There was a lot of controversy around the release of “The Sims 4”, and many players suspected that the franchise might be on its way out with the changes EA had decided to implement in it. However, after the initial dust settled, it quickly became apparent that the game actually had a lot to offer. Now that some time has passed since the initial release, what do players have to say, and are they finally happy with the sequel?
It looks like the majority of initial worrying was over nothing, and what players saw as potential problems turned out to be minor issues at worst. Sure, the game did have some problems at launch and it was a rocky release in some aspects, but it also quickly became obvious that EA’s developers had put a lot of work into this installment, and they were actively trying to push the franchise forward.
One of the biggest initial problems was the lack of content at launch, but that was quickly addressed with the release of multiple expansions. The DLCs added a lot to the game and more or less fleshed it out completely, even though some players were critical of the way EA fractured the base gameplay in order to achieve that.
Things like removing classic gameplay elements only to bring them back in the form of DLC were immediately taken poorly by fans, and even though the actual quality of the content was top notch, the way it was released struck many players as a poor move by the studio.
On the other hand, a lot of depth was added to the core gameplay, and that seemed to have made up for what was missing. Sims themselves were made much deeper and more expressive than before, and the developers have obviously put a lot of thought into defining their new behavior.
As a result, players had to adjust their playing style from what they knew previously, as the game was now a bit more challenging to go through with the same old strategies. While some players saw this as a negative change, others were happy with the refreshing change of pace, and claimed that the game now works much better and its different elements make more sense.
Some negative attention was drawn by the decision to expand the gameplay outside of the homes of the Sims. This was a trend that was already started in the previous games, but it was expanded even further in this installment, even though it was not received that well in the previous games to begin with.
It makes sense too, as the base idea of “The Sims” as a franchise is to follow the life of a person in their home, or at least that’s how the franchise started. Things eventually changed once technology made it possible to shift the gameplay in a new direction, and it looks like EA have every intention to maintain that momentum in the next installments in the franchise as well.
Looking back at the critical responses to the game, it was obvious that it still managed to please critics and fans alike, despite some of its shortcomings. EA did try to fix some of the problems they had created, and they showed that they were actually listening to what their fans had to say, something which is not particularly common for the studio from their past.