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Part 3: The Nighat Caliente vs Katrina Caliente Conflict

Welcome back to The Sims Mysteries! Today, the topic of discussion is one of the most irritating retcons The Sims 4 introduced when it upheaved the lore of The Sims. You know it, you hate it: the replacement of Nighat Caliente with Katrina Caliente. For the uninitiated Simmers, both of these ladies are the mother of Nina and Dina Caliente, the infamous vixens first introduced in Pleasantview, in The Sims 2. Remember, the premise of these posts is that The Sims 4 does not take place in an alternate universe as is the current popular theory, but in the same timeline as all other The Sims games! So, is it possible to reconcile this conflicting parentage keeping this in mind? The answer is yes! Keep on reading to find out more about these sisters from other miss...es?

When The Sims 4 came out, and still 10 years later, Simmers have been perplexed by the replacement of Nighat with Katrina. The Sims 4 notoriously didn't even originally allow Simmers to post sims named Nighat to the gallery. Instead, it flagged those posts as containing inappropriate language. Clearly, the system that filters swear words misidentified Nighat as an offensive word. However, this just isn't the case. Nighat is an Arabic name, which reflects the heritage of Nighat's side of the family.

In my interpretation of the timeline, The Sims 4 takes place shortly before The Sims 2. In The Sims 4 Katrina is an adult, while Nighat is a deceased elder sim. When looking at Nighat and Katrina side by side, they have some pretty remarkable resemblances, from eye color, to skin tone, to facial features. Because of the different personality systems in The Sims 4 and The Sims 2, Katrina and Nighat's attributes are simultaneously dissimilar while not being conflicting. On the surface, I'm inclined to believe that they could be the same person.

However, it's worth considering that the space of time in the timeline between the setting of The Sims 4 and The Sims 2 is relatively short (less than a decade from what I calculated), meaning that it wouldn't be logical for the Caliente matriarch to have aged into an elder and passed away. But there's still a catch! As we know The Sims series features the Elixir of Life, an unlockable concoction that adds years onto a sim's lifespan, believed to have been invented by Mortimer Goth.

Some players theorize that during the Elixir's development, some sims who came into contact with it may have ended up with adverse effects: aging faster instead of getting younger. This would explain Mortimer's own rapid aging from The Sims 4 to The Sims 2 in contrast to Bella, and could also account for the discrepancy in age between Katrina and Nighat. This wouldn't rule out the possibility of Katrina and Nighat being the same person... except for a clue given in Nina and Dina's memories in The Sims 2. According to a shared memory they have, Nighat passed away when the sisters were children. Going with this version of the timeline and events, it pretty much confirms Nighat and Katrina aren't the same person.

That leaves Nina and Dina without a mother for most of their lives. Their dad Flamenco (in The Sims 2) only passes away when they're adults. It's less clear whether he would have already passed away in The Sims 4, or if he's just not included because of The Sims 4's nonexistent ancestral family trees. How then, does this make Katrina their mom?

Nina and Dina are known to have lived in at least three different places: Oasis Springs, Barnacle Bay, and Pleasantview. My theory is that some time after Nighat passed away, Flamenco may have been unable or unwilling to take care of Nina and Dina, for unknown reasons. Instead, another Caliente relative, Katrina, decided to foster the sisters in Oasis Springs, making her their foster mom. What if this is where they first met Don Lothario? The Sims 4 Caliente family's bio hints that Katrina is romantically involved with Don, but as we know Don goes on to have affairs with both Nina and Dina in Pleasantview. Could it be that this betrayal was the first in the Caliente sisters' streak of rakish relationships and devious schemes?

But all this is just speculation. In an installment of Behind The Sims in June of 2023, The Sims team dropped some completely unexpected lore about the confusing family situation. Nina and Dina didn't just move in with some relative called Katrina, they made her as a clone of their mom! The sisters must have somehow gained access to cloning technology during their youth, which is fairly well established in the world of The Sims. Longing for a mother figure, they made a new Nighat. The undeniable resemblance between Nighat and Katrina makes this even more believable.

That means the sisters' torrid affairs with Don were far from their first schemes. Before that, Nina and Dina just wanted their family to be whole again. Maybe this was what drove away Flamenco in the first place, disturbed at the idea of cloning his beloved. One way or another, though, Nina and Dina made it happen. There you have it! I for one think this mystery's as good as solved. Are you convinced by this theory? Or could there be an even more sinister dimension to Nina and Dina's dubious parentage?

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Frankie Stein, daughter of Frankenstein

Freaky just got fabulous... again! These ghouls have been done to death as sims but I had to try it for myself. I really wanted to keep in mind her original preppy punk style and combine it with a look I thought would suit her!

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Part 2: MySims in The Sims

Welcome to the second entry of The Sims Mysteries! Today, I want to tackle the topic of the overlap between the mainline The Sims games and the MySims franchise. Initially I thought it would make the most sense if two universes were separate, seeing as the references to MySims in The Sims were few and far between and didn’t really have much to do with MySims thematically, but were just nods at the spin-off franchise. When you look at the overlap closer, though, it’s relatively seamless and what's interesting is that apart from MySims characters being in The Sims games, there are references to The Sims characters in MySims! Remember, these posts are predicated on my theory that all the lore of The Sims games exists in the same timeline. The story of The Sims does not take place in alternate universes! Keep reading under the cut for my lore explanations of the sims that exist in both series!

The following sims are originally from the MySims franchise and have been featured in a mainline The Sims game, with their The Sims counterpart first and MySims counterpart second:

Candy Behr = DJ Candy ‘Supergroove’

Yuki Behr = Yuki

Summer Holiday = Summer

Liberty Lee = Liberty

Travis Scott = Travis

Vincent Skullfinder = Sir Vincent Skullfinder

Since sims in MySims are ageless, it’s hard to say where the game fits on the timeline of the mainline games. Due to the inclusion of all MySims characters except Vincent in The Sims 4, MySims (at least the original game) would probably take place directly before/during/after The Sims 4, considering the MySims characters don’t seem to differ in age from their Sims 4 counterparts.

However, with the typical carelessness for lore in The Sims 4, MySims characters have technically been adapted twice into The Sims 4. Alongside their adaptation as Sims into the Sims 4, there are obviously also the collectible MySims trophies. Lore-wise, this doesn't really make sense. You could argue that this is because the MySims characters are famous or well-known in The Sims but this wouldn't make sense for a lot of them. Therefore I don't really see any lore reason behind the trophies and would personally just write them off as collectibles.

With the closeness of MySims and The Sims 4 on the timeline, this poses the conflict of Vincent Skullfinder being already deceased in Sunset Valley in the Sims 3, the earliest iteration of The Sims games. Therefore, meaning he couldn't be the contemporary of the other MySims characters in The Sims 4. However, I think this is a really interesting prospect. As I've mentioned before, Sir Vincent Skullfinder could simply be a descendant of Vincent Skullfinder, or, based on the MySims character's interest in both archaeology (thus, potentially including recently deceased sims such as himself) and the in-game Spooky interest, he may be an undead sim that has resurrected from his resting place in Sunset Valley. In fact, maybe through some supernatural means he was able to use magic while he was alive to grant him the power to come back to live once he passed away.

There coincidentally seems to be a couple more problems surrounding MySims turned The Sims characters: for example, Candy Behr’s controversial Barbie build, or Travis’ surname being Scott, as in the real life Travis Scott. Obviously this is confusing on multiple levels and I think his name should be revised as soon as possible. When The Sims 4 came out, the actual Travis Scott was already performing but hadn't even released his debut album yet. I think someone on The Sims 4 team probably thought that it would be a cool Easter egg to allude to a real-world person, not realizing how uncanny it would seem ten years on when the name Travis Scott is unambiguously associated with one person. When new players load up the game now, it's confusing to try to find the connection between the two, because there actually isn't one.

For a new name for Travis, I suggest Travis Britt, not least in honor of his classic MySims Union Jack sweater. It has a nice semantic connection with the surname Scott, anyway. Also, in Princess Cordelia’s official household, uploaded by Maxis to the gallery, one of the pirate suitors is named Chaz MacFreeling, a reference to MySims’ Chaz McFreely. That’s where the resemblence ends, though, and considering Princess Cordelia lived centuries ago it’s safe to say these characters are unrelated.

I think that the most thought-through part of the crossover between the two franchises is actually in the MySims' reference to The Sims. In MySims, Elmira Clamp is an austere and grouchy librarian, known to mention her "Auntie Crumplebottom", who supposedly taught her that "the best mouth is a shut mouth!" Auntie Crumplebottom is thought to be Mrs Crumplebottom, from The Sims 2. Assuming a patrilineal succession of surnames, with Elmira being single and her surname being Clamp we can presume that her mother was a sister of Mrs Crumplebottom.

Since we don't know Mrs Crumplebottom's exact relation to the Crumplebottom family, it's interesting to consider her to be the niece of Agnes Crumplebottom. Based on their surnames, Mrs Crumplebottom could be the daughter of Agnes’ not yet known brother. This suggests that in the Crumplebottom family there is a tradition of austere aunts influencing their nieces to adopt extreme rules of propriety. Elmira has a nephew herself, Ian Arneson, who notably has a much more easygoing and friendly personality, though being sophisticated and eggheaded all the same.

With Mrs Crumplebottom being Agnes Crumplebottom's niece, Elmira being Mrs Crumplebottom's niece, and Ian being Elmira's nephew, there’s an interesting pattern of familial influence that emerges. There’s a storyline for The Sims 5! Will Ian follow suit in the long line of Crumplebottom austerity or will he break the chain and embrace all the public displays of affection that his family despises so?

I think including some other MySims characters in The Sims 5 would be a great treat for us MySims lovers (with timeline aging rules in mind, please). Also, for returning MySims characters (the ones listed above) I think that the developers should make an effort to be faithful to their unique, larger-than-life original MySims appearances, because their The Sims 4 versions lacked a lot of the character and uniqueness they originally had. I'd love to see the inclusion of Ian and some others in The Sims 5 with some real consideration of their MySims stories. For now, that’s the extent of the overlap between the franchises. Tune in next time to explore another topic of The Sims Mysteries!

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Part 1: The Timeline of The Sims

Welcome to the first entry of The Sims Mysteries! I’ve been wanting to give my take of the story of The Sims for a while, and to start a conversation with other Simmers about what their theories are for the countless lore debates that are out there. First though, here’s some context:

There’s a Sims movie in production! Margot Robbie’s production company, LuckyChap, has started work on one, which we heard about last week. I’m super excited! However it turns out, I’ve always wanted to see a live action Sims movie, and I personally have high hopes for it. So far we know the movie is not going to be largely based on the game lore, but now’s as good a time as any to give my two cents on the various inconsistencies in The Sims canon.

As with Barbie, I can imagine the movie will deviate somewhat from what the fans consider canon and will not actually focus on lore at all, but on the simulation aspect of The Sims just as how Barbie focused on the dissonance between the real world and Barbieland. Today, I’m going to start with the topic I feel most strongly about: the timeline order of The Sims. If you take away one thing from this post, let it be that the story of The Sims does not take place in alternate universes or timelines. Take a look under the cut to read my explanation!

When The Sims 4 came out, the alternate universe theory was used as the main explanation for inconsistencies in the lore, specifically regarding sims’ ages. For some reason, this explanation was set in stone as canon without question. A lot of the confusion surrounding the timeline arose due to the assumption that The Sims 4 would take place after The Sims 2; at that point the latest established point on the timeline. Also, there seems to be a figure that’s cited often whenever simmers refer to the timeline; that there are two 25 year time jumps between The Sims 3, The Sims, and The Sims 2. I haven’t been able to find a source for this fact, though. If you know where it’s from, please send a link my way! I presume that it’s not as canonical as it’s considered to be, and in any case it’s a very rigid timescale which is incompatible with the stories of most if not all sims.

I want to recognize the fact that I think The Sims 4 has started taking its lore more seriously. The story of Robert Crumplebottom turned Roberto Crinkletop shown in a promotional video for Horse Ranch is exactly the kind of small scale but significant lore that I personally love! It truly gave me an impression that the developers care about the stories of our favourite sims. Just because The Sims 4 base game is not a neat addition to the canon we all know and love, that does not mean we should resort to the alternate universe explanation. Personally, I see alternate universe explanations of lore as lazy and messy world building, at least if a story doesn’t start out with a theme of alternate universes in the first place. It just seems like a sign that the developers or writers between different entries in a franchise were not in sync with each other or didn’t care enough about the story as long as the same characters were used. In any case, it’s more challenging, and in my opinion more interesting, to put together a unified story from a franchise that is on the brink of being explained away as a multiverse.

In a sentence, since the developers didn’t give us a clean slice of lore, it’s up to us simmers to put the story together. As you may know, this is the current most popular theory of the chronological order between the mainline Sims games based on lore:

The Sims 3

The Sims

The Sims 2

(The Sims 4 outside of the timeline, in an alternate universe)

Here is what I think the timeline should be:

The Sims 3

The Sims

The Sims 4

The Sims 2

The Sims 5?

So yes, all Sims games (including all spin-offs) are in the same canon and timeline in my eyes. The confusion comes from multiple inconsistencies introduced in The Sims 4, but as I said the main factor is the age of sims.

Originally, the main reason I was going to give for the inconsistencies in age was the Elixir of Life. We know that the Elixir of Life is an item in The Sims 2 which has the ability to prolong a Sim’s life in their current life stage, thought to be invented by Mortimer Goth. When it comes to aging inconsistencies, I think this makes for a much more elegant resolution than branching off a whole alternate universe. Anti-aging potions might not seem like a good solution for realism-oriented simmers, but at the end of the day something like an Elixir of Life is exactly in tune with the unique magical realism of The Sims.

All that considered, though, when looking at some of the staple households which appear in multiple games, there actually isn’t any aging conflict. That is, in the chronological order of games that I propose, the age of said sims progresses linearly. The issue might arise when trying to define the exact number of years passing between The Sims games, however considering that there could be different lengths of time between different entries in the franchise, it should be relatively straightforward to figure out when comparing sims’ ages against each other.

To convince you that the multiverse explanation of The Sims canon is unnecessary, I’m going to address the main reasons given in the ‘Alternate universe’ article on The Sims Wiki. Thank you to the person or people who wrote it by the way! Insofar as explaining the alternate universe it makes sense but I’m just using it as a jumping off point to explain my perspective. In the below table, the first two columns contain the conflicts in quotation marks as they appear on The Sims Wiki, while the third leftmost column is the reasons I have for the differences in the lore:

My main wish for the lore of Project Rene, or the current development of The Sims 5, is for it to be set after The Sims 2. This way, we start a new entry in the franchise with a clean slate and no confusion about the timeline. A big mistake The Sims 4 made is being afraid to show how life has gone by for our favorite sims, which just made confusion in the storyline. In fact, SimGuru Sarah said herself that it was the most flexible way to keep the most recognizable sims in the newest game. However, this made the story of The Sims 4, at least in the base game, seem stagnant. Let some of our favorite senior sims die from old age! Let our younger sims grow up and start families! Let Bella Goth grow old!

At the end of the day, we don’t need to rehash Bella’s, or anyone else’s, young adult life with new places and people, and it would be much more interesting to see how she is as an older woman, while her family matures and grows. That is, if Bella is in The Sims 5 at all! Thank you for taking the time to read my thoughts! For upcoming posts, here are some ideas I want to tackle (see the table for the mention of the topics below):

MySims in The Sims

With some of our favorite adorable MySims bridging the gap to the mainline franchise, how can we abridge their stories? What problems came up in their move to The Sims?

The Nighat Caliente vs Katrina Caliente Conflict

Both moms to our favorite sisters, Dina and Nina, but who is the real deal? Are they both?

The Timespan of The Sims

Have the games given us enough clues about the lengths of time that pass between the games? Can we use this to figure out the exact ages of sims or vice versa?

Too Many Malcolms

With enough Malcolm Landgraabs to go around, how can we tell who’s who? Which Malcolms are the same person, and which are relatives?

The Disappearance of Bella Goth

The age old debate: what happened to our Bella after that fateful night in Pleasantview? How much do we really know?

Agnes and Mrs. Crumplebottom

You’d be forgiven for mistaking the two, so how do we know they’re different? Is there a larger lineage of prude Crumplebottoms?

The Setting of The Sims

Do The Sims games take place in SimNation, or across the world on an alternate Earth? How does this Earth differ from ours?

The Teleportation of Don Lothario

When the time came for Don to reap the consequences for his streak of heartbreak, what did the women he scorned decide to do with him? How did Don end up in Riverview?

The Time Travel of Alexander Goth

One Alexander Goth is credited for writing A Murder in Pleasantview, but how did he write the book when his parents were still children? Did young Alex try to save his mom by trying to undo what was already done?

The Identity of Lolita Goth

Who was the mysterious bachelorette buried in the graveyard of Goth Manor? Was there an unspoken affair between her and Gunther?