I went to Stockholm with Marion on September 7, 2012 to try The Sims 3 Seasons. We had already shared bits from the trip on Facebook and SimGoodie, but this was the full preview from the hands-on session.
EA did not let us take our own screenshots because the build was still unfinished. That was a shame, because Seasons is one of those packs where the small visual changes matter, but five hours with the game was enough to write down a lot. We also got time with producer Graham Nardone after the session.
The day started far too early. I got up at 03:00 to make it to the airport, flew from Gardermoen to Stockholm, met two people from EA Norway and a journalist from Topp Norge, and then took a taxi to Gr枚na Lund. The event room was a small theater decorated with Sims plumbobs on the floor, large posters on the walls, and green lighting.
Nicola Jenkins, the global community manager for The Sims, opened with a short presentation of The Sims 3 Supernatural before we could play either Supernatural or Seasons. As soon as the presentation was done, everyone threw themselves at the Seasons PCs. We did not get a machine right away, so we sat with Frida from Sweden for a while. I do not think I have ever met anyone that happy to play The Sims. After about an hour, Marion and I got our own PC, and the three of us played Seasons for the rest of the event.
At the time EA still had a few embargo dates. Halloween and autumn details were held until October 19, aliens were saved for early October, and winter coverage had to wait until November 2. This preview reflects the alpha build we played, so some clothes, objects, and tuning could still change before release.
What Seasons adds
The Sims 3 Seasons was the weather pack Sims 3 players had been waiting for. The basic idea sounds simple: spring, summer, autumn, and winter finally pass through your worlds. In practice the pack changed the rhythm of everyday play. Weather was not just a background effect. It touched outdoor activities, clothing categories, festivals, swimming, supernatural Sims, build mode, and even which parts of old worlds felt usable.
The detail work made the pack feel stronger than a weather toggle. Sims breathe visible vapor in cold air, icicles hang from roofs, homes can be decorated for winter, and temperature changes make a day feel different before anything dramatic happens. I liked that the pack paid attention to the little seasonal signals, not only to big storms.
Every season can be adjusted. You can set how long each season lasts, turn individual seasons on or off, and choose which weather types should appear. You cannot change the order of the seasons. Each season also has its own festival, usually placed in the world park. EA had prepared festival lots for the official worlds, and player-made worlds could use standard festival parks if the game did not know where to place one.
Create a Sim and outerwear
The build we played did not look final in Create a Sim. You could not make an alien directly in CAS, even with Supernatural installed. EA said that would have been difficult because aliens had their own behavior and systems.
The clear new clothing area was outerwear. Seasons adds a cold-weather outfit category, so Sims can have clothes that make sense when snow and cold arrive. There were also new hairs with hats, although the selection still looked unfinished during the preview.
We found two new traits in the build: Loves the Heat and Loves the Cold. I expected there might be more by launch, but those were the two I clearly remember from the event. I did not find new lifetime wishes in the preview build, and that also felt like something that could still change before release.
There were a few new sliders tied to alien-like faces and ears, but they did not turn a Sim into an alien. They were more about letting the player shape unusual features.
Spring
Spring was the season where rain showed itself the most. Rain could water plants, put out fires, fill puddles, and give Sims something to play in. Thunderstorms were common, and rainbows could appear after heavy weather.
The world also changed as snow melted and leaves returned to the trees. Seasons introduced wildflowers as a new collectible, and Sims could get allergies from the flowers. If you also had Supernatural installed, zombies did not eat the wildflowers, which was a small but welcome detail.
The spring festival had an Easter-like egg hunt. Finding eggs could give festival tickets, which could then be spent on activities. The festival also had roller skating, the love tester, slow dancing, horseshoes, and kissing booths.
Summer
Summer was closest to what The Sims 3 had felt like since 2009, but Seasons added temperature, heat waves, sunbathing, and proper outdoor water activities. Sims could tan or get sunburned. There was no direct sunscreen item in the build, but a spray tan booth could affect how a Sim reacted. It could also go wrong, which left a Sim unevenly tanned. Sims with the rainbow skin sliders from Supernatural could get especially strange results.
The biggest summer change was open-water swimming. Sims could swim in the ocean and in lakes, and they could swim far out from shore. This also worked in older worlds. In Bridgeport, for example, you could swim around parts of the city rather than being limited to pools.
Diving boards also returned. The splash changes based on the Sim, and the bigger splashes can soak nearby Sims around the pool. We asked Graham why diving boards had taken so long to reach The Sims 3, and he said they had never fit a pack as well as they fit Seasons.
The summer festival brought back soccer from The Sims 2. Sims could play against each other, get face paint, take part in hot dog and pie eating contests, and cool down with ice. Fireworks were not new to The Sims 3 because World Adventures already had some, but Seasons added more options such as sparklers and firecrackers.
Autumn and winter
Autumn and Halloween were still under embargo when we played. EA allowed us to say that the information would come later, but not to write the full section yet. Winter was the same. We could play enough to understand that snow, cold, outerwear, and winter festival content were central to the pack, but the full details had to wait.
Even with those limits, the settings made it clear that the pack was built to let players decide how much seasonal change they wanted. You could keep a world mostly summery, remove a season you did not want, or stretch a favorite season longer.
Build and buy mode
The biggest build addition was Blueprint Mode. It let you place pre-made rooms that EA had already built, instead of starting every room from scratch. I was not sure whether players would be able to save their own blueprints, but I was fairly sure EA would sell additional blueprint rooms through The Sims 3 Store. For players who do not want to build a full house from nothing, this was a useful shortcut.
The buy catalog had a warm family-retro style in the preview build. We counted 131 new objects, plus a new fence in build mode. Diving boards were placed through the pool tools.
One practical detail stood out: when you entered build or buy mode, the world switched visually to summer. If the active world was snowy or full of bad weather, the weather disappeared while you were building or shopping. That made the catalog easier to use.
Supernatural Sims and older worlds
Seasons had extra interactions if The Sims 3 Supernatural was installed. Vampires and werewolves had unique ways of moving on the roller rink. Vampires could also use the new umbrella to protect themselves from the sun.
Store worlds and pack worlds were updated with festival lots. Custom worlds were trickier, because the game could not always know which lot should become the festival park. In those cases you could choose one of the standard festival parks manually.
Lighting from Seasons did not overwrite every world's existing lighting. Graham said the pack blended with the world's own light settings to get the best effect. World Adventures destinations did not get weather because those destinations do not use time in the same way as home worlds. Weather depends on time passing, and in travel worlds time is handled differently.
Aliens
Aliens were the new life state for Seasons. They had been missing from The Sims 3 since launch, even though they were a big part of The Sims 2's base-game weirdness.
You could not create an alien in CAS. Aliens could appear through abduction or invasion, and they could be forced with testing cheats. With testingcheatsenabled true active, you could shift-click the ground and choose Create, Alien, age, and gender to add one to the household.
The aliens looked great in the preview build. They had green-gray skin, pale purple lips, special ears with their own slider, soft black eyes, and a thin nose that was not as tiny as the Sims 2 version.
When an alien clicked another Sim, the alien could scan them. The animation used a small device, a little like the tools doctors use in Ambitions. Aliens could also use Biostimulate or Biodrain. Their eyes turned orange and a stream of DNA-shaped effects moved from the alien's eyes into the other Sim's eyes. Biodrain gave the target a moodlet that made everything suddenly feel difficult, while Biostimulate did the opposite.
When an alien clicked themselves, they could scan objects and rest brain power. Brain power was their version of energy. They lay down on the nearest usable sleeping spot while blue light moved in and out of their head.
Apart from that, aliens played much like normal Sims. They did not have alien-only meals in the build we saw. Sometimes they scanned things without being told, and they seemed more likely to build an alien snowman.
Spaceships
Alien Sims could use a spaceship. You could find it through buydebug, and it hovered the way you expect a small UFO to hover.
The spaceship could create a storm, abduct a Sim, invade a community lot, or travel to places such as the Moon, the asteroid belt, and Planet Sixam. Some actions required upgrades. The laser upgrade, available through Handiness, let the alien invade a community lot. Sims gathered in fear while the ship fired lasers and creepy music played. Upgraded ships could also travel like the time machine.
The abduction option let you choose who to abduct. The ship teleported to the target, the air started to sparkle, the Sim came outside to investigate, and then they were pulled up into the ship. Afterward the alien returned home and could socialize with the Sim they had just abducted, which was both strange and very Sims.
Graham Nardone Q&A
After playing for five hours, we were lucky enough to interview Graham Nardone. These were the questions from the event.
SimGoodie: How large is the team working on The Sims 3?
Graham: Two teams, roughly 50 to 100 people.
SimGoodie: Do zombies eat the wildflowers?
Graham: No, they do not eat them.
SimGoodie: Is there any direct form of sunscreen?
Graham: There is no direct sunscreen, but Sims can protect themselves from the sun in other ways, for example with an umbrella or by using the tanning booth to get a base tan. Sims with rainbow-slider skin can get interesting results when they tan. It can be hard to stay pale in summer, since Sims tend to go outside a lot.
SimGoodie: Are there zombie babies in the game?
Graham: No, there are no zombie babies.
SimGoodie: Will more content be added between the alpha version we played and the full version?
Graham: More winter hairstyles are being added, including hats. Create a Sim focuses on costumes and outerwear.
SimGoodie: Is there specific lighting for each world?
Graham: Each world already has somewhat different lighting. Seasons will not eliminate that.
SimGoodie: Is it possible to change the order of the seasons?
Graham: You cannot change the order, but you can change their length and turn them off.
SimGoodie: How do festival areas work in player-made worlds?
Graham: In standard worlds, the game asks whether you want to add festival lots the first time you play them after installing Seasons. It does not really know this in player-made neighborhoods, but you can choose from standard festival parks from other neighborhoods.
SimGoodie: Why can Sims not drown in the ocean?
Graham: The technical reason is that a Sim has to be on a lot where the game can place objects in order to die. The ocean is outside every lot, so there is nowhere to place the grave.
SimGoodie: How does wind work with umbrellas?
Graham: Wind will not affect umbrellas. It is a visual effect on trees and flags.
SimGoodie: Can werewolves freeze to death in winter since they do not wear outerwear?
Graham: There are exceptions for werewolves and for careers where Sims have to wear light clothing, so they do not freeze to death just because a form or work outfit gives them less clothing.
SimGoodie: Why is there no weather in World Adventures destinations?
Graham: Those worlds do not have the same sense of time. Seasons depends on time to know when to generate different effects.
SimGoodie: Can Sims swim in ponds by their house?
Graham: There is no swimming in garden ponds or small lakes because the ground is too unpredictable. It would have created a mess between wading and swimming for Sims.
SimGoodie: Why did we not get diving boards earlier?
Graham: They had not really fit the theme of a pack until now. The team had wanted to add them earlier.
SimGoodie: Why are there several mermaid hints in the pack? Is it a hint at a future pack?
Graham: Because mermaids are cool? I cannot talk about what is coming in the future.
SimGoodie: Is there a new way to die from lightning?
Graham: If a Sim dies from lightning, it is the same death type as electrocution. Lightning can also have different reactions, such as burned ground, fires, or objects exploding.
First impression
The alpha build still had gaps, but Seasons already felt like one of the packs that would make old saves feel new again. It added weather, yes, but the better part was how many daily decisions it touched: what Sims wore, where they spent the day, whether a festival was worth visiting, how a pool worked, what happened to outdoor plants, and how older worlds changed when the calendar moved forward.
For me, that was the strength of the pack. It did not only add a list of objects. It gave The Sims 3 a year.