The Sims 5 Can Take Home Design to the Next Level With an Animal Crossing: New Horizons Feature
Highlights The potential incorporation of a tool inspired by Animal Crossing could revolutionize The Sims 5’s creative power, making it the best game in the series. The appeal of building impressive houses in The Sims has always been a major draw for players, and The Sims 5 should continue nurturing that tradition. The inclusion of an in-depth terraforming system in The Sims 5 could transform every map in the game and add another layer of technical skill to players’ creations.
When it comes to letting players design their Sims’ homes, The Sims 5 could find an amazing new tool with inspiration from Animal Crossing. While The Sims has repeatedly introduced new features for players to furnish virtual homes with, Nintendo’s Animal Crossing managed to beat the franchise to the punch with one potentially game-changing feature. If applied, then The Sims 5 would be able to grant players an entirely new dimension to work with, potentially making it the best game in the series in terms of creative power. That would extend its role as one of gaming’s best creative sandboxes.
The appeal of building impressive houses in The Sims is one of the biggest draws that the franchise has to offer. Either expanding on a preexisting home or starting from scratch, the fanbase is full of players who have designed memorable homes for their Sims. Players can recreate classic buildings, design massive mansions, or even try to make their own idea of a dream home. Much like making the Sims themselves, players have a wealth of options at their disposal when it comes to designing houses. Players’ creations have only been getting better, and The Sims 5 should continue nurturing that tradition.
Fully Realized Terraforming Could Evolve The Sims 5’s Creative Gameplay
Terraforming the land around the player’s property feels like an obvious step forward for The Sims 5. After all, it does seem like the logical next step for creation options. In actuality, The Sims has offered tools to edit terrain in the past, but the options were not especially deep. Past titles in The Sims have mostly provided options for raising and lowering land, while also adding terrain paint to terrain paint to change its appearance, or adding water to certain areas. A patch for The Sims 4 had the most ambitious approach yet, but only when the world was first generated, not during a session.
Animal Crossing: New Horizons features a useful creation tool that could be the inspiration for The Sims 5 to revolutionize the franchise with the Island Designer. Players need to jump through a few hoops to unlock the Island Designer and all of its features, and once finished, the player could essentially redesign the entire island to their liking. A previously flat island could become a hilly plain, or the town square could become a mountain with a waterfall rolling into a lake below. Island Designer unlocks the full potential of Animal Crossing’s options, and The Sims 5 could take those features even further.
By taking inspiration from New Horizons’ Island Designer, the developers could launch The Sims 5 with a tool that can rival the best building mods for The Sims 4. An in-depth terraforming system could transform every map in the game into something entirely new. If given free rein, players could turn what started as a normal city into an underground metropolis, or transform it into a chain of islands. Letting players transform the world at will would add even more flavor to the already-wild world of The Sims. In-depth terraforming could be the last missing piece for The Sims 5’s creation suite.
The Sims has been letting players design their Sims and houses, and it may be about time for them to start designing the world as well. For players seeking challenges in The Sims 5, the extra task of working the environment to their liking could be the added task that pushes the game past its predecessors. An in-depth terraforming tool would be able to take the already-impressive creations that players have made and add another layer of technical skill to them. Animal Crossing: New Horizons’ Island Designer could be the best inspiration for The Sims 5 to draw from.
The Sims 5 is in development.