The Sims 4

• 1. Introduction

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  The Sims 4 arrived on the 2nd of September 2014, and it asked a long-running audience to start their virtual lives over. Maxis developed the social simulation game, and Electronic Arts published it. It was the fourth main installment in The Sims series, following The Sims 3 in 2009, and it launched first on Windows. Underneath sat a newly developed custom game engine, with new tools for creating characters and building houses, and a more complex simulation of daily life. The fans who knew the series best did not all welcome it. Critics split over what the game was and what it lacked. So what do you actually do in a game with no storyline? What did Maxis leave behind, and why? And how did a game with mixed reviews keep growing for years afterward?

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• 2. No Storyline, No Winners

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  Six needs govern every Sim: hunger, bladder, hygiene, social, fun, and energy. They drain across the in-game day, and household items and furniture refill them. A Sim with low hygiene can take a shower, and a hungry Sim can cook. Beyond that, nobody tells the player what to do. The game has no primary objectives and no storyline, and it leans on creativity and experimentation instead. Players direct their Sims, attend to those needs, and help them chase personal goals and desires. Anyone who wants a target still has one. Each Sim carries a lifelong aspiration, along with dynamically generated wants and fears that shift with current gameplay. Money comes in Simoleons, written with the symbol §, and the Sims speak a fictional language called Simlish. Most Sims earn their Simoleons through a job, and they perform better by developing skills. A Sim in the Culinary career, for example, needs to build Cooking and Mixology. Players who prefer shortcuts can use cheats, including ones for unlimited money. Before any of this can start, though, someone has to design the Sim, and a dedicated tool handles that job.

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• 3. Making a Sim

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  Eight life stages stand between a newborn Sim and an elder: newborn, infant, toddler, child, teen, young adult, adult, and elder. The tool for shaping them is Create-a-Sim, known as CAS. Players adjust faces and bodies by selecting the relevant area directly and manipulating it. The life stages themselves have changed over time. A 2017 game update added toddlers, and a 2023 update replaced the baby stage with newborn and infant. Personality works through traits. Adult Sims have three, while children and teens have two. Each Sim also has an aspiration, which grants one additional unique trait. An aspiration is a lifelong goal made of tasks, and finishing them rewards the Sim with a trait that boosts related actions. A "Play with Genetics" option lets players create relatives who inherit features such as facial structure, skin tone, hair color, and eye color. The newest layer arrived with a 2021 update called "likes and dislikes." These reflect a Sim's preferred aesthetics and activities, and players either assign them in Create-a-Sim or let them develop during gameplay.

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• 4. What Was Left Out

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  In 2013, Maxis released SimCity as an online-only game, and its launch reception was negative. That reception reshaped The Sims 4. Early development plans had included a stronger focus on online functionality, and those plans were dropped. The next blow to fan trust came in the months before release. Maxis announced that swimming pools and toddler Sims, both present in earlier Sims titles, would be absent. The Sims 3 had also introduced open worlds and a color customization technology called "Create-a-Style." Those would be missing as well. Players pushed back, and the anger grew into a petition on Change.org. Maxis answered with a statement. It explained that the new engine, the artificial intelligence simulation system, and the revamped Create-a-Sim and Build modes had absorbed its development resources. In its words, "it was not possible for us to include every single feature and piece of content we added to The Sims 3 over the last five years." Maxis did not rule out a return for the missing features, saying they might come back in future updates or paid downloadable packs.

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• 5. Mixed Reviews

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  On the review aggregator Metacritic, The Sims 4 scored "mixed or average" reviews from critics. Many complaints came back to the same list: missing features compared with earlier games, frequent loading screens, and occasional glitches. Reviewers singled out the lost Create-a-Style tool, the open worlds, and gameplay from The Sims 3's expansion packs. James Stephanie Sterling of The Escapist called the gameplay "boring" and the game "shrunken and sterile." Nick Tan of GameRevolution described a "case study for loss aversion" and concluded the game was "woefully incomplete." Steve Hogarty of PCGamesN found the base game "feature-light and skeletal" without any DLC packs. Lee Cooper of Hardcore Gamer went further, calling it "a glorified freemium app with multiple expansions on the horizon that should have been part of the core game." Several reviewers speculated that the gaps were an intentional financial decision by EA, meant to leave room for future paid packs. Griffin McElroy of Polygon described how quickly the novelty ran out: "In one in-game lifetime, I felt like I'd seen everything there was to offer, killing any desire I had to start over." Praise was real, too. Reviewers liked the improved graphics, the intuitive Build mode, and the Create-a-Sim tools. They also liked the emotion and multitasking systems and a feature called the Gallery. Kallie Plagge of IGN said the multitasking system spared her from micro-managing Sims' interactions. VanOrd of GameSpot called the combination of emotion and multitasking systems a "sheer delight." Chris Thursten of PC Gamer said the emotion system "changes the feel and flow of the game," and he noted that the Gallery let players download lookalikes of real-life celebrities. Alexander Sliwinski of Joystiq commended the new search function in Build mode, while Hogarty credited the "clean sheet" stability and deeper simulation of individual Sims. The console editions drew extra criticism for their controller-based controls, bugs, glitches, and performance issues.

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• 6. Counting Players

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  Guild Wars 2 in 2012 was the last PC-only game to top the Ukie all-format video game chart, until The Sims 4 did it after its first week of release in 2014. Other platforms followed. A macOS version was released in February 2015, and PlayStation 4 and Xbox One versions arrived in November 2017. EA reported in 2018 that all the expansion packs combined had sold over 30 million units. In 2019, it reported that the game had generated over $1 billion of total revenue, counting DLC pack sales. One market closed to it in 2022. EA has suspended all video game sales in Russia since the 4th of March 2022, because of the Russian invasion of Ukraine. Later that year came the biggest shift in the game's business. The Sims 4 became free-to-play in October 2022, with paid downloadable packs supporting it. EA counted over 85 million players worldwide across all platforms as of May 2024, and 31 million of them joined after the game went free.

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• 7. Packs and Patches

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  Twenty-one expansion packs and twelve game packs have been released for The Sims 4 since launch. Each adds new gameplay features, objects, worlds, and clothing. The most recent expansion pack, Royalty & Legacy, came out on the 12th of February 2026. Not every pack landed smoothly. After the release of the game pack My Wedding Stories, players and reviewers criticized its numerous bugs and glitches. Some of these made the pack's headline wedding event feature unplayable. It received an aggregate critic score of 62% on Metacritic, the lowest for any Sims 4 game pack to date. An update on the 31st of March 2022 addressed some of those glitches. Free updates, separate from the paid packs, also responded to the old complaints. They reintroduced swimming pools and added more character customization options and building tools. They also added diverse gender identities, sexual orientations, and new gameplay scenarios.

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• 8. Mods, Monsters and Music

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  Aliens, vampires, mermaids, and spellcasters are all occult Sims that expansion packs and game packs have added to the game. On Windows and macOS, fans add their own creations through extensive modding. Their cosmetic items, such as hairstyles, makeup, clothing, and furniture, are called custom content, or CC. From the 29th of June to the 7th of July 2021, the game hosted a limited-time music festival called Sims Sessions in a special area of the game world. Bebe Rexha recorded a Simlish version of "Sabotage" for her performance. Dave Bayley, frontman of Glass Animals, recorded "Heat Waves," and Joy Oladokun recorded "Breathe Again." Fashion also arrived inside the game. A free update in 2026 added items designed by the American luxury fashion house Coach. The series is not standing still, either. A new multiplayer-focused Sims title, under the working title "Project Rene," is in development.

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