Sims 4 dev: "It's like playing with clay"

The Sims 4 will feature such a high level of customisation that it will allow players to mold their Sims "like clay", according to producer Graham Nardone.

Previous iterations of The Sims have included basic customisation methods for players to get the kinds of characters they wanted.

Nardone claims that The Sims 4 improves on that greatly, so that players will even be able to recreate different ethnicities for their Sims.

"In terms of, you know, customising your Sim, creating them, playing them, a great reference or analogy we're using for them is, 'It's like playing with clay'," Nardone told ArabicGamers.

"You get this basic Sim, setup their body structure, which is something entirely new by clicking on these different archetypes for a body, and through that we're actually able to recreate different ethnicities that were really difficult to do in past Sims games.

"It's very nice because we're a very worldwide game, we have a global audience and people want to be able to make Sims that look like themselves or look like their friends and that's going to be a lot easier now with these foundations.

"And then you're just pushing and pulling on top of that and getting results immediately when you're interacting with your Sim. So it's really cool."

The Sims 4 arrives early 2014 on PC and Mac.