Celebrating 25 Years of The Sims: Allie Wyatt

For the past 25 years, our team has poured its passion into deep, thoughtful, and authentic experiences that reflect life’s many possibilities (as well as a few fantastical possibilities we wish existed). But life, as it turns out, is pretty darn big, which is why we’re constantly introducing new content and features to expand The Sims universe into a story-telling platform that’s representative of its player community. 

As part of our ongoing birthday celebration, we’re talking to our team members about the most meaningful projects they’ve been a part of since joining The Sims family and exploring the ways in which their unique perspectives have informed the features and updates we’ve added over the past 25 years. One of the team’s newer members – Experience Designer Allie Wyatt – spoke to us about her life (and death) experience with The Sims.

What was your first role on The Sims, and how has it changed over time?

I am an experience designer. I started in October 2024, so I have only been here for a little over a year. Not much has changed in terms of the roles that I've held, but a lot has changed in terms of my knowledge, what I've learned, and how much I've grown since I've been here. 

Previous to this, I wasn't working in video games at all. I was a web UX/UI designer working on web platforms for things like benefits, and I did some education stuff too. But it was my ultimate dream to work on video games, so I finally reached the point where I was like, “I’ve gotta go for my dream. Let's do this, let's make a change.” I tried several times, actually, to get into The Sims and finally broke through. They probably got sick of seeing my name come through [laughs]. But I finally got the role. It was a huge pivot in my career and an absolutely wonderful, amazing one too.

I was so focused on The Sims because I've actually played since The Sims 1. I grew up with The Sims. It's always been a part of my life and an obsession on the side, so I was very persistent to get into The Sims specifically because I love it so much. I was always an artist in my Sims games growing up, and here I am today an artist for The Sims – it’s kind of gone full circle!

What’s the first thing you worked on?

The first thing that I really worked on in my time here was the Life and Death Expansion Pack. To be honest, it was absolutely terrifying, but I had such a great support system here. My co-workers were with me every step of the way. I have wonderful management who encouraged me too. They were like, “We know you're new to the game industry, we know you're new to implementing things into game engines. You're learning and you're doing a great job, you've got it.” They were so helpful, and they really got me through it because if I had come in here without all their support, I probably would have been terrified. 

What’s the most meaningful thing you’ve worked on and why?

Specifically the one that stands out to me is The Soul's Journey, also known as The Bucket List and Unfinished Business for the Life and Death Expansion Pack. It had two really important aspects to me. First off, since it was my intro into the games industry, this was the first big feature that I worked on that's gone live and been in front of audiences, which was a huge deal for me. In addition to that, I felt like it really allowed players to craft stories for not only their living Sims but after the Sims have died as well. It really catered their experiences and helped generate new ideas for maybe things they would have never done with their Sims before, using the bucket list.

As part of my role, we do usability testing with players to gauge their feelings about the themes and Expansion Packs, and we often pair up with the player experience team, who runs these sessions. We were filling out that theme pretty early on because we were aware that it can be a really difficult and stressful theme for people. We definitely had guidance from leadership along the way, making sure that we didn't make this too dark because, you know, we had all of these dark ideas from the beginning and it's like, “How do we have this spooky side of the game but also keep it lighthearted?” We definitely had to keep gauging players’ interests along the way, get feedback from leadership, all kinds of stuff, and I think we came out with a good balance at the end.

How does your personal experience help shape your work?

It's funny growing up with The Sims, which kind of inspired my own personal experience in terms of loving those quirky and fun and silly things in life. Those colorful things have kind of come full circle, and I want to give a splash of color to everything I do here. I really, really enjoyed creating the UI art for the Life and Death Expansion Pack because I got to bring in these colorful gradients for the living side and kind of make it just a little dark and spooky for the dead side. It allowed me to really bring in my own creative flair to it because I love to give everything a splash of those pretty colors and those gradients.

How important is it for Maxis to allow players to see themselves in The Sims?

It's everything. The amount that you can do in the game – it just sparks that imagination and inspiration to show that anyone of any background can accomplish amazing things both inside and outside The Sims. Seeing yourself accomplishing these things is like, “Yeah, I can do it. My Sim can do it, I can do it.”

People say a lot of times “don't read the comments,” but when Life and Death launched, I couldn't help myself with it being my first pack. And I was pleasantly surprised to see how players were interacting with the pack. For example, like with the grieving rituals, the funeral feature, I saw a specific comment that was talking about how they relived saying goodbye to their dad in the game. I thought that was extremely meaningful, kind of a way to take such a heavy subject and create something positive. I thought players took a great spin on the subject matter.