“We have members of our design and graphics staff that have really grown up with the franchise, so this is very personal to us,” said Bell. “Everybody on the team is a fan of the game. And there’s a whole bunch of stuff that we’ve always wanted to do with the game that we were never allowed to explore due to time or technology.”

Bell and his team set out to build a sequel that gives players more freedom to tell stories and Pleasant Valley is the setting for these stories.

“If you have a dream about your own life, you can make it happen in this game,” said Bell. “Or if you have some type of devious story in your head, you can use this game to live that out without anything getting in your way.”

Now that Spore has been released, we should start to prepare ourselves for Maxis’ next biggest hit – The Sims 3.

GamesDaily – The Sims 3: First Look