The Sims 4 is almost five years old, and it remains one of the world’s most popular games. The game’s seen an upsurge of popularity with the recent release of the new Island Living expansion, but in general The Sims 4 has maintained the playerbase of the series four games in and 19 years after the first game, despite not being regularly updated such as a title like Fortnite. Now EA and Maxis has announced The Sims 4 New Look update with a host of new features. Let’s take a look.
The Sims 4 New Look | When is the new Sims 4 update?
The first and most important question is, when is The Sims 4 update dropping? When can players experience this New Look for the first time? The answer is different depending on whether you’re playing on PC or consoles, but it’s not far off either way. PC players of The Sims 4 will be able to check out the New Look update next Tuesday, July 16. Console players are a bit behind however, and will get the Island Living expansion on that day alongside a big patch that adds Alexa Skills and the content from the Freelancer and Pride updates, but not the New Look update. That’ll come later.
The Sims 4 New Look | What’s included in the new update?
The new update will add a load of new features to the game, so much so in fact that the game now has a new box art, which you can see above. It represents Maxis and EA’s re-commitment to supporting The Sims 4, as well as a new and more varied set of sims being used in the game’s marketing. There’s going to be a new plumbob used in that marketing too, which you can see next to the game’s new logo on the box art. The in-game one won’t change, however.
Reportedly, and perhaps most excitingly, over a thousand new items will be added to the game in the Build and Buy category. Most of these will be able to be unlocked from the game’s various environments, and most will be available in the base game, with the remaining assigned to the various expansion packs. There’s a new cheat to unlock them. There’s also going to be a new main menu and loading screen, but the biggest addition is the new Create-a-Sim story mode…
The Sims 4 New Look | What is the new Create-a-Sim mode?
The new Create-a-Sim story mode is an optional way to create your sims, primarily aimed at first time players. You can either create a sim from scratch the usual way, or you can take a personality quiz and have the game create a sim for you that way. There are ten questions in total, which allow you to add personality and traits to a sim before they go live in the game. These questions assign various aspirations, traits, career, and skills. A sim created this way will start with extra funds and be at level 3, although aspirations and traits will be locked and cannot be changed. Here are examples of the questions, as spotted in the stream:
- What age am I?
- What do I most want to do on a trip to Selvadorada?
- I’ve found an ancient relic of some kind…
- What’s most important to me while selecting a place to live?
- I’ve got a pile of documents stacking up, what do I do?
- I’ve found a strange plant outside. What do I do?
- Bugs, critters, and all that?
- The best stories…
- My friend needs someone to watch their child…
- The best music…
- As a child, I wanted to work…
- It’s my friend’s birthday. What do I do for them?
- The great outdoors are…
The Sims 4 New Look | What is the reaction from the community?
While a lot of players have welcomed the new update, there has been some controversy about it too. The total menu redesign and new color scheme have attracted some attention, but mostly it’s seemingly the emphasis the game puts on the various expansion packs, particularly in the new main menu (above) that has players upset. It seems to focus on showing you the DLC packs you don’t have, and some players don’t think this is fair. We’ll see if the controversy stays when the New Look update goes live next week.
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