I'm usually not one for speculation, but the Sims team has hinted towards a winter retreat type pack 3 different times now this year. That's gotta mean something.
Hint one: In the community survey 3 months ago they asked multiple questions relating to winter sports. In one part of the survey they discussed resorts a lot and mentioned mountain climbing as a possible vacation activity. They then dedicated an entire section of this survey on "
Snow Activities", asking people to rank downhill skiing, ice skating on a pond, cross-country skiing, snowboarding, ice fishing, mountain climbing, snowshoeing and sledding. Obviously these are all winter sports activities, which would most likely require their own world - most likely a vacation world.
Hint two: Then, a few days ago the Sims team released another community survey and in this survey they listed possible new vacation worlds, one of these options was a "Swiss Mountain Town" which obviously fits in with the whole winter sports and snowy vacation theme they discussed in the previous survey.
Hint three: Then, in the trailer for Eco Lifestyle you can see snowy mountains in the background and a very alpine looking forest surrounds the neighbourhood shown in the trailer. Not only that but the trailer ends with Northern Lights. Normally I'd say this is nothing, but we know now that a part of the Discover University world was hinting towards Eco Lifestyle so it is likely that they'd do the same thing again.
At this point this is still speculation, but this is a lot for it just to be a coincidence and all the pieces do fit together. It also fits with the timeline, we'd expect a Game Pack to come later on in the year (Fall-Winter time most likely) so a winter related pack would work
Edit: This pack also appeared on a 2017 survey so it's definitely something that's been considered for a long time, not just a new thing so it could very likely be this year, similarly to how Eco Lifestyle was first asked about years before its release.
The pack also appeared on an old survey as an EP.
Update 2: 14th July 2020
In the new Nifty Knitting trailer, at the last second we see an elder sim and this sim is dreaming of sledding! Sledding has been mentioned in multiple different surveys as an activity that this pack could include...
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I think the next GP will be something else. But we will probably get a winter gp soon.
But not until january 2021, I think.
I'm not really sure how long it would take to make a game pack but I feel like it'd be around 4-8 months for a game pack as they always stick to releasing the same amount of packs every year so they most definitely don't spend years on each one. I think it could be quite easily possible if they started building ideas December-January for it to be ready by the end of this year
The pack also appeared on an old survey as an EP.
We already have most of that, except for the snowboarding competitions, snowshoes, and hotels. Snow, snowmen, snow angels, snowball fights came with Seasons, and the mountain resort came with Outdoor Retreat. We even have a Yeti bear costume in game.
If this is going to be a GP, I'd guess early next year. That's if it's going to be a vacation world. if they've veered from that and toward an EP, since the survey asking about snow activities wasn't all that long ago, I'm guessing November 2021 at the earliest.
Which makes this pack even more likely to be an EP, as the alternative snow activities (skiing, snowmobiling, sledding, etc.) they can add instead are even more expensive to make.
that makes me think the GP will be a horse one, of like competive horse activities... because then in the snow EP you would only be able to have sledding by horse if you have that GP... even that isnt really fully new considering horses was in sims 3, but maybe if they put the focus on it being actually competive horse sport, or something... it would also give teen agers something to do...
You don't really need a horse for sledding. You could get a big dog to pull the sled, or another sim, or no sim at all. There are more styles to riding a sled (or a toilet lid if you don't have a sled).
Free-roaming, non-object horses like the ones we had in TS3 are incredibly expensive to develop. There is no way horses can fit in a GP and they can only come with an EP.
Farm animals like cows, pigs, chicken, etc. meanwhile are likely object based (similar to rodents and fish we already have) and more likely to fit in a GP.
I think of sledding as just tobogganing (and variations on that) down a hill.
Yes, I think that's the most common. And adults pulling toddlers and children riding one down the street.
They say that the GP is something never been done before. Keep that in mind.
I doubt they'd create all the winter activities they've suggested though, I expect they'd just narrow it down to the most popular ones/easiest to create, we already have skating and fishing already so ice skating and ice fishing would take barely any work to add. I feel like it wouldn't really be "expansion" material just because vacation worlds have been game packs in this game from day one so it's most likely to stick to that format.
Let's make Liberty and Justice For All a reality.
They surveyed “Summer Vacation” as an EP in the same survey and it turned into Island Living, an EP. The same thing could happen here too and the world won’t even be a vacation world.
In the January community survey they also asked about the ability to run your own resort. If that’s added, I would expect a vacation system overhaul to allow you to vacation in any worlds and place resorts in any worlds. I doubt they’d force your Sim to travel to a vacation world in order to run a resort.
My guess is it will be EP10, and it will come in november/december.
Hopefully it is actualy a VACATION pack, and not some adventure (I love JA, but it's not a vacation pack). And hopefully it will add hotels.
lol...hee hee hee
Yeah I could see us get a winter resort game pack...