched in 2000. Its popularity has seen a variety of spin-offs as well as several major titles within the series. However, the last main entry in the franchise was 2014’s The Sims 4. Critically, that latest installment hasn’t performed that well.
According to Metacritic, it received 70 out of 100 from critics and just 4.3 out of 10 from players. Compared to the 92 received by the original title, the 90 scored by The Sims 2 and The Sims 3’s 86, it suggests titles have been getting worse.
25 Year Celebrations?
Still, fans were hoping that 2025, marking the franchise’s 25th anniversary, would see a major new game announcement from EA. Those hopes were all but quashed, however, when EA shared a blog post stating that the franchise would move away from linear releases, suggesting that The Sims 4 would essentially become a base for all future releases. In the same post, they also announced that a movie was being made.
The post went on to highlight the fact that the series has seen more than 500 million players across its life, but it was something of a lackluster announcement considering the milestone the series has reached. Fans hoped for more and I doubt that the launch of a board game will placate them.
The Sims: The Board Game
The board game is going to be produced by Goliath Games. Goliath has previously released Telestrations, which is a Pictionary-style game; Perudo, which is a version of Liar’s Dice; and a handful of other games. It would be fair to say I’m not expecting a deep game – it won’t be anything like Frostpunk, for example. But maybe that’s the point.
It has been a long while since I spent any quality time with the franchise. In fact, The Sims 2 was probably the last title I really dug into. Since then, there hasn’t, in my eyes at least, been a lot of evolution and the games are light simulators, at best. It seems likely that the board game will replicate this light sim feel.
Video Game Adaptations
It is possible to make good board games that keep some essence of the original video game while still producing a fun product. The Worms board game, from Mantic Games, and Stardew Valley, from ConcernedApe, are good examples. Even Minecraft: Builders & Biomes and Minecraft: Portal Dash, both of which were produced by Ravensburger, were decent enough, despite being lightweight board games.
However, life simulation board games are difficult to come by, and we have a horrible feeling The Sims is going to end up more like The Game Of Life than any of the aforementioned video game conversions.