…Sadly, in our reality, many of the cool stuff is behind rabbithole popup messages and choice-making menus. Pickpocket and burglar NPCs aside, I don't see them add unique, interesting sim autonomy either.

I wish we got spin-off games for some of these instead. I loved Castaway Stories in the Sims 2 era. Thing is, they did say they want the expanded Sims universe to include narrative-focused gameplay as well in one of their products… It would be a very welcome surprise if Project Dolores, one we know absolutely nothing about yet, were to be like a collection of Stories games where each new addition offers more complex gameplay based on the cooler themes above that we would definitely not see in the confines of Sims 4 ever.

Unfortunately, I can barely see any of these done well in Sims 4. I can see some good individual features that would work once they fix the bugs with the pack they would come in (i.e. commercial lot version of the For Rent system = "malls"), but I really don't think that most of these would not be overall disappointing Expansion Packs. Some could work OK as GPs instead like the kids' camping or the prehistoric fossil finding ones, but definitely not as EPs.

I'd need to see the full description on these for each as the survey only expands on two you choose, but so far, the ocean one sounds like the most likely to be decent in all aspects in Sims 4… heck, I wish it was the EP we got instead of the Island Living GP-turned-EP. Mermaids would make total sense in it as well.

The interesting setting aside, this to me sounds like a return to the Journey to Batuu system where you can pick either or both sides and you get tasks/missions based on your standing on either side. That system alone isn't necessarily the problem – I can't see EA let Maxis spend money on all the animations for a proper implementation of this, so it would probably be more "choose your own adventure" text menus like in JtB. That would eliminate the issue with keeping things within the game's rating on the other hand, as they can get away with using guns in text for example like with the JtB blaster pistol.

If outside of that the pack (or far more ideally, the pre-patch!) offers actual burglars, pickpockets, beating up both in the name of justice, that would be cool at least.