EA Maxis, the EA-owned studio responsible for the wildly successful pool ladder removal simulator The Sims is working on its first new IP in over a decade, according to a recently discovered job listing.
We don’t know very much at all about what shape this new game will take, but the job listing, as spotted by PC Gamer, does provided a few clues. Maxis is on the hunt for a developer with experience on PC and mobile, and “designing a game with a long-term live service.”
EAThe job listing goes on to confirm that the new hire, who will take the lead on projects for the Austin, Texas Maxis team, should “understand how user-generated content and experiences are shaping products in the market,” and have experience in “taking major triple-A PC and mobile games from concept to completion.”
The above essentially implies that Maxis is working on a new AAA title for PC and mobile that isn’t The Sims, and that there’ll be a focus on long-term live service elements, which certainly isn’t out of the ordinary for Maxis or EA.
The job listing also mentions that “experience working with licensing partners is a plus”, so it’s likely that this mystery game will offer branded content of some sort. Again, this isn’t a million miles away from what we’ve seen from The Sims in the past.
The last original IP we saw from Maxis was 2008’s Spore, an admittedly imperfect strategy game in which players grew their own species from single-cell organism to a thriving civilization that spanned galaxies. Spore was ultimately a victim of its own wild ambition and collapsed under its own weight as you headed into the end game, but it’s one I gleefully sank over 100 hours into.
EAMy point is that Maxis has the skill to make some genuinely interesting games outside of The Sims, so whatever the studio is currently cooking up is something I’m inclined to keep a close eye on in the coming months.
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Ewan Moore is a journalist at UNILAD Gaming who still quite hasn’t gotten out of his mid 00’s emo phase. After graduating from the University of Portsmouth in 2015 with a BA in Journalism & Media Studies (thanks for asking), he went on to do some freelance words for various places, including Kotaku, Den of Geek, and TheSixthAxis, before landing a full time gig at UNILAD in 2016.