The Sims 3 features a brand new engine that allows you to immerse your unique Sims in an open living neighborhood where they can roam and explore all new surroundings including the beach, mountains and town center. The neighborhood is alive and constantly evolving so what happens to a Sim on one side of the neighborhood could impact your Sims on the other side of town! If your Sims are in the right place at the right time, who knows what might happen? And now for the first time, your Sims have distinctive personalities thanks to a range of all-new personality traits. You have the option to select from dozens of personality traits such as brave, artistic, kleptomaniac, clumsy, paranoid and romantic. Combine up to five traits to create an endless number of truly diverse individuals.

The all-new Create-a-Sim allows you to completely customize your Sims' appearances making every Sim unique. The feature is easy-to-use and more powerful than ever, letting you fine-tune every aspect of your Sims face, customize their hair color, select the exact shade of their skin tone and determine much more to make lifelike Sims. It's never been easier to make Sims that are thin, full-figured or muscular and everything in between! In true The Sims fashion, you can customize everything. The Sims 3 allows for infinite possibilities to design the interior and exterior of your Sims surroundings.

Additionally, you can enjoy the challenge of short-term and long-term goals and then reap the rewards! Based on personality traits, skills and career choices, your Sims have short and long term Wishes that provide constant fun challenges, things to do and achieve. You have the ultimate freedom to choose whether to fulfill their destiny, giving them lifetime happiness and rewards or not! Will your Sim skyrocket from latrine cleaner to an astronaut, go from being a rabid fan to a sports legend or will you choose an alternate destiny? In The Sims 3, life is what you make it!

In addition to the town included in the game, a second town, Riverview will be available for download from The Sims 3 official website, which will also allow players to create and share their own movies, manage their online content and purchase additional in-game content.

“With such a vibrant and active community as The Sims has, we wanted to build even further on the already immense offline experience, by offering players additional functionality, content and tools available online through the game,” said Ben Bell, Executive Producer of The Sims 3. “One example of the many online tools we’ve added to the game is the Create a Movie tool. Within the game, players can easily set up the camera angle they want, capture in-game footage, play director and producer and then post their movies online to show off to the world.”

Key Online Elements Include:

• Included with purchase of the game is $10 worth of SimPoints, which players receive when they first register their game online at TheSims3.com. They can use their SimPoints towards downloading exclusive in-game items from The Sims 3 Store to customize their game. For additional items, players can purchase bundles of 500, 1000 and 2000 SimPoints in $USD, EUR, GBP and other major international currencies using a variety of payment methods including international and national credit cards, PayPal, and EA cash cards (in North America only). Whether it’s the must-have new outfit or the latest style of plaid furniture, players have the opportunity to further customize and populate their Sims world with additional items.
• The Game Launcher is the key entry point for players into TheSims3.com community. This hub page connects players to both the Store and the Exchange, and provides them with news and information about game updates. Players can keep track of their downloads, uploads, installs, game updates and their media portfolio that includes the videos and photos they can capture while playing the game. The Game Launcher also alerts players to new content in the store, localized game and store promotions along with relevant updates to the Store and cool new content from the community.
• With the launch of the game on June 2, The Sims 3 website will be replaced with the full community and product site for the game. The site will not only connect players, encourage new ways to be creative in the game, and offer personally relevant information for each user, it also will serve as the hub site where players can share their content with other members, and embed them on social networking sites and blogs.
• Key Site Features:
  • The Exchange: Building off of The Sims 2 Exchange’s success of more than 100M downloads, The Sims 3 Exchange highlights featured items, most popular downloads, powerful search and browse capabilities, along with giving players the ability to see what other players are recommending.
  • Create a Movie and Create a Story: New easily accessible tools inspire creativity and allow players to create movies and stories and then show them off or share them with friends. Players can show off their Movies with the Create a Movie Tool by embedding them on external sites or with an email link back to their Movie on TheSims3.com.
  • My Page and My Studio: The Sims 3 product site will allow players to maintain their profile pages on their My Page section as well as offering them the new My Studio section to manage all their creations – Movies, Stories, Exchange objects. My Page is also a blog space where players can post news, customize it with a personal avatar, track favorites and more. Users can make friends with other The Sims 3 players and share their content across a number of social network sites.

Features :

• New Seamless, Open Neighbourhood the Neighbourhood Freely.
  • See the sights with your Sims! The new seamless neighbourhood architecture allows your Sims to roam freely around the neighbourhood and visit their loved one and friends—or foes. Discovering other Sims homes and families, travelling around to new locations like City Hall or the local park will create a whole new way of life for your Sims. Storytelling options will multiply as your Sims stroll downtown to meet new acquaintances, head across town for lunch, spy on their neighbours and bump into the boss when they least expect it.
• New Create A Sim—Create Any Sim You Can Imagine.
  • In addition to the open, living neighbourhood, the all-new Create-a-Sim interface will feature easy-to-use design tools that allow you to make truly detailed Sims that are more realistic than ever. Create-a-Sim gives you the incredible freedom to customize just about any Sim you can imagine. From thin to full-figured to muscular—everything in between and even the extreme! In addition to determining your Sims body shape and size, you will also be able to fine-tune every feature on their faces, customize their hair style and select their skin tone, all from a vast selection of options. With so many choices to choose from, it is fun to create more realistic characters that look like you, someone you want to look like, or even a famous personality.
• New Realistic Personalities—Every Sim Is A Unique Person, With A Distinct Personality
  • With the innovative and proprietary Realistic Personality System in The Sims 3, you can attribute each character with five distinct personality traits, helping shape your Sims behaviour and how they interact with others and their surroundings. This new system will empower you to create extremely complex and diverse in-game personalities. Will you create the nosy, inappropriate, kleptomaniac grandmother who loves to meddle in other people’s business? Or the commitment-phobic, hot-headed punk rocker whose rude nature and childish disposition keeps him from scoring a date? In The Sims 3, Sims will go beyond the basic set of day-to-day needs to be distinct individuals with multifaceted personalities, who can focus both on short-term opportunities and long-term goals. With a wide selection of personality traits to mix and match, more than 700 million combinations of Sims await. You never know who’ll meet in The Sims 3!
• New Unlimited Customization—Everyone Can Customize Everything!
  • New and accessible creativity tools in The Sims 3 make it simple for anyone to customize anything, anywhere! From floors to flowers, fashions to sofas, wallpaper to window shades and more, The Sims 3 gives you all the flexibility and options you need to be the architect of your dream house or explore your interior design skills to outfit your ultimate home. Your Sims can make home an ultra-deluxe mansion, a cool bachelor pad, family’s dream home or charming cottage. The choice is yours in The Sims 3.

The Sims 3 is currently scheduled for release in June 2, 2009.