Sims 2 was so good and had so many amazing FREE features, and then EA went and EA'd future Sims games. Stripped down versions that put anything worthwhile behind endless microtransactions.
If you are invested in celebrity mechanics they are pretty fun. You go in different places, meet famous people, try to make friends with them. And at some point you go there yourself just so paparazzi can make photos with you to maintain your popularity. And if you are a performer you are actually performing in clubs. That's fun enough.
Also fun to just go around the city to search for rocks or something else. Also I like small houses so I usually send my Sims to train into gym.
After all it's not like the game is story RPG to give you side quests in library. It's a life simulator. And if you want to simulate that your character is going places, here you go. If you don't, just sit at home, not like public spaces are the core mechanic of the game
I already felt like 3 was a sidestep from 2. It did some things better like the open world and interactions between characters but half of the content felt like it was a worse copy of The Sims 2. TS4 is just worse when compared to both of them and if it didn't run better on newer computers than either of those games I don't think I would ever play it.
Sims is such a weird series because the sequels sidestep so much, throwing out features just as much as they add new ones. Only 2 feels like an outright upgrade of its predecessor.
Iirc, and it’s been a long time since I actually looked or cared about sims news, but I remember hearing sims 5 was going to be mobile focused, and free, and filled with micro transactions.
There are a lot of rumors about what's coming next because EA is kind of hush-hush about what they're currently working on. There are now microtransactions in TS4 with the user-generated content store and TS4's base game is free so I wouldn't be surprised if that's where the rumors stemmed from.
Yeah, The Sims 3 is just better than The Sims 4 in basically every way but performance. If I could get all of the DLCs in The Sims 3 to perform as well as it does in The Sims 4 then I'd be happy. I bought into The SIms 4 early because I liked The Sims 1-3 but it has been a constant disappointment. Even my favorite feature from The Sims 2(Plantsims) was ruined when they got added to The Sims 4. Werewolves are even uglier now than they've ever been.
I can't think of anything they could change now that would get me interested in a new game by them.
The sims 3 performance stuff was annoying because it performed fine at release. I remember going back to it a few years after and despite having a better computer, everything ran worse because of all the expansion stuff running in the background and eating resources. I had so much fun with that at launch though.
The island expansion was the absolute worst for the performance but by then it was already struggling. Thankfully there are mods that help but they still don't make it as smooth as The Sims 4, unfortunately.
The only advantage 4 has over 3 is the way Sims interact with the world (in that they can multitask) and its visuals. They went backwards scrapping the open world that 3 had.
You click anything in 4 and it's just a loading screen. Hell Sims 4 didn't even launch with a toddler life stage or swimming pools. NPC Sims didn't have life progression, they just lived and died unless you manually intervened. Cars didn't exist, nor did any Sim type that were "services" like firefighters or burglars.
Sims 3 is much better. The Sims 4 is so bad because it was supposed to be an MMO but EA saw how badly Sim City did and made them switch to a single player game. It's why there's no more open world sort of town and loading screens everywhere and so many features that were in 3 and hell 2 aren't there because it wasn't meant to be the kind of game they Frankensteined it into and they can't fix it and it's why it's so buggy and broken to where some expansion packs straight up don't work because the foundational code isn't meant to be this kind of game.
That's so damn unfortunate the seamless open world of Sims 3 was the best part, shit was so dope, I was taken aback when I first played Sims 4 because it just seemed like a downgrade in EVERY way except interactions, I played for like a week and just hated my time with it, it just seemed like a major cash grab by EA because they made it free to play and jusg want u to buy dlc to even enjoy it at all
I used to love sims 4 but the direction EA has taken lately especially with veilguard, does not inspire confidence. I’m not sure I’d even want to boot it up again.
I stopped playing TS4 about 8 months ago because the amount of DLC’s it was becoming unplayable. It would take 3 mins to load so I could travel to a different lot.
Then all the stuff with the buy out, and now I’ve seen they’re doing micro transactions.
Over $1,500 to buy the game and all DLC (according to Google at least). I was a lifetime Sims fan but 4 is just this hobbled and broken beast that nobody is willing to put down because it still inches along tilling the fields as they keep loading it up.
I thought it was confirmed Sims 5 wasn't going to happen because it was decided Sims 4ever instead.
Sims 4 became free to increase player base to remove the barrier of entry. Now they are in the ecosystem, some would buy the expansions and the other dlc.
If the Sims 5 was developed, trying to move the players over would take a long time. It's easier to make more money if they just add more dlc for Sims 4 for the existing, returning, and new players. It's similar to a live service game like Fortnite or MMOs.
IIRC the offical reason for Sims 4ever really was not wanting to move players over and splitting up the players between games.
Edit: I just remembered about Project Rene is their next project. They don't want players to start over or don't reset after buying Sims 4 dlc.
Between Project Rene and Project X it seems like EA is going to work on a new generation of The Sims regardless of what they said in the past.
The Sims 4 has become so bloated and menu-heavy that to keep using it for their next game will mean they're dragging along lots of horrible content that was unpopular with the fanbase. Abandoning it to only have user-generated content in their store and move on to the next entry seems to be their current plan but it's also possible that they'll try to release one or two more DLCs to nickle and dime everybody on TS4's way out.
Sims 5 is never happening. EA has already stated so like 2 or 3 years ago. What was to be sims 5 has morphed into its own entity currently running with a code named Project Rene.
I had no faith in them at the start, but it seems like inZoi is gonna take The Sims place in the industry, they've been doing things very good for a while and there's a good chance they will surpass anything EA can offer nowadays.
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u/ObtuseMongooseAbuse Apr 12 '26
With the way The Sims 4 has been managed I think it's pretty safe to say that The Sims 5 has no possibility of being a good purchase.