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Why The Sims 4 Had Me Hopeful, and How It Ultimately Disappointed

My first exposure to the Sims was with the first game, but I never really got to play it immediately. You can blame my sister and her suspicion that I would irreversibly ruin her neighborhood-- fair enough, I was probably about seven, a prime age for ruining my older sibling’s things.  I was far too impatient to sit around and just watch, so I was off playing and doing other things most of the time.  I did always want to play the game though, but wasn’t able to experience it firsthand until maybe sometime after 2010.

2004 rolled around and so did the Sims 2.  I had to have it, since I had wanted to play my sister’s game for so long-- if it was mine, I couldn’t be denied playing it, right?  I played it and played it endlessly; from then on, I was absolutely hooked, getting all manner of expansion packs in the years that followed and putting countless hours into it. The Sims 3 was an immediate purchase in 2009 as well, and while I immensely enjoyed it, it did fall short in some areas I had so been hopeful for. As mentioned earlier, it was only a bit after this that I finally got a hold of The Sims Complete Collection, a game I also gave a fair share of time, and loved despite playing it after playing more advanced later iterations in the series.

The Sims 4 was something I saw potential in.  Most everyone lambasted it for its more closed nature, taking steps back from the open world and customization that The Sims 3 had introduced, but it had promise in places where The Sims 3 had failed and where The Sims 1 and 2 had succeeded to different degrees.  It had to do with content, and how well that content was delivered to players. Let me try to explain.

Way back, with the first Sims, they did something I still think is spectacular to this day. They made expansion packs exciting, full of content that might not have even been expected for the focus they had. The Unleashed expansion pack is the most notable for me, for how it transformed the neighborhood you had up until that point. See, if you’re not familiar, the original base Sims game had just a simple little neighborhood. No downtown, no vacation area, just maybe around ten lots of different sizes, with 5 separate families occupying those lots... this was Sim Lane.  It wasn’t much, and despite the Sims Unleashed being focused on adding pets, they went above and beyond.  Enter Old town, a huge expansion to the existing neighborhood bringing many new families, houses, community lots which hadn’t been in the original neighborhood, and more empty lots to build on.  For the time, it was an astounding amount of content to add in one sweep, and while I wasn’t there for it when it was new, I bet Sims players were absolutely stoked to see this new content so seamlessly added to their game.

You didn’t even have to place or build any new lots.  Everything was available immediately.  We’ll come back to this.

The Sims 2 had relative success with this sort of concept as well.  While you still had to place lots if you wanted them in your base neighborhood, it was relatively painless.  You installed Nightlife into your base game? No problem.  Not only could you just add a new downtown neighborhood that was already fitted with the new lots introduced, you could build or place pre-made lots anywhere you liked to bring the nightlife right into your neighborhood.  Pretty seamless, but you DID likely have to sacrifice a bit of time you could be building or playing with your sims to perhaps move things around and place new lots. But there was always believable space for those lots, and it really didn’t take very long.

The Sims 3 introduced some issues alongside the boon of an open world.  The Sims 2 had used the framework from the world building interface from SimCity 4, so everything was on a grid.  Every lot since the beginning of this game series has been, guess what, also on a grid.  The Sims 3 did not use grid placement in its roads or lots, nor SimCity 4 as its world building tool.  They had their own special world editor this time that allowed for all manner of curved and windy roads… but the lots were still grid based.  This is where the first issues arose, where fitting lots onto even slightly curved roads proved a chore, and even roads that seemed straight wouldn’t allow even small lots to be placed.  This problem only got worse with every new expansion pack. Combining, say, Ambitions, Pets, and Late Night, you reach a frustrating impasse wherein you must sacrifice what a neighborhood is capable of accessing from content you paid good money for.  With Sunset Valley from the base game for instance, there is absolutely no way that a family existing in that neighborhood will be able to seamlessly experience acting, going to a bar, scavenging for junk, taking a horse to the equestrian center, and entering the firefighting career, among many other additions in these expansions that require special lots.  With so many new lots and a world that is so restrictive on where you can place them, you would have to frequently switch out lots of similar sizes in an effort to provide more options to your sims, but you will never have all this simultaneously.

Basically, in making an open world, they actually made some things more restrictive.  This is where I had hopes for The Sims 4.

The Sims 4 is restrictive in a weird mishmash of elements from 1, 2, and to a lesser degree 3.  Up until about a year ago, I thought this could have been a good thing.  Restricting the game like they have provides opportunity to integrate new content more smoothly. Think Old Town again, where the neighborhood, because of its closed nature, can be added to in ways that could provide more to the player without needed finicking or making tradeoffs.  By now, The Sims 4 could have doubled the size of Oasis Springs and Willow Creek, adding in their new special lots onto the already existing neighborhoods.  

But they didn’t.

In any way that they could bring new content seamlessly to the player with the least amount of fuss possible, they dropped the ball.  Honestly, this is why I’m disappointed. Because I know Maxis has talented people who are more than capable of making the most of these limitations they put on The Sims 4. No messing with lots that refuse to be placed where they’d make sense, no compromising the player’s experience, everything readily at your fingertips from the get go… but none of that.  That and probably so much more was within their grasp but they just didn’t.  

Honestly, I haven’t bought anything since Outdoor Retreat because nothing else has really expanded in the way that I’d hoped it would.  As of writing, the Sims 4 has been out for about 3 years. In that time there have been 12 stuff packs, 5 game packs, and only 3 traditional expansion packs with Pets coming soon.  For comparison, The Sims 3 after 3 years had 5 expansion packs, and 7 stuff packs. The Sims 2, 6 expansion packs, 5 stuff packs. Worth noting is that while the the stuff packs for The Sims 4 are more numerous, they have substantially LESS content than they did for previous games, and there seems to be a bigger focus on shoveling out these things that don’t really provide much.

There was a time when Maxis, like I said before, went above and beyond what they had to do and made amazing things.  Every time I think of The Sims 4, I see the potential that was wasted.  Where something like the Old Town expansion was possible again… but alas, it wasn’t meant to be I guess.

I don’t know if the passion has left Maxis, but by this point it wouldn’t surprise me.  The dedication to bringing an amazing experience and then expanding on that seems to have faded, and that’s truly disheartening.  I was one of the most hopeful that these imposed limits could provide an opportunity for bringing a more robust experience further down the line and I was proven wrong.  The Sims 4 was a disappointment, and I don’t see that changing any time soon.

If you enjoy The Sims 4, more power to you. I too also love the look and feel of it, I just knew there was opportunity for more and it’s not just for my sake but also yours that I pine for what could have been.