On this day, exactly 17 years ago, virtual people from the series The Sims have moved into a three-dimensional world with the game The Sims 2.
The great commercial success of The Sims guaranteed sequels, and the first successor appeared half a decade later. The Sims 2 was a huge leap over the original game and progressed in almost every aspect more than any later sequel.
The most significant was the transition to a three-dimensional environment. The Sims 2 moved away from the camera's fixed camera angles and allowed players to rotate and zoom in / out the camera as they saw fit.
It took a bit of getting used to, but the change was generally well-received, and the game looked much more realistic in 3D.
The creation of the characters has become extremely detailed. The second part not only brought more hairstyles, clothes, and jewelry but The Sims could be created down to small details - such as the size of the eyes, nose, ears, etc.
The characters could use facial expressions to show the player how they felt - laughing, frowning, and similar.
While the first Sims had three life stages, the deuce added four new phases to them so we could follow our virtual people as teenagers in puberty and retirees in their later years.
The Sims also gained weight and lost weight depending on their habits, had aspirations in their lives, passed on their genes between generations, etc.
For the first time in the series, it was possible to make same-sex relationships.
The Sims 2 was exclusive to the PC platform upon release.
Later, in custom versions, the game appeared on almost all consoles at the time, but the PC version was and remains separate.
A total of eight game expansions were launched, from extensions brought to Simsima by student life, seasons, living in small apartments, etc. Ten extensions were also offered for clothing and items, including collaborations with brands such as H&M and IKEA.
No one was surprised by the good sales of The Sims 2.
In the first ten days, the game was played by more than a million players, and by 2012, more than six million copies had been sold, which was an unusually good result for the PC platform at the time.
The game was later shared for free on the Electronic Arts platform Origin, and went on sale in 2017, and can no longer be purchased in digital form.