Summary
A major part ofThe Sims 4’s appeal has always been its pick-up-and-play nature, with the life simulation experience demanding minimal mechanical savvy on a basic level. Unfortunately, however, the game hasn’t always been as easy to jump into as it should be.Various problems that have plaguedThe Sims 4over the years can turn a lot of its community awayfrom the game, but a new announcement indicates that things could finally be going in a different direction.
When it comes to development, makingThe Sims 4work seems like no easy task. There are a lot of distinct tasks for the game to manage, from the behavior and schedule of NPC sims to all the possibilities for customization within the game. It’s still frustrating when the flaws in the system reveal themselves, however, especially when they result in a crash or something similarly damaging to the gameplay experience.
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A New Team Is Focusing On Core Fixes For The Sims 4
Problems Have Been Building Up For Years
A new tweet from the officialThe Simsaccount establishesa new plan of action forThe Sims 4in the form of a “team to invest in the core game experience,“which very much sounds like a promising step forward for the game.The Sims 4is always in a state of continual development, but most of the work seems to go into a constant cavalcade of expansions. These obviously generate money in a direct way that patches and basic maintenance don’t, but things do eventually start to reach a breaking point.
A Laundry List on the officialEAwebsite details what the team is working to address in the next patch from the new team, covering a variety of issues that plague the current version ofThe Sims 4. Many of these have to do with standard tasks in the base game, like issues with doing dishes, moving households, or managing jobs. A number of expansions are also getting shorter lists of changes, from better routing for pets in theessential animal lovers' DLCCats & Dogsto getting stuck with the same poor grade even after academic improvement inHigh School Years.
The patch is scheduled for release before the end of May, with others planned to follow in roughly two-month intervals.
The Sims 4’s Performance Problems Should Improve
Optimizations Are Planned Across Platforms
Beyond these fixes, the announcement of the new team also makes note of performance optimizations forThe Sims 4.It’s never been intended to be a particularly demanding game, as plenty of potentialSimsfans may not have the beefiest systems, butintense memory demands make it prone to slowdown and crashing. It’s a problem that’s mounted as more and more DLCs have been added, with various performance bugs and generally declining framerates ultimately becoming the norm.
The most stable performance can often be found in thePS5 and Xbox Series X versions ofThe Sims 4, which have the advantage of more straightforward optimization than PC and hardware improvements lacking on the PS4 and Xbox One. Thankfully,the next patch is planned to make performance improvements across platforms, not just on one target. Dragging the PS4 and Xbox One versions back to any kind of excellent form might be a pipe dream, but being able to play a more stable version ofThe Sims 4on any system should make it a lot more fun in general.
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Just how effective the shift in approach will be in practice remains to be seen, as it’s not the first time EA has made promises that pointed to a more hopeful future forThe Sims 4. Assigning a team to work on fundamentals of the core game seems like the kind of concrete move that has to at least be helpful, however, so there’s definitely room for optimism. Withnew competitors toThe Simson their way, it’s a good time for EA to get serious about keeping the game on track.
If the next patch ends up addressing everything that’s planned for it, that alone will mark a significant leap forward forThe Sims 4. It might take a long time to work through every major concern that the community currently has, but with any luck, steady progress toward a better version ofTheSims 4should start now and continue into the future.
