EA has released the official blog for the infant life stage, now available for The Sims 4.
Sul sul, Simmers! I’m SimGuruGraham, and I’ve been fortunate to work alongside a passionate team of folks within Maxis that have rallied around a single goal… to surpass your expectations for freeing the babies in The Sims 4! With today’s addition of Infants – a brand new life stage – we hope you’ll agree that we’ve lived up to our objective, and that you’ll find Infants to be the best little Sims you’ve ever experienced in a Sims’ game.
After you finish downloading today’s update and you rush to launch the game, you may be wondering what the fastest way is to start discovering the joy that Infants bring to your Sims’ household. Of course there’s tried and true options like adoption, or finding your favorite WooHoo spot and letting nature take its course. You could even try a new interaction available on your Sim’s phone to have a Science Baby, which lets you attempt a little platonic genetic mixing and see what the outcome may be. Personally though, I’d suggest setting all that aside and simply heading into Create-a-Sim to start customizing every aspect of a brand new Infant. It’s a first in the mainline Sims’ franchise to have this level of customization over a Sim this young, and you’ll discover lots to tweak and try on. There’s everything from stork bites that fade away over time to a baby head shaping helmet, and of course – plenty of adorable outfits and hairstyles. Before you leave CAS, don’t forget to select one of the six new traits that will significantly affect the personality of your Infant.
Back in Live Mode, you’ll find the world has much to offer an Infant. All ages of the family are able to socialize with infants, making for many cute camera-worthy moments! With the ability to crawl, you’ll need to keep an eye on your Infants as well. While they’ll happily push around nesting blocks or attempt to play with a dollhouse, they can also get up to mischief by exploring common household objects. Thankfully you’ll find new baby lock functionality at your fingertips on all gates and doors, and a cute new baby fence that’s perfect for keeping your little ones secured in an area.
Nurturing will play an important role in your Infant’s development. While caring for an Infant’s Attention motive is a clear way to ensure they’re getting the socialization they need, Infants also form attachments to their household members through regular interaction and bonding. This is key to an Infant’s development, and can result in special reward traits that influence their proficiency at forming healthy relationships over the span of their life. One great example of quality time spent between a caregiver and Infant is exploring various foods in the High Chair, where Infants will start learning things that they like, love, or dislike. And worry not, quality of life improvements are here for the High Chair for both Infants and Toddlers. We’ve made updates so that your little Sims won’t be so demanding about constantly wanting to be released from the High Chair.
Today’s update also includes a variety of furniture and decor options to build your dream nursery with. In particular, you’ll want to place one of the brand new Cribs to help ensure your Infant gets a quality night’s sleep. You’ll find Cribs that perfectly match a number of thematic styles, while others serve more practical purposes. If you’re the type of Sim family that’s constantly on the go and vacationing to new places, the portable Travel Crib is just what you need. More practical families may opt for an upgradeable crib, which can be transformed into a Toddler Bed when their Infant is ready for the next stage of their life. No matter which Crib you choose, they all have the ability to install a mobile which gently spins and plays relaxing lullabies, ensuring even an Infant with the Wiggly trait will drift off to sleep.
I also want to share some improvements we’ve made to your existing Sims. The babies that you’ve had in your game since The Sims 4 launched are now known as Newborns, and they still play an important role in the early progression of your Sims’ life. The time spent in this age has been shortened significantly; Newborns now represent the first couple of days after birth before they age up to become Infants. Although you’ll spend less time with Newborns, we added some great changes to improve this age. First and foremost, Newborns now have the same range of skin tones as all of our other Sim ages! Other visual changes include having their correct eye colors, and adjustments to their appearance and movements that help skew them even younger. They’ll now fit right into the family from the moment they’re brought home from the hospital! Children and Toddlers are finally able to interact with newborns, such as taking the opportunity to approach the bassinet and entertain them with youthful antics. We’ve also made significant quality of life improvements – no longer will caregivers awkwardly set Newborns back inside the bassinet in-between every social interaction. With all of these changes, you’ll find that the Newborn age now represents a short-but-sweet moment in each Sims’ life.
All in all, we’re thrilled to deliver this update to all Simmers! Infants were a special project for our team to work on, and we hope they’ll bring fun and joy (or for some of you, an entirely new level of challenge) to your time playing The Sims 4!
Dag, dag!
