In 2014, I waited in line at a nearby game store to pick up my pre-ordered copy of The Sims 4 while sporting a cardboard plum bob headband that I had hurriedly crafted the night before. Launching with a plethora of then-current appliances and a create-a-sim wardrobe brimming with Pinterest-worthy outfits, The Sims 4 felt like a futuristic follow-up that captured those carefree days. Even more amazing is the fact that, nearly ten upgrades later, it remains the industry standard life simulator, providing a remarkably distinctive home sandbox that has not seen any serious competition. Even with a commendable shift to free-to-play back in 2022, The Sims 4 cannot continue to live up to its heritage due to its dated sense of style and occasionally antiquated systems. The Sims 4 continues to be an Imagineer’s dream despite having a chaotic universe at your fingertips and a cooperative network of community tools.
Replicating life is difficult, as Dr. Frankenstein so famously discovered, and The Sims 4 significantly leans into the crazy scientist idea of it all. It gives you everything you need to create a personalized universe full of individuals with aspirations, goals, and sometimes dubious hairstyles. You may play god with the families of those virtual avatars by reducing the human experience to a set of pliable metrics and assisting them through all the highs and lows of life, from conception to death, and all points in between. The Sims 4 deftly balances the complexity of human life in a surprisingly approachable way, although it might have easily gone down the punishing path of fussy and over-complicated systems.
In addition to meeting their basic biological needs—such as eating, sleeping, and using the restroom when necessary—they also have to deal with anxieties and goals, bills to pay, careers to develop, and social lives to manage. Because of your omnipotence, you are free to meddle with the people in your universe whenever you like, and it is fun to recklessly impose your wild fantasies on their lives. It is totally up to you how you use this power—you could use it for cruelty or kindness—and it is enjoyable to just play around whenever the mood takes you because most of your bigger objectives are self-driven (like mastering music to the point where you become a rock star or finding your Sim a soulmate).
Regretfully, there is not the same level of nuance when creating your Sim’s physical attributes, especially when compared to modern character designers. There is a good selection of premade face features available, and you may sculpt your Sim’s anatomical features by pushing and tugging at a few anchor points to give them a more tailored look. It is not Dragon’s Dogma 2, which, given that The Sims 4 was released barely two years after Dragon’s Dogma 1, is not exactly shocking, but it is apparent in 2024. Nevertheless, I was pleased to discover that its sliders and sculpting abilities allowed me to at least generate a wide variety of body shapes.
You can use these easily accessible building tools without an architectural degree.
You can try your hand at commercial real estate as well, so constructing is not limited to your personal properties. While building your Sim’s private residence, cash flow is the driving force, while public lots just need the barest minimum of furnishings and facilities to do their jobs. It is a method that holds you responsible and gently nudges you away from creating pointless, uninteresting places. However, The Sims 4’s sandbox objective is always present, and you may simply break the rules and have a wild time with it anyhow. The precise tools available to you in Build Mode more than makeup for how confining the Create a Sim can feel at times.
However, your Sims will not always be content with what you make, even if it is something ridiculous. For example, in building a budget family home in the Oasis Springs desert, I skimped on the bedroom furniture to save money, a decision that did not fit with the high standards ingrained in one of its residents’ personalities. Due to their negative attitude, the choice caused a flurry of conflicts with relatives, destroying connections and endangering the future of the household. In the end, I was told to start over and improve the aesthetics so that I would not have to witness my Sim’s social life unravel due to mismatched lamps.
Verdict
In 2024, The Sims 4 is beginning to show its age, but what makes it so captivating is the enchanted sensation that arises when every component comes together to weave the intricate web of your Sims’ life. The easy-to-use building mode and sophisticated character creator are both remarkable in and of itself. You also get humorous and deeply moving reactions from the families you are leading when their peculiarities collide with the homes you have lovingly constructed.
Unlike any other game in this genre, there is a greater emphasis on recreating the complexity of real existence, with romance, friendship, and hatred all playing crucial roles. While raising the bar for life simulators overall, the past ten years have also left the base game with an antiquated sense of style and hidden what now feel like essential features like pets behind DLC, a problem that can only be solved by engaging in pricey expansions or fan-made mods. Even yet, I am still eager to create a new family dynamic and begin the hectic cycle of life anew after hundreds of hours of playtime and almost ten years of history.
