EA Maxis, the developers of The Sim's franchise, are currently working on a new unannounced IP.

A New IP is in the works with job listings referencing so all over EA Maxis' website.

https://www.ea.com/careers/careers-overview/worldwide-studios/maxis

A few Bits taking from the listings:

"Maxis in Austin, Texas is looking for a Senior Character Artist to join our successful development team working on a new IP." .

"Lead our art team in the creation of a new, unannounced title"

"We are gearing up for our next big production"

"Experienced at establishing art vision and guidelines, preferable on new IPs"

"collaborating with others to develop excellent user experiences for new IP"

What could this new IP be?

"Collaborate closely with Art, Design, & Animation teams to create beautiful effects that offer creative solutions to design challenges, add life to the game world, and create wow moments for the users."

"stylized interpretations of real-world visual effects following our game’s art direction".

"Experience launching a live service."

"Experience producing effects such as smoke, fire, clouds, water, steam, and explosions."

"Experience with run-time dynamic systems for physics-based animation, impact interactions, destruction, water, cloth & hair sim, etc."

"Extend the game's aesthetic vision beyond core game visuals to cohesively support UI/UX, Live Services and marketing considerations"

SPECULATION

I honestly don't have much of an idea on what it could be. Judging only from the fire and smoke VFX mention, My guess is it's going to be a game that is very much like the Sims, possibly more like the castaway variants. Not sure why they wouldn't use The Sims franchise name for that.

They seem to be going for a strong visual art direction and there's mention of live services (could be MMO?).

The bit that sounds most eye-brow raising though is physics based animations and destructable environments, explosions etc. It sounds completely different to Maxis usual games. I really do wonder what could be in the works?

*A few weeks back EA announced they needed play testers for an unannounced Sims game. It could either be heavily tied to the Sims franchise, or EA could just be calling the fifth game in the series a new IP.

Thoughts on this?