The Sims 5 will likely give players more ways to experiment with their Sims than ever before, but one family from the series takes their own experiments to a disturbing extent. Players will always be naturally inclined to play around and see what is possible, especially when it comes to bizarre glitches and AI quirks. After all, The Sims is a lot like watching an experiment, with the player observing various Sims' interactions and routines. That makes it particularly creepy when certain Sims seem to have their own dubious agendas that reflect similar ideals.
While players often make their own Sims, The Sims has many premade families created by the developers who can be embodied instead. These households represent a variety of characters and dynamics. For example, the recurring Goth household consists of an affluent family who lives near a graveyard, while the Frio family from The Sims 3 features two brothers with wildly different personalities. Since these premade families also exist in their home maps, a good part of the fun is seeing how they interact with the player's Sims and whatever situations that they are placed in. One such family are scientists known as the Beakers.
The Beakers May Be The Most Villainous Family in The Sims
While most families in The Sims are mundane, the sunset entry The Sims 2 introduced the outright-sinister Beakers. They are described as secretive, and constantly run experiments on a man named Nervous Subject. Circe's lore is more worrying, as she's described as knowing 238 different ways to make people scream and is concerned that her experiments could jeopardize her career. Whatever the Beakers are doing is deeply unethical, further proven by their family photo from The Sims 2 which features Nervous being put through some sort of nightmarish-looking experiment. Yet neither Loki nor Circe have the Evil trait despite this.
The Beaker family dynamic makes their situation look even more worrying than The Sims 4's creepy character glitches. Loki and Circe adopted Nervous Subject, and their constant experiments led to his paranoia and fear. While Loki and Circe would eventually have two children of their own, that doesn't reflect well on them either. Atom and Ceres Beaker were both genetically engineered to be the ideal children in their parents' minds, making them essentially another one of Loki and Circe's experiments. The fact that Atom's future self in The Sims 3 has the Evil trait does not speak well for their parenting skills.
Even though The Sims is largely plotless, the Beakers are one of the closest things it has to an antagonist, and improvements coming to The Sims 5 could play into that. Since the Beakers are already established to care little for ethics, Loki and Circe could finally get the Evil trait that they deserve, and the game could also include more opportunities to show off their mad scientist sides. While the game could not give them any truly disastrous powers, the Beakers' villainy should exist in more forms than just their backstory.
Up to this point, the Beakers' villainous actions have almost completely been in the background. With proper gameplay changes, such as a morality system in The Sims 5, the Beakers' long-kept secrets could get dragged out into the open. They are essentially a sinister reflection of Sims players, with their experiments somewhat reminiscent of the way that players can adjust the world and character traits to their choosing. The difference is that the Beakers are wholly selfish, whereas players are encouraged to help their Sims. The Sims 5 could finally let everyone see The Beakers for who they really are.
The Sims 5 is in development.