Gamescom 2020 brought lots of exciting gaming news to the table, including the announcement of The Sims 4: Journey to Batuu. After much speculation from The Sims community, it was confirmed the new game pack would be Star Wars themed, but the announcement left many players disappointed and upset with the direction The Sims team is taking.
Twitter gives Simmers a unique opportunity to communicate with Sim Gurus, being able to tag them in tweets for a higher chance of being noticed and replied to, leading to players being vocal about all the things they want out of The Sims 4 that haven’t been implemented yet. Star Wars DLC was not high on many player’s wish lists, leading to backlash from The Sims community.
Comparatively speaking, the announcement trailer for Journey to Batuu has the most dislikes in any recent game pack from the last two years. Jungle Adventure, Realm of Magic, and StrangerVille amassed 8,500 dislikes between all three announcement trailers, meanwhile Journey to Batuu already has close to 100,000 dislikes in just four days. If Star Wars isn’t what Sims players want, what is it they want instead?
Improved Babies and Family Game Play
Simmers have been extremely vocal about how The Sims 4 lacks interactive family dynamics, including how babies operate within the game. It’s common that babies are referred to as “objects” in The Sims 4 because they are stationary to their bassinet, and Sims can only interact with the baby by clicking on the bassinet and choosing options from there.
This development, or un-development, rather, is an anomaly in Sims games. Both The Sims 2 and The Sims 3 gave players many interactive animations with their babies, including the ability to have sims walk around while holding their baby. If these abilities were already implemented in previous franchise games, why choose to omit it from the latest installment?
Nifty Knitting gave Simmers a taste of improved baby interactions. With this DLC, players can knit baby onesies and put them on babies. It’s not a hefty overhaul of how players can interact with babies, but it does give some previously unexplored customization options. The Sims 4: Parenthood, released in 2017, added a taste of what players have been asking of the development team with aspects like the Parenting skill and a Manners system that changes based on parental interactions with children and teens.
It seems, however, that Simmers are looking for family game play more akin to The Sims 3: Generations. This Expansion released in 2011 was comprehensive in giving new activities for all ages, from toddlers to elders. The Sims 4 has been critiqued in the past for only focusing on young adult sims, so aspects catered to toddlers and elders, whether in a new pack or patched into the base game, would be welcomed with open arms.
Meaningful, Re-Playable DLC
As a life simulation game, The Sims 4 should provide many routes for player’s sims to take, leading to different outcomes, jobs, and overall game play each time. Each story should feel unique and strive to encapsulate a sense of wonder for how a Sim’s story will play out. In The Sims 4 base game and its multiple DLC packs, players find that it doesn’t live up to that expectation like other Sims games have in the past.
For DLC to be considered re-playable, it should be able to be used repeatedly without feeling tired or boring. For many players, Journey to Batuu feels like DLC that will be exciting at the start but lack the desire to play multiple times. This isn’t the first Sims 4 DLC to be critiqued in such a manner.
The Sims 4: StrangerVille follows a similar path. Simmers can solve the mystery of StrangerVille and earn a lifetime achievement for doing so, but once that’s completed there’s little else to do in the town. Aside from interesting Create-A-Sim and Build/Buy Mode items, StrangerVille seems to be a one-and-done DLC option.
However, when The Sims 4: Moschino Stuff released in 2019, many fans garnered the same reaction as that of StrangerVille. Initially, many Simmers thought the DLC would add new Create-A-Sim items and not much else. The critiques were ultimately unmitigated, as Moschino Stuff provides high quality re-playability with the Photography skill and Freelance Photographer career.
Improved Skin Tones
On Twitter, Sims players have been the most vocal about the skin tones found within The Sims 4. Namely the fact that they’ve been dubbed “broken”–highly pixelated and ill-rendered in a way not found on lighter skin tones. Because of this, many Simmers resort to downloading Custom Content (CC) to fix these issues and add even more skin tone variety to their game.
The outcry for better skin tones is not new. Black Simmers have spoken about this issue for years, but it’s recently gained even more traction online with many speaking out about getting improved skin tones. The Sims prides itself on being a life simulator to create all kinds of people, but has unfortunately fallen short in this regard with pixelated eyebrows on darker skin and makeup that only shows up on lighter skin tones.
Thanks to the outcry on Twitter, The Sims team announced otd plans to revisit and revamp the existing skin tones in the game, as well as adding additional swatches. By the end of this year, Sims players can look forward to a patch with newly improved skin tones. This issue being addressed shows that The Sims team listens to its players and takes their feedback to heart, so why are some players still so upset with the announcement of Journey to Batuu and saying that The Sims team doesn’t listen?
Why Star Wars? Why Now?
Back in April, EA released a road map of The Sims’ trajectory, teasing new Expansion, Stuff, and game packs. Odds are Journey to Batuu has been in the works for awhile now. As such, it doesn’t feel fair to The Sims team to say it's ignoring their players when the reality is this pack was probably in development for many months, long before the announcement at Gamescom or the road map post. Plus, EA already has licensing agreements with the Star Wars franchise, so it makes sense to collaborate with The Sims for this DLC.
The fact of the matter is that development of new things takes time, and there’s no way of knowing what The Sims team has up its sleeve next. It’s easy to feel disappointed that Journey to Batuu isn’t what players were expecting and to feel like this DLC isn’t compatible with some Simmers’ style of game play. It’s completely valid to not feel excited for a game pack if it doesn’t pique interest.
As shown with skin tones, The Sims team is listening. Just because Journey to Batuu isn’t what some players wanted right now, it doesn’t mean it’ll be a bad DLC. It also doesn’t mean the other requested developments aren’t being worked on, either. For now, Simmers will have to wait and see what game play will be like for Journey to Batuu and if other requested developments come in due time.
The Sims 4: Journey to Batuu will be available September 8, 2020, for PC, PS4, and Xbox One.