We can all agree that the Sims 4 is dead, right?

Well, I believe it is. And as a fan of the Sims since the original, I'd like to express some thoughts on it.

The Sims 3 and The Sims 4 were fairly controversial when they arrived. But while the Sims 3 has grown on the fanbase over the years (in no small part due to comparisons with the 4th entry), I don't believe the Sims 4 will see quite the same kindness in retrospect. There were a lot of flaws from the very beginning, and even 10 years of updates and development couldn't iron them out. In this piece, I won't talk about the bugginess of the game - that is well-trodden territory, and besides the point.

There are two elements of the Sims 4 that are well-received, especially a decade in: the create-a-sim (hereafter shortened to CAS), and the Build/Buy (hereafter shortened to BB). Basically, the Sims 4 is a robust dress-up game and an intuitive architectural modeler; it's wonderful fun to design your dolls and the dollhouse in which they live, but the act of actually playing with those dolls is where the game comes undone.

Why?

The Emotions System

The Emotions system has been controversial since its inception, but I quite like it in concept. The first three installments of the Sims had a special meter, titled "Mood." "Mood" was an aggregate of your Sim's overall well-being, derived from their needs (are they hungry? Did they just take a nap), recent events (did they just get engaged? Were they left at the altar?), and their personality (are they generally grumpy, or kind? Do they love the outdoors, or are they a couch potato?).

Even in the original game, this meter was shorthand for a wider variety of potential states. Its main function as a general status indicator: if a Sim's Mood was too low, they were too depressed to function and needed extra help. If a Sim's Mood was high, they often performed better across a number of metrics.

The Emotions system was meant to take this single status indicator and expand it into multiple directions. No longer were you simply in a "good mood" or a "bad mood," but your Sim could be Happy, Sad, Angry, Scared, Energized, Flirty (read: horny), Embarrassed, Inspired, Playful, Bored...and probably a few more that I don't remember. Dazed, I think? Each Emotion comes with a set of related behaviors, as well as some mechanical bonuses - Energized and Angry Sims learn physical skills faster, for example. Uncomfortable replaces the "low mood" of previous games, as Sims who are too uncomfortable are unwilling to engage in many activities.

On paper, this system could provide exceptional nuance to Sims' behavior. It could enhance the existing systems to create more refined, life-like AI. It could be a real game-changer for the franchise.

So why is the Emotions system so loathed?

The answer lies in that the system is both underutilized and overly relied-upon, simultaneously.

What do I mean by "overly relied-upon?" The Emotions system is the core of the Sims 4 gameplay. Nearly everything resolves back to shifting your Sims' emotions by way of creating mood-altering "Moodlets." There are hundreds of Moodlets in the game, each dedicated to raising your Sim's score in a particular emotion, pushing them toward that emotional state. Play enough, and you start to accurately predict just how often these Moodlets are the sole result of your choices.

Regardless of traits, behaviors, careers, successes or failures, you can predict that the result will be Moodlets. Become a master of mixology and your reward is the ability to make potions...that change your mood. Become a world-renowned painter or musician and your reward is to create works of art...that change your mood. These might be decent rewards for the investment if changing moods was difficult, but it's so easy to do through mundane means that magic potions and masterful paintings barely register as anything new or interesting.

Moodlets themselves are not the problem. The Sims 3, which introduced the system, uses them to do some fairly interesting things: Sims with certain Moodlets may have extra bonuses or penalties, and sometimes even perform unique behaviors! The Sims 4 inherited this system, and you can see it shine through once in a while. Some Moodlets do indeed grant little mechanical bonuses, and may even allow unique behaviors. May. I cannot think of any off the top of my head, but they might be there.

This is where Emotions are underutilized. The developers rely heavily on each Emotion's basic box of behaviors to guide Sims' actions. This means that, rather than enhancing the nuance of previous titles, Sim behavior boils down to one of ten-ish sets of possible behaviors. A Sim who is Sad behaves the same way, regardless of whether that sorrow stems from losing a soccer game or witnessing the death of a loved-one. Rather than allow the Moodlet system to shine by encouraging different behavior patterns, the devs generally ignore it.

You can see how this results in a fairly boring set of little dolls to watch, but it's not just boring - it's also immersion-breaking. There is a running joke at this point about how Sims will start doing push-ups in the middle of funerals and weddings. Why? Push-ups are in the Energized behavior box. If a Sim's Energized score just happens to rise higher than a more context-appropriate emotion, they'll drop to the ground and start doing push-ups while their sister is giving a eulogy.

The solution is fairly obvious: use the Moodlets to restrict behaviors and create unique, Moodlet-derived behaviors. That way, even if a lot of the game resolves back to "gain Moodlets" (which it shouldn't), those Moodlets will provide some new and interesting surprise for the player while breaking immersion less often.

Speaking of behaviors and surprises...

The Traits System

Traits were introduced in the Sims 3, and in my opinion, they were one of the best additions to the franchise. When creating a Sim (or when they age during gameplay), you get to pick new traits for your Sim that change the way they interact with the world.

The Sims 3 did a wonderful job with this. Your choice of traits had a considerable effect on a Sim's personality. It would alter their rates of skill gain, provide unique Moodlets, alter their autonomous behaviors, restrict certain gameplay options, and provide entirely new options and interactions. An Overdramatic Sim can complain about nearly anything, will have huge responses to tiny frustrations, and even allow the Sims to fake passing out. A Sim who Loves the Outdoors is always happier when outside, and has unique social interactions where they can gush about nature.

The Sims 4 inherits some of this. Traits provide unique Moodlets and sometimes provide unique interactions, but they don't change a Sim's personality much at all. Traits don't alter a Sim's autonomous interactions; a Brooding Sim in the Sims 3 will sometimes sit on the ground and stare into the distance, contemplating meaninglessness, and they'll do it on their own. A Gloomy Sim in the Sims 4 gets a Sad Moodlet sometimes.

So what's the point of traits in the Sims 4? Optimization. Similar to how MMO and RPG gamers will pick the best options to increase the effectiveness of a particular character build, so too do the Sims 4's traits encourage a level of mechanical optimization. Having little impact on roleplaying or story, what remains are the bonuses. Moodlets push Sims toward optimal emotional states - the main benefit of Genius, for example, is that it provides Focus Moodlets. Focused Sims increased skill gain in mental skills like Logic, Science, and Seances. Romantic Sims gain Flirty Moodlets more often, which increases the success chance of romantic interactions.

There are traits that are meant to improve roleplaying, such as Bookworm, Lazy, and Foodie, but they have so little effect on the way a Sims acts that you can hardly tell they have the trait at all. This removes the joy from the traits system; even when traits in the Sims 3 existed basically to bump up your "stats," as it were, they would still be unique and meaningful.

And, it is worth mentioning, the Sims 3 allowed up to five traits for an adult Sim. The Sims 4 allows 3, plus a small (and I do mean small) bonus from your first lifetime aspiration. With five traits, there was room for traits with a little less oomph. There was also room for traits that were mostly or even strictly negative. Giving a Sim Lactose Intolerance in the Sims 3 was a fun bit of character; in the Sims 4, it's a waste of limited resources.

You can see how this section and the previous section really boil down to "all Sims feel the same." That seems to be the crux of it. There are a lot of possible solutions to the Sims 4's trait issues, but making them significantly more meaningful on the behavior and gameplay of each Sim should be the end goal.

There are some traits worth mentioning where this design philosophy was taken into account, and as you can imagine, they are some of my favorites. Of particular note is the High Maintenance trait from Spa Day. When a Sim with this trait performs any of a number of mundane actions - from waking up in the morning to sitting down to going outside - there is a chance they will suddenly develop an overwhelming Uncomfortable Moodlet. If this discomfort is not calmed through "wellness" activities like meditation or yoga, the Sim will instead develop a furious "Worst Day Ever" Angry Moodlet.

This is fun, it's funny, and it changes up the gameplay. You must be on the lookout to force your Sim to go do breathing exercises or they fly off the handle over the smallest things. I once gave the trait to an Interior Designer, and he would frequently become tense while showing off his work to clients - including once deciding he hated sitting in the very chairs he bought for them!

The Proper trait, from the Snowy Escape pack, is another top-tier trait. A Sim with this trait is happier when wearing formal wear, and will switch into formal outfits on their own. They also become enraged by "impropriety," which ranges from experiencing rudeness to witnessing a fight. It doesn't provide unique interactions, but it changes the names of existing friendly and flirtatious interactions into more "proper" or archaic titles (such as "canoodling" instead of "cuddling"), which is a fun bit of fluff. Most importantly, the Moodlets are used to change the way your Sim interacts with themselves and others.

There are others of note. Freegan makes a Sim deeply uncomfortable with making or spending money, thus changing the way they play. Macabre makes a Sim uncomfortable with situations that bring others joy - like sunny days and heartwarming reunions - but take joy in death, sorrow, and the occult.

But these are so few as to be notable, and one cannot play a High-Maintenance, Macabre, and Proper Sim every time or it will be as boring as if they didn't exist at all.

The Optimization Game

I mentioned above that the player is encouraged to "optimize" their Sims, because without the storytelling elements or the space to play around, mechanical efficacy is the sole remaining motive for why traits exist at all. This sort of mindset belongs more in a tactical RPG than a domestic life-simulation game, but such RPGs appear to have an outsized influence on the design of The Sims 4.

Beyond the game's starting traits, it also offers Reward Traits and Aspiration Rewards, which are both gained through The Sims 4's Aspirations system. Aspirations are goals for your Sim to complete. The system was originally designed for The Sims 2 and expanded upon in The Sims 3; in both of those installments, each Sim had a single life-long wish. These aspirations were intentionally difficult to complete, and not every Sim would reach their goals within their lifetime. In the Sims 4, Aspirations still require effort, but it won't take a Sim's whole life to complete one. A Sim can expect to complete two or more within their lifetime. You can also change them whenever you want, in contrast to the previous games where you were stuck with the one you chose first.

This isn't bad in and of itself. It's a fine design choice, and allows players freedom in the trajectory of their stories. It also allows for a form of growth that didn't exist in the previous titles: as completing an Aspiration nets you a brand new trait, your Sim grows and changes as they complete their life goals. It's a sort of "leveling up" system, again like more action-oriented RPGs.

The problem comes in what these Reward Traits actually do. What do they do? Not much. A handful allow new actions and behaviors, such as the ones gained from the Mixology Master and Soulmate Aspirations, and notably the Bestselling Author's ability to use biographies to resurrect the dead, but mostly they just do what the base traits do: increase the passive numbers underneath the gameplay. They improve skill gain, speed relationship gain, increase lifespan, make Sims immune to various harms... useful, certainly, but when this utility forms the bulk of the options it starts to feel like the developers missed the point.

These sorts of rewards work in MMOs, action RPGs, and other such games because optimizing your character's statistics is a sort of puzzle. Overwhelming challenges in the form of dungeons and boss fights require a bit of problem-solving, and the agency the player has for solving those problems is often within their "build." It is thus satisfying to create a character who breezes through a formerly-impossible challenge because you, the player, put in the energy to figure out the puzzle.

While The Sims franchise can be quite challenging, the sort of obstacles one must overcome are less like dragons and more like poverty. But more importantly, the franchise does not really encourage a "success/failure" sort of mindset; the player is instead encouraged to see challenges, pitfalls, and failure as part of the story of their little virtual dolls. You are meant to take difficulty and tragedy in stride. Suboptimal choices and negative traits are as much a part of the fun as completing your goals. "Optimizing" your Sims can be made fun as part of a self-imposed challenge, but the game's relationship to "challenges" is fundamentally different than that of The Elder Scrolls.

The developers of The Sims 4 don't seem to realize this. The Aspiration Rewards and the Reward Traits exist almost solely to "help" the player "overcome" the challenges that are inherent to the game. These rewards smooth gameplay by removing anything remotely challenging: social friction, extreme weather, work stress, and in the most extreme cases allowing the player to ignore their Sims' basic needs - the meeting of which form the basic gameplay loop! In essence, these "rewards" "allow" the player to interact with the game less, and thus are no rewards at all.

While some such rewards can be interesting, a better-designed game would balance them out with rewards that do the opposite: allow the player to interact with the game MORE. The Career Rewards from the Sims 2 operated this way, but I think the best example comes from the original The Sims. In the Makin' Magic expansion, interacting with the game provided your Sim with new abilities, including new social interactions with unique animations. Some of these abilities were certainly meant to ease the game a touch, but by packaging them with unique animations, they felt like an expansion of the game.

This philosophy of denying the player challenge (and, in turn, gameplay) extends beyond the reward traits. The abilities of Occult Sims ("supernatural" beings, in Sims lingo) in The Sims 4 also lean this way. Spellcasters, for example, have a small handful of spells and potions that do something fun and semi-unique, but most of them have effects like "make food for free," "reverse aging," and "restore all needs to max." While their original incarnation in The Sims' Makin' Magic had spells with similar or identical effects, they didn't actually make the game easier; the gameplay of spellcasters simply replaced a standard Sim's game loop with a different, more whimsical gameplay. But this second loop remained a challenge all the same, requiring as it did the regular procurement of spell ingredients through quests, bartering, DIY efforts, and working for magical currency. A high-powered spellcaster in The Sims 4 just needs an apple in their pocket, and they never need worry about eating, sleeping, or speaking to another Sim again.

Tell, Don't Show, and Especially Don't Let The Player Do It

The defining element of video games as a medium is necessary interactivity with the audience. While other media can interact with the audience - live theater, for example - video games require it, or they aren't video games at all. The Sims 4 does not seem to fully understand this.

Let's take spellcasters again. They're a particularly egregious example, but indicative of the game as a whole. We're going to compare spellcasters from The Sims 4 to spellcaster from The Sims 1, mainly because I believe Makin' Magic is an exemplary expansion and has the best magic system in the franchise.

In The Sims 1, if you wish to learn a spell, you first consult your spellbook. Your spellbook contains a list of ingredients - three to spell - but no further information. No name, no description; it is a mystery and a surprise. You must go out, explore Magic Town, and figure out how to obtain the listed ingredients, inevitably completing quests, bartering with locals, and earning MagiCoins through duels and stage performances to purchase them from vendors. A small few may be obtained through a little elbow grease on your home lot - beekeeping for honey and beeswax, for example, or time spent at a spinning wheel for golden thread. You must then combine these ingredients, and voila! A new spell for you to experiment with.

Notice how much the player must do to learn magic, not just the Sim. There's effort involved. There's a game to play. Now, compare this to what you must do in The Sims 4. If you wish to learn a spell, you click on your Sim, click the "Practice Magic" option, and... wait. You wait, and wait, and hope the RNG blesses you sooner rather than later with a random spell. As an alternative, you can simply purchase a magical tome from the magical tomes shop. Or you can ask one of the Sages, once per day, to teach you a spell from their associated school. These, too, will be random.

Notice just how little the player does to learn magic. You can literally walk away from your computer and grab a cup of tea, no effort involved. In The Sims 1, you are invited to the ground level, working alongside your Sim on a shared journey to magical mastery. In The Sims 4, your Sim's journey is not your journey. You watch while they do all the work.

Consider, too, that each iteration has spell duels. In The Sims 1, dueling another spellcaster involves a complex game of rock-paper-scissors using a collection of combat spells, with only a few moments to determine your opponent's spell and decide on a counterspell. It is fun and engaging, if simple, and victory feels earned. And again, the player is involved the whole time.

In The Sims 4, you click on another spellcaster, choose "Duel," and... watch your Sim duel them. Victory is determined roughly the same way as your average D&D dice roll: a random number is determined, modifiers are added, and that number is compared against another to determine victory or loss. All of this happens behind the scenes, while your Sims play a couple of Harry Potter-inspired wizard-laser-blasting animations.

This happens quite frequently. Your Sim will do something, off screen or on, such as deal with a customer at their job, or go on a Ferris wheel at the amusement park, or sneak out to a party. You, the player, are not involved. You are the observer at best, and sometimes, worse, you are only told about it in a text box later. The developers found it acceptable to treat the player like they're talking to you on the phone about someone else's day.

Probably I hardly need to explain how to correct this, but I will: let the player play the game! Between this section and the previous, you may get the feeling that The Sims 4 doesn't want you to play it at all. There may be some truth to that; notice the RNG elements of The Sims 4, displayed prominently where they didn't exist in the previous installments. Here is one place I do agree with the statement that "The Sims 4 is bad because of EA's greed," and it is that the Sims 4 wants to be an addictive gacha game, or in other words, a gambling app. It does not care to be a fulfilling experience because that isn't the point - the point is to get you to spend money on it.

This isn't unique to the fourth installment. The Sims 3, as much as I like it more, also wanted to be microtransaction hell. But besides the annoying store popups every time you enter build/buy mode, there was a fun game that made those annoying ads worth tolerating. The Sims 4, at its core, skipped the fun game part. EA wants you hooked so you'll buy more and more of the game's $1200 worth of expansion packs.

It Just Wasn't Right

There are many more things I could complain about. The whims system, the lack of challenge, the bugginess, the Architectural Digest-core furniture options. But when it comes down to it, that's all surface-level; bad systems and bad ideas tacked onto the game, things that simply did not align with my preferences or aesthetics. These are not core issues.

I hope I have elucidated what I believe to be the real core issues in The Sims 4: the core philosophy of the Sims 4 fundamentally misunderstands both video games in general and the genre that the earlier Sims titles pioneered in specific. They misunderstand what makes playing a game, especially a life simulator, fun. They tell, rather than show; they make it so that choices barely matter; they don't allow the player to be a part of the game; and, perhaps most crucially, they treat The Sims 4 not as a vehicle for play and storytelling, but as a gambling-driven RPG-lite gacha game.

If nothing else, I hope this piece helps others to articulate their thoughts; I hope it helps someone, maybe, make a life sim of their own.

Did The Sims 4 Do Anything Right?

With all this said, you might wonder if there are any redeeming qualities to The Sims 4 at all. It might surprise you to learn that: yes! There are!

I mentioned before that the CAS and BB are exceptional. And they are! The best in the franchise. There are also elements of The Sims 4 gameplay that I think are genuinely fun. And by elements, I mean expansion packs.

It is an unfortunate truth that the base game of the Sims 4 is an incomplete experience. It's just not that good. You need expansions to make it worth anything, which is also part of the "greedy EA" complaints, and rightly so. Many of those expansions are not very good either; some of them, like My Wedding Stories and For Rent, simply do not work. Like, at all. They are a waste of money. Others are questionable at best; Horse Ranch, which contains, as you might imagine, horses and ranching, features a hell of a lot of telling-over-showing. This includes the equestrian competitions that form the crux of the pack!

But there are some I found genuinely fun, almost despite themselves. And I want to end off this essay by highlighting those packs that did it right (or close enough).

Life & Death + Paranormal Stuff

I want to start with a combo. The Life & Death expansion and the Paranormal Stuff pack, despite coming out years apart, are clearly meant to work together. It's difficult to explain why these packs are so good without just listing off their content, but it really comes down to the fact that they went out of their way to address many of the problems listed above. The Paranormal Stuff pack allows your Sim to live in a haunted house where they learn to conduct seances, interact with ghosts, uncover the history of a pair of unique ghosts, and eventually become paranormal investigators who help others with their ghost problems. It's highly-interactive, full of surprises, and offers the player rewards of new gameplay and other elements for engaging with the pack. Life & Death is similar, but on a much larger scale, with a huge, new town full of history to uncover, quests to complete, lore to learn, and lots and LOTS of stuff for the player to do. It expands on ghosts, gives new gameplay for ghosts, and even includes fully new mechanics like a bucket list, funerals, and reincarnation. It also has some of the traits - like Macabre - that actually change up gameplay. They really are some of the best The Sims 4 has to offer.

Spa Day

Spa Day lets your Sims go to the spa. It sounds simple, but it's extremely effective in execution. Spas are entirely interactive; whether you are an employee or a customer, the player is always involved. And there's a lot to be involved in! Manicures and pedicures (with customizable nails), massages, mud baths, yoga and meditation classes, it's all there for you to interact with. Your Sims can become wellness influencers - either legitimately, or hilariously, as complete charlatans - spa employees, and yoga teachers. The Wellness skill, which dictates a lot of your Sim's efficacy in any of those roles, is a thoroughly fleshed-out skill with a lot of possible interactions and benefits for sinking the time into improving it. This is also the pack that High Maintenance hails from, and I've already talked about how much I like that trait.

Home Chef Hustle + Businesses & Hobbies

These two aren't meant to work together the same way that Life & Death + Paranormal Stuff are; instead, Businesses & Hobbies takes the ideas from Home Chef Hustle and expands on them significantly. The idea behind Home Chef Hustle is that it transforms cooking into a multi-step process, including food prep, and allows you to start your own food truck business. And it's genuinely fun to play. I haven't fully investigated why it works so well, but it does, and it's a blast. Businesses & Hobbies takes the idea of the home business and runs with it, allowing you to start hundreds of different businesses. It is heavily reliant on what other packs you own for all the options, but it does plenty with only itself and the base game. It also adds new elements like community reputation, and even insurance fraud. It's missing a few things to really shine, but it emphasizes the interactivity in a fun and engaging way. Plus, you can be really unhinged with it: I made a Seance school that sold candles and occult items, including urns of people who died on the premises.

Dream Home Decorator

Dream Home Decorator was a brilliantly-conceived pack for a very simple reason: it took one of the best elements of The Sims 4, the build mode, and brought it into the gameplay. When joining the interior design profession, you take on gigs of increasing complexity at clients' houses. You get to know the clients, and then based on their likes and dislikes you try to renovate a room in their home to make them happy. There's a whole reputation mechanic, including good and bad reviews, your work spreading via word of mouth, and my favorite part, a little diddy where you display your work to the guests, complete with HGTV-style before-and-after slideshows. I found it to be a ton of fun. The Sims 3 had one of those too, but The Sims 4's version had that little extra panache - and more expansive build mode - that it made all the better.

And there you have it. Those are more-or-less my thoughts on The Sims 4.

Thank you for reading.