25 Years Into The Sims, EA Is Still Making The Same Mistakes

Sims franchise just celebrated its 25th anniversary, and the festivities included legacy editions of The Sims and The Sims 2, along with the announcement of several new DLCs for The Sims 4. Acknowledging the series' past while looking toward its future certainly sounds like the right way to honor a franchise that has been around for a quarter of a century, but EA has hit a few snags along the way. The Sims 1 and 2 re-releases launched with some pretty serious bugs, and with over 70 expansions, not everyone agrees that more DLC is what The Sims 4 really needs.

The Sims 4 has been around for nearly half the franchise's lifetime, celebrating its 10th anniversary in 2024. But as EA continues to provide glimpses of what the future holds for The Sims 4 and the franchise overall--including the mysterious, still-in-development Project Rene--long-time Sims fans are beginning to feel a hint of deja vu. For those who witnessed The Sims 4's extremely rocky launch, Project Rene feels like Groundhog Day.

The Sims 4 wasn't quite dead on arrival, but its launch was definitely a rocky one.

When The Sims 4 launched in September 2014, it was in pretty rough condition. GameSpot gave it a middling 6/10, noting the game's lack of depth and, perhaps most glaringly, its lack of features. Sims themselves arguably looked better than ever, but some players were surprised that EA had taken the art style in a more cartoonish direction than previous iterations of the game. But what really had long-time Simmers simmering with anger was the fact that gameplay itself had seemingly been gutted. Prior to The Sims 4, each iteration of the game had included whatever new features were introduced in the last game. Removing a feature--especially one as popular as the ability to choose custom colors and textures--was unheard of.

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