Over the past decade, The Sims 4 has certainly struggled under the technical weight of years of updates and DLC releases, much to the annoyance of fans. But today, the team's pledged to put more resources into the "core game experience."
The Sims released a statement on the matter earlier today, in which the team acknowledged that "technical issues with The Sims 4 have interrupted your gameplay over time and we recognize that this has caused you much frustration."
"Today," the statement continued, "we can share that we have assembled a team to invest in the core game experience, including tackling your reported concerns. This newly formed and focused team means we'll be able to increase both the number of fixes and the frequency with which we ship these batched updates."
A message to our loyal community ?
— The Sims (@TheSims) May 23, 2024
Link to the Laundry List: https://t.co/GrYvp8Si0k pic.twitter.com/u4IhIDLbW8
The plan moving forward, according to the statement, is to release a patch roughly every two months, with the first coming later this month. EA published the details of this first patch in a "Laundry List" on its website. And, true to the "Laundry List" title, it mostly is a litany of fixes for small (albeit frustrating) bugs, ranging in everything from a "trash can is required" message appearing on lots that already have one to traversal issues with puppies and kitties.
But, behind the bug fixes, the team promises to "continue making core improvements to the performance of The Sims 4." To that end, the statement says the next patch will include some optimizations across platforms so The Sims 4 uses less memory.
"As a result, you may experience fewer crashes, a better frame rate, and/or a more responsive simulation," it adds.
As the devs acknowledge, bugs and performance have long been points of consternation among fans, so the community's reaction to today's news was largely positive on the game's subreddit, if a little cautious in their optimism.
"They did an in game survey about [DLC] for rent that seemed to ask a lot about how unplayable it was, I wonder if that had anything to do with this," wrote one user. "Glad EA is letting them have more people, hopefully they’re able to actually start fixing stuff (but probably not lol)"
Other were a little surprised about the seeming reinvestment into the decade-old title, especially as EA gears up for its next Sims game, codenamed "Project Rene." It's been months, however, since we got any updates on that, and EA said last September that it was still in the "early stages" of development.
In the meantime, the team has vowed to continue supporting The Sims 4, both in today's statement and in prior ones.
"Our team is more dedicated than ever to developing great The Sims 4 gameplay experiences into the foreseeable future," the statement concludes, "and we appreciate your support as these critical improvements roll out."
Alex Stedman is a Senior News Editor with IGN, overseeing entertainment reporting. When she's not writing or editing, you can find her reading fantasy novels or playing Dungeons & Dragons.
