The Sims has been a beloved franchise for over two decades, but some of the decisions made with The Sims 4 have left a bad taste in fans' mouths. Much of what was missing in the initial release of The Sims 4 in 2014 has been brought back with paid DLC or, like cars, has yet to make an appearance. Fans were initially excited by the flexibility provided to players by The Sims 4's creative controls, which improved upon the system in Sims 3.
The character creator itself was more dynamic for its time, offering a push-and-pull method of changing a Sims' shape, rather than relying on sliders like in previous games. However, upon launch, The Sims 4 players found that for every improvement made to Create A Sim mode, there were more features missing. The color wheel had completely disappeared, hair and clothing styles were limited, and skin tones were few and of low quality. The same could be said for Creative Mode, which at the time was strangely devoid of much of what made The Sims fun - namely pools.
Why The Sims 4's Launch and Limitations Set a Problematic Precedent
At launch in 2014, the base game was bare bones. There were no pools or hot tubs, no ability to edit worlds or place empty lots, no terrain tools, and, perhaps worst of all, the open-world gameplay of The Sims 3 was replaced by a series of loading screens. There were no toddlers, life states hardly mattered, and there were major limitations to gameplay in The Sims 4 that weren't present in previous games. By all accounts, it felt more like a step backward than forwards. While there have been occasional free patches to improve the sparse base game, most quality-of-life improvements lie behind an immense paywall.
EA and Maxis have made an impressive amount of money removing basic features and selling them back to players at a premium price. Currently, it costs nearly $1,000 for all 63 of the expansions, kits, and stuff packs combined. Nothing was more egregious than 2021's Bust the Dust game kit, which is exactly what it sounds like. After 7 years, Sims finally had the ability to sweep, vacuum, and gather dust - for just $4.99.
In a move that adds insult to injury, there is cross-compatibility between packs, leaving the packs themselves feeling half-empty if players don't have the other supporting DLC. The Sims 4's Cats and Dogs pack introduced the roomba, while Discover University gave Sims the cleaner bot. Both of these items can interact with the Bust the Dust kit, but the kit itself doesn't come with roombas or cleaner bots.
The Sims 4's DLC Feature Expensive Gameplay with Little Value
In order for a Sim to live the ultimate life of cleanliness, it would cost $39.99 for Discover University, with an additional $39.99 for Cats and Dogs, on top of the $5 Dust kit. $85 for a sim to be able to completely clean their house is a bit too much, and that doesn't even include The Sims 4's Laundry Day pack. As if it couldn't get any worse, the game kit was a buggy mess when it came out. Many packs that were present in Sims 3 make a vague return in the sequel, though most still have yet to stand up to the level of its predecessor.
The Sims 4's equivalent of The Sims 3's Pets DLC is the Cats and Dogs expansion, though there aren't many similarities between the two. While dogs and cats were present in The Sims 3 Pets DLC, so were horses, lizards, turtles, snakes, and birds. Half the content of The Sims 3 pack is missing in The Sims 4, which appears to be a trend with every DLC. Where The Sims 3 gave us the Supernaturals DLC with new life states including Ghosts, Vampires, Witches, Werewolves, Fairies, and Genies - players would have to buy 3–4 packs in Sims 4 to have all the same content, though notably genies and fairies are still missing.
The Sims 4's Predatory Monetization Tactics Shouldn't Return in The Sims 5
This predatory system of monetizing missing content and releasing it under multiple packs set a dangerous precedent ahead of The Sims 5. It wasn't until 2020 that fans finally got a free patch with the hair and skin tones they had been requesting - over 6 years since the initial complaints. From 2014 to October 2020 when that Quality of Life patch came out, there had been 35 DLC released.
Some DLC packs were not even great, like the infamous Journey to Batuu pack in 2020, featuring poorly-made Star Wars costumes in The Sims 4, as well as unremarkable gameplay. Many fans criticized the pack for straying too far from The Sims' core gameplay elements when there was still much to be fixed. Though the pack was thought to add new aliens, they turned out to simply be alien masks slapped on a normal Sim. The general sentiment was that a sloppy pack would be put together while basic gameplay features had yet to return, such as driving, or babies being more than objects.
While the teaser for The Sims 5 showcased many improvements to the current state of Sims gameplay, it is difficult to find excitement in a franchise that showed predatory tactics very recently. It is unknown whether the developers will change their approach with the next installment of the franchise. For the health of the franchise, this relentless system of monetization for basic gameplay elements should stop. Unfortunately, the upcoming Growing Together DLC for The Sims 4 seems to use the same principles.
