The Sims 4: First Look at New Content

Bridget Reed-Morawski ’16 / Emertainment Monthly Staff
Though The Sims 4, the latest addition to the Sims enterprise, was announced back in May, new trailers have been popping up since late August. Showing off the newest features, the official Sims 4 trailer has hit over 2,819,176 views on Youtube at press time. The latest features are exciting for old Sims players, like myself, and seem to answer more or less all of the fan’s game related prayers.
In previous installments of The Sims, players had rather limited options for character creation and customization, despite this being one of the main focal points of the entire game’s concept: create a character, down to their appearance and personality, and then live out their lives in whatever orderly or chaotic manner you choose.
In Sims 4, the developers have rethought the entire concept of customization and gone with a minimalist approach with maximal customizable potential. Previously, gamers had to settle on a slider bar option that would allow them a degree of customization over specific areas of facial features, such as the bridge of the nose. Though the options have become more user-friendly over the years, users still had difficulty getting the features just right for the desired effect.
Now, it appears that gamers can simply click and drag to expand, narrow, or shorten any part of any feature on their character’s bodies, from their breasts to their noses to their calves. This enables the user to create even more lifelike recreations of themselves, friends, or just imagined characters.
Characters were also demonstrated to have a wider emotional range, as well as the ability to develop harder impacting emotions such as depression and fury. This capability was shown through the trailer to have a more realistic effect on characters’ relationships and work ethic, as opposed to previous versions when emotions were less impactful on the direction of the game.
In addition to the newly expanded click and drag feature for character development, The Sims 4 has changed up the way people can adjust their homes. The click and drag feature operates more or less identically to how it works during character creation, though with walls and roofs. In older versions, slight glitches could turn the most beautiful house into a disaster with almost impossible roof options and incompatible staircases.
Look for The Sims 4 in early 2014 and is available for pre-order now on the www.thesims.com.
Watch the trailer for The Sims 4: