So when you're dealing with The Sims -- the most popular PC video game franchise ever made, with over 120 million copies sold -- you could certainly forgive publisher EA the cautious approach it's taken to changing up the series' tried-and-true virtual dollhouse gameplay. Past attempts to break the Sims mold, like 2002's abortive The Sims Online, haven't fared well, but for their next Sims release EA is ready to try something new.

The Sims Medieval, which releases on March 22 on PC and Mac, takes Sims fans way back to the Middle Ages, where they'll discover simulated life's rather different than they might have gotten used to. Sure, you'll still be able to do the usual Sims stuff -- eat, drink, have babies, set yourself on fire -- but The Sims: Medieval's gameplay will be more structured, more directed, and include a much heavier emphasis on role-playing.



Put your wizard's hat and twenty-sided dice away, though. The Sims: Medieval is going to be far from the nerdy, hey-nonny-nonnery of Dungeons and Dragons -- and even a fair distance from Sims publisher EA's recent -playing release, Dragon Age II. Medieval will be recognizably a Sims game, using a game engine that's largely the same as The Sims 3, but with a period-appropriate facelift and plenty of extras: complex, multi-part quests, player-controlled kingdoms for you to develop, and, naturally, heroes.

Completing a quest will level up your characters, earn you money, and develop your kingdom, adding new buildings or improving existing ones. It'll also cost you Quest Points -- and you only have a limited number of those per playthrough. Run out, and the game ends.

Wait, what? Legendarily open-ended, Sims games typically don't "finish," instead letting you play out your virtual dollhouse ad nauseum. But Medieval will put a period to your heroic adventures once you've completed enough quests -- and when it does, the game will look at your kingdom's advancement, comparing it with targets set at the outset, and determine how well you played. This new, goal-oriented structure will make it more of a game -- and less of a toy -- than other Sims titles, and that's going to be quite an adjustment for fans.