It’s backwards, just like everything else lately.

Honestly, the biggest problem is a lot of us have an odd kind of cynical Stockholm Syndrome. The Sims is a game that really doesn’t have any viable competitor or substitute to defect to, but EA has done all they can to make sure this installment never breaks the “subpar at best” threshold compared to their own prior installments.

Sure, there are games with aspects of The Sims, like Style Savvy, Story of Seasons, Animal Crossing, Minecraft, Fallout 4, even Paralives, a game aimed specifically AT being what The Sims SHOULD be by now, is still years off from release. We can’t all go back to older installments either given that modern PCs don’t play well with TS1, TS2 is only slightly a step up from TS4 in some ways while being a couple steps back in others so they fall about even at best, and TS3, while easily the best choice from a freedom and gameplay standpoint, is so poorly optimized that playing it means spending more time on maintaining and fixing it than actually playing.

Thus, we’re stuck here, watching the news and releases out of habit, waiting for a Hail Mary to hit the franchise that we KNOW isn’t coming, constantly being told that we’re nowhere near TS5 and the next expansion is either going to be some theme nobody asked for or an otherwise cool idea implemented in the most cosmetic, minimal or poorly-planned way possible, but we just don’t have any other options. So we complain and ridicule EA, because it’s all a lot of us have left anymore.

You want to know what we want? What we want is a Sims game that feels like an honest upgrade from TS1, TS2 and TS3, that actually functions as advertised without having to constantly maintain it using third-party utilities and hackarounds, with as much freedom for making and exploring lots, Sims, REAL OPEN WORLDS, as possible. We want Expansions- not Game Packs, not Stuff Packs, REAL EXPANSION PACKS, that aren’t shoved out the door in an endless stream of barely-completed mediocrity, that are worth the money they’re asking for them, that actually restore themes we know and love in their full glory while also bringing fresh new content and ideas to the table that feel cohesive and suit the established world without feeling like it’s just a reskin of existing content or lacking obvious and well-received features from past installments. We want a game-first focus on the game’s marketing, not cheap IRL makeup or endorsements from K-Pop singers or tacky clothing lines from the people who thought copyright-infringing McDonalds was fashionable, not mermaids eating grilled cheese on toilets while watching TV and brushing their teeth, and certainly not EMOTIONS! We want to make families, build our own worlds, design interesting and engaging people who can play off one another in fun ways, we want to SIMULATE LIFE.

What we want is a fourth The Sims game, not ᵀʰᵉSIMS4, and every step of the way we’ve been disappointed.