Project Vie Makes Good On March 15 Announcement, But Probably An Elaborate Hoax

Project Vie, the new life simulation game that made a bold announcement last month, made good on their promise of a March 15 announcement. However, the screenshots and description provided look sketchy, causing some to people to believe that Project Vie is a hoax.

After making bold announcements through cryptic tweets and mysterious Reddit posts that Project Vie will topple EA’s The Sims 4, a source from Mod the Sims has actually warned Simmers that they were being scammed. Madame Butterfly explained that one of the banned members from their private forum has decided to troll the Sim community with a fake game.

“It was my hope that interest in this fake project would die out, as some of us did not want to see people getting their hopes up on an empty promise. Plus, we did not want this scam to be tied to our group in any way,” Madame Butterfly wrote. “However, this ex-member enjoyed the attention that they were getting from the Sim community, and they have not felt the need to set the record straight. I do possess the ‘smoking gun’ that would prove what I am stating, but to share it would go against our charter. You are just going to have to take my word for it, as I know that some of you can vouch for my sincerity on this matter.”

In a Reddit thread where members had begun to declare that Project Vie is definitely a hoax, a member of the project responded to clarify speculations.

“We’ve looked into the claims that were made, and our conclusion is that the comments referred to by the poster on Mod The Sims were made by someone who was at one point loosely involved with the project. This person has not been at all involved since early September. These comments were not only intentionally misleading, but were also intended to cause confusion. Although the opposite does indeed appear credible, the claims made by this person last year, on this private forum, can only be a strong distortion of reality,” declared a Project Vie representative.

Despite warnings, a number of Simmers continued to stay on the positive side and waited for the March 15 announcement. Project Vie did come through with their promise, but the buildup to their first major announcement was probably the only good part in all this. There was no streaming demo for the supposedly awesome new life simulator that’s supposed to topple The Sims 4 from its pedestal. Instead, the “announcements” were made in a series of tweets.

Create convincing characters in stunning detail and build their personalities through powerful and intuitive tools.

— Vie (@PlayVie) March 15, 2017

Shape their world in every sense as you build, decorate, and destroy. Change their neighborhoods and the places they'll go.

— Vie (@PlayVie) March 15, 2017

It was finally declared that Vie is coming in 2018.

Vie, Coming 2018.#VieIsComing pic.twitter.com/QhuERKdpd8

— Vie (@PlayVie) March 15, 2017

As dissected by the Sims Community Info, an excerpt from Project Vie’s game summary blatantly references Rick Astley’s Never Gonna Give You Up chorus.

“CREATE THEM, CONTROL THEM, COMPLETE THEM – Create convincing characters in stunning detail and build their personalities through powerful and intuitive tools. Steer their lives on every level, and create their stories in a lively open world. Live them up, or let them down. Run around, or desert them,” reads Project Vie’s description.

Furthermore, the screenshots provided were less than stellar. Project Vie claimed that these were from a very early version of the game. But here’s the problem: If one would make a bold announcement that EA had better watch out for this new game, at least make the first visuals impressive, to say the least.

If Project Vie is, in fact, a hoax, it’s careful planning did fool a lot of hopefuls. Unfortunately, it does look like Vie is a well-thought out and elaborate troll. The team has built it up for years, even getting its own domain and creating a survey to ask about what gamers would want to see in a much-improved life simulation game — just like how EA releases surveys to aid in their planned Sims expansion packs.

Meanwhile, Simmers will just have to stay put and keep on hoping that their calls to EA for better content will be heeded, because it looks like The Sims 4 remains unchallenged.

[Featured Image by Project Vie]