The Sims and Loki's Kate Herron are a match made in heaven

21.03.2024 - 16:05 / radiotimes.com / Margot Robbie / Tom Hiddleston / Sophia Di-Martino / Kate Herron

News that The Sims was getting a big-screen adaptation – with Barbie's Margot Robbie executive producing, no less – made waves on the internet overnight.

And it's not surprising: Anyone who has booted up any game in the series since it first began in 2000 knows the sheer joy that the life simulator's boundless options can provide.

Crafting a career for one Sim in the police force while they're living under the same roof as a career criminal. Making them learn magic tricks in the morning before sending them on a trip to Vacation Island in the evening. Even getting bored and trying out different ways to kill them off to create some drama – the game really has it all. (We've all done that final one… right?)

Whatever you fancy getting up to, The Sims is your oyster. That's the appeal of the title – it's a chance to push boundaries in new and unexpected ways. And this must also be a major appeal for filmmakers.

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In the wrong hands, of course, this absence of constraints could easily lead to nonsensical dross. When the options are so limitless, when the potential scope for a movie is so vast, the storytelling could easily fall by the wayside in favour of flashy visuals and a disjointed sequence of unconnected goings-on – as 2018's rather shallow Ready Player One proved.

However, under the watchful eye of Loki's Kate Herron, this wild idea might just come good.

In the first season of the god of mischief's Disney Plus show, the director proved she has all of the skills and sensibilities to take a giant blank canvas and craft something focused and engaging.

In that show, the introduction of the Time Variance Authority opened the door to literally endless possibilities, countless timelines and realities, and Herron and her team made the most of the insanity that could provide.

Whether it was Tom Hiddleston's Loki bumping into a reptilian version of himself at the end of time or Richard E Grant sporting dodgy cosplay to take down an ethereal being, that first season took bold swings whenever it could, leading to several of the MCU's most memorable moments in the process.

Yet for all of the madness, it was the admittedly slightly odd relationship between Loki and his variant Sylvie (Sophia Di Martino), and the blossoming friendship between god of mischief and TVA agent Mobius (Owen Wilson), that really hooked audiences in.

This same formula could work wonders in The Sims. With countless expansions and mod packs across the past two decades – bringing magic and 'hot dates', all manner of pets and actual alien life forms –