A number of former Firaxis developers, who worked on XCOM and Marvel’s Midnight Suns, have chosen to make a life sim as their next game.
One of the many problems with video games becoming so expensive to make this generation is that failure can mean complete disaster for a studio, whether they’re owned by another company or not.
Marvel’s Midnight Suns wasn’t even a particularly big budget game, compared to other titles, but its failure in 2023 led to 30 staff leaving the company, including XCOM 2 and Midnight Suns director Jake Solomon and studio head Steve Martin.
Now Solomon has formed a new company of his own, called Midsummer Studios, and his first game is going to be… a life sim similar to The Sims.
Solomon did warn, when he left, that he was done with turn-based strategy games for now, no doubt because they tend not to sell very well, despite both his previous games receiving plenty of critical acclaim.
The Sims, though, has long been a goldmine for EA and as well as other Firaxis veterans, such as Will Miller and Nelsie Birch, the new studio also employs executive producer Grant Rodiek, who has worked on several instalments of The Sims.
The studio has raised $6 million from investors, in its first round of founding, which given triple-A games can cost anything from $200 to $300 million is a very small amount for a modern game.
There are no images or videos to illustrate what the new game will be like – it doesn’t even have a name yet – but apparently it will be ‘empowering players to create and share meaningful stories through play.’
‘The best stories in games are written by the players,’ says Solomon. ‘At Midsummer we’re making a life sim focused on the drama of modern life, where our players will write meaningful stories just by playing, and then share those stories with the world.’
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‘As a producer on The Sims myself nearly 20 years ago, I am well acquainted with the power that meaningful player-driven stories can unlock. I also have an abiding respect for how hard it is to deliver the alchemy of community, systems design, gameplay, and user generated content necessary to do so,’ adds Shanti Bergel, founding partner at investment firm Transcend.
‘The Midsummer founders are industry veterans with the rare experience and design artistry required to deliver against this massive opportunity. I am delighted to join the board and support their journey to redefine the life sim category.’
The life sim genre is not a very large one, with very few attempts to copy The Sims over the years. A rare exception is Life by You by Paradox Interactive, which after a slight hiccup is due to enter early access next month. But while it is clearly a clone of EA’s game, it sounds like whatever Solomon and co. is working on is quite different.
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