Players of The Sims 4 franchise knew that the reveal for the tenth, newest expansion pack was just around the corner, and today they finally got a peek at what it will be. The Sims 4: Snowy Escape’s official announcement trailer is set to drop tomorrow, October 20, but that hasn’t stopped fans from already reacting to the artwork and title.
Some fans of the series have been asking for a winter themed addition to the game for quite a while, but others think the expansion should have gone in a different direction. Even without the trailer, there’s already some division between The Sims players and why they think this was a good, or bad, move for the franchise.
The Sims 4 Snowy Escape: The Good
From the preview art alone, many fans seem to be pleased with the direction Snowy Escape is taking. It seems like it will add heavily Asian-inspired content for two key reasons. The first is that the artwork itself shows traditional Asian architecture behind two of the sims. Secondly, it has been confirmed by Sim Guru Graham Nardone that the world will be named “Mt. Komorebi,” a Japanese word that doesn’t have a direct translation, but emulates how light filters through the trees.
Players are also impressed by the potential of Mt. Komorebi and the new activities it will offer for their Sims. From the artwork, it seems that players can set their expectations on new winter activities like snowboarding, and other new physical activities like rock climbing. If the artwork is any indication of the new Create-A-Sim styles included in the pack, many fans are already excited to see what else it has in store. Overall, this is the most positive response fans have had to The Sims’ announcements in quite a long time. It seems many players have high hopes for what the expansion will entail, even without having seen the reveal trailer yet.
Sims 4 Snowy Escape: The Bad
Unfortunately, with all that positivity comes some negative energy as well. Some players are upset that the world of Mt. Komorebi seems to have snow in it, which was a key selling point of the useful The Sims 4: Seasons expansion. However, it’s more accurate to compare Mt. Komorebi to the world of Sulani, which came in The Sims 4: Island Living. Players do not need Seasons to enjoy the sunshine of Sulani anymore than they would need it to enjoy whatever climate Mt. Komorebi will offer players.
There has also been an outcry from some players questioning “who asked for this pack?” when the truth is that many people did. In fact, the theme of Snowy Escape can be traced back to a community outreach survey that was done many months ago for The Sims to gauge audience response on what they’d like to see added to the game. A winter-themed pack ranked very high, along with more items inspired by other cultures—Snowy Escape seems to have tried to tackle both requests.
The criticism of the similarities between Snowy Escape and Seasons isn’t unwarranted, however, thinking back to the release of The Sims 4: My First Pet stuff pack. Though it was only a stuff pack, it required players to own The Sims 4: Cats and Dogs before they could play it, which meant spending more money to add onto an already pricey Sims 4 expansion pack. Luckily, it seems the developers have learned from that endeavor, as no other packs released after that have needed a prerequisite pack again.
For now, this is all just speculation in The Sims community as nothing has really been confirmed for the pack, other than a few tweets from the Sim Gurus. October 20 will yield more information after the official trailer for Snowy Escape is released.
The Sims 4 is available now for PC, PlayStation 4, and Xbox One.