2024 was an eventful 12 months for The Sims 4, if solely as a result of we obtained affirmation that The Sims 5 isn’t coming. As an alternative, we’ve been promised a perpetual, live-service-esque model of the sport we’ve identified and beloved for a decade. This 12 months, we additionally obtained a brand new death-themed growth, which is ironic seeing as all this reside service stuff is killing my love for the sport.
I’ve been a Sims fan lengthy sufficient to have seen the franchise at its worst. I’m an apologist for all of the unusual console spinoffs, together with The Urbz and The Sims 2 Castaway. I’ve been round lengthy sufficient to know that, when The Sims 4 got here out, it felt like a hole model of its former self, with its most detailed customization options gutted, seemingly within the identify of promoting (by some means) much more expansions.
EA has by no means hidden its extra money-hungry habits. Oddly sufficient, although, the worst factor about this new period of always-online updates has been the freebies. In Could 2024, The Sims 4 launched the primary of a brand new sequence of reside ‘occasions’. ‘Pleased at Residence’ rewarded you with free equipment, family objects, and even traits once you logged in constantly sufficient. Sounds neat, proper?
Bolstered by this primary run, The Sims 4 launched a second occasion to our digital dollhouses. Reaper’s Rewards was much more interactive than its predecessor, because it requested you to finish a sequence of small duties to unlock some freebies. Catch some fish, plant just a few timber, and also you’ll earn some trad goth denims. Flirt with the Grim Reaper, and also you’ll unlock a brand new tattoo. You get the image.
For me, occasions like these are completely antithetical to how and why I play The Sims. The tip purpose was at all times to create, to not get hold of.
I’m right here to design the charming indifferent three-bed of my desires and transfer in a Sim that appears precisely like me, solely with entry to infinite cash. I’m right here to hand-rear the right cult chief from beginning, then watch his group collapse a number of generations later once they flip to vampirism. I’m right here to maximise the productiveness of an bold center supervisor and see how shortly they’ll attain the highest stage of their enterprise profession if they’ve WooHoo each single day.
Within the Sims, I’m grasp of my very own area. I’m the storyteller, the artist, and the inside designer. I’ve whole energy over life and loss of life, happiness and despair. I’m all-powerful.
So you may think about my dismay when an out of doors drive turned up and handed me a banal weekly guidelines to carry out.
After I performed with dolls as a toddler, my mom didn’t lean over my shoulder and ask me to make these dolls do laundry. Nobody else had the suitable to micromanage my non-public narratives – which is strictly what these latest occasions are doing.
Alright, lots of the prompt quests have been menial. Stopping to ask a neighbor about Ambrosia or cooking one thing totally different for dinner wouldn’t disrupt the cinematic universe I painstakingly created. I may even select to disregard the sport’s requests.
Besides, if I did that, the sport by no means stopped reminding me. The guidelines completely lived within the top-left nook of the display, in the identical place the place in-game occasions like Love Day and Lottery Day normally seem. These seasonal actions may be closed for those who don’t need to participate, however this wasn’t a privilege that Reaper’s Rewards allowed. You may decrease the occasions field, however it by no means really went away – and it might re-open itself any time you switched management to a unique Sim.
The occasion proved much more disruptive by introducing new glitches to the sport. Many gamers who really needed to have interaction with Reaper’s Rewards reported that it was extraordinarily buggy. You couldn’t full the quests in case your Sims existed on sure heaps, for instance – which was by no means clearly communicated as a part of the occasion.
One Redditor shared an anecdote the place buyer help beneficial that they begin a completely new save in the event that they need to take part with occasions like Reaper’s Rewards. That takes this new reside occasion from irritating micromanaging to totally dictating the best way we play.
As somebody who selected to not have interaction with Reaper’s Rewards, I didn’t personally see its quite a few UI points. I did see a rise in minor bugs in the remainder of my sport, nonetheless. Sims stretching to uncommon heights, floating infants, all types of minor oddities that shouldn’t be.
Reaper’s Rewards mercifully ended on November 19, just a few weeks after the Life and Dying growth pack was launched. Ultimately, I may benefit from the Sims 4’s macabre new taste at my very own tempo. I may dive deep into the effectively of Gothic inside design and discover new kooky profession paths, comparable to enterprise or working as a literal Grim Reaper.
That peace lasted for 2 weeks. On December 3, a brand new Christmas-themed occasion kicked off. A contemporary replace to the sport launched a brand new, unavoidable guidelines of festive busywork. Glitches as soon as once more started to rear their ugly head.
I’m not so aggrieved with these new occasions that I’ll cease taking part in the Sims 4 perpetually. I’ve spent 20 years of my life with the franchise, and it’ll take some critically heinous modifications to sever that bond. Nevertheless, these occasions really feel like the primary rumbles of a storm but to come back.
Login bonuses and reward-driven targets reek of the FOMO-driven enterprise mannequin utilized by microtransaction-heavy free-to-play video games. The rewards stay free for now, however they may simply be the carrot that comes earlier than the stick.
I bear in mind the early 2000s, when every copy of The Sims got here with a code that meant it may solely be downloaded as soon as, stopping followers from shopping for copies second-hand. I’m absolutely conscious that the present iteration of The Sims expects you to pay over $1,000 if you wish to entry all obtainable expansions. I’ve a lot love for The Sims, however I’ve by no means beloved the best way it’s monetized. I haven’t a lot religion that, in the long run, these occasions will pan out within the participant’s favor.
Whereas the Life and Dying growth might have introduced new life to The Sims 4’s enterprise mannequin, I’m involved it may very well be the loss of life of my love for the sport. This Christmas, I’m asking Father Winter for the optimism I don’t presently really feel. Please, guarantee that this new method received’t be the change that pushes me over the sting.