On September 1st, EA released the trailer for The Sims 4 Star Wars: Journey to Batuu, and the feedback from fans has been harsh. Today, EA released a letter to its fans in hopes of soothing them.
"We want you to know we’ve been seeing all your feedback and we hear you," says SimGuru Lyndsay, who addresses four key points in response to Tweets being directed at the company with player suggestions for how The Sims 4 can be improved. EA is working on adding more realistic skin tones before the end of the year.
However, the developers at EA need time to "dig into designs more deeply to make sure we understand your expectations," before adding frequently-requested content such as cars and bunk beds. Additionally, t here's a new pack coming out, but it won't have any of the aforementioned requests, though Lyndsay promises that, "we are going to make more of an effort to communicate what’s coming with more regularity and transparency."
Unfortunately, there are indications that EA will have to do a lot to properly address players' concerns over its handling of the franchise. The trailer for Journey to Batuu on YouTube currently has almost twice as many dislikes as it does likes, which appears to be a direct response to a poll DigitalSpy released last week, wherein a lineup of 21 potential DLC ideas, Star Wars ranked dead last. But this outrage didn't happen in a vacuum, it has been building at least since The Sims 4 base game was released.
EA 'won' The Consumerist's "Worst Company in America" awards in 2012 and 2013, before The Sims 4 was released, so the company clearly had difficulty placating critics for the better part of the decade, and it hasn't gotten much better. Features that were present in The Sims 2 and The Sims 3, like family trees, were notably missing in the base game upon release, and fans felt that they were getting less content for the price. The base game typically costs about $40, as do the 9 expansion packs, 9 (now 10) game packs at $20 each, and 17 stuff packs at $10 each, making for a whopping total of $770 to own the entire collection (provided nothing is discounted).
Some reviewers who received early access to Journey to Batuu find the game pack underwhelming. This is the first Sims DLC that did not come with new lots to play in, includes no new traits ('force sensitive' is an obvious one), and there is only one building that isn't a rabbit hole on the whole map, the Cantina. The fact that the play area is a direct recreation of the Star Wars: Galaxy's Edge attraction found at Disneyland and Walt Disney World, yet contains very few activities outside of the main storylines, makes this release seem more like an advertisement than a game.
The Sims 4Â is available now on PC, PS4, and Xbox One.
Source: EA