I have been playing Snowy Escape and, a few hours in, I became frustrated with the robotic gameplay and limitations so I have decided to skip on posting this time around.
The Sims 4 needs some serious improvements before I will play again. The game has no soul and laying packs upon packs on a broken game isn’t helping. This is probably more of a reflection of the base game rather than the pack and it always will be unless it’s fixed in my opinion.
The new world is beautiful and there are some cool things in it but it’s all essentially just new stuff to click on, rabbit holes in places you’d otherwise be excited to see and deadpan Sims.
I may not post about the sims 4 again. This makes me extremely sad but there’s only so many times I can say the same thing about the game and I feel like I’ve been saying these things in every pack review for the past few years!
I really hope things improve and I can post content again in the future but for now I cannot keep repeating myself about the issues it has.
I am grateful that I was chosen to get early access for this pack and feel extremely guilty about not creating content given that someone else could made if they’d been given that slot and possibly enjoyed it (we all have different play styles and different things we look for in the game afterall).
I’ve lost hope that The Sims 4 will be anything like what The Sims encapsulates and means to me as a franchise.
I don’t want to burn any bridges but I also think it’s important to stand up for what I think is right. I’ve been posting Sims videos on YouTube since The Sims 3 days and started because I was genuinely passionate about the game. We’ve had rough patches before but they were always sorted out quickly and effectively. Each pack brought something genuinely new. With The Sims 4, while we do get some improvements, they come way too late and always seem to make the game buggy in some other place. Each pack feels like a re-skin of something we already have.
Perhaps the next edition of the game, if that happens, will be amazing! I hope so!
I could go on to say what I like and dislike about this new pack but I honestly don’t think it’s worth the time to think about it anymore. The base game does every pack a disservice. There were definitely good parts to the pack but the frustration I had playing it way overshadowed them. I wanted to have fun when playing and I wasn’t having any. Even when I made the decision to not make content and just play for fun I found it impossible.
I’m happy to see people hyped for the pack and genuinely hope you will enjoy it but for now I have to bow out for my own sanity.
Me not creating sims 4 content may not be a huge deal for the community as a whole I’m sure but it’s a huge deal for me. I feel broken.
![The Sims Freeplay Home for the Holidays Update [Nov 2024 – Jan 2025]](data:image/png;base64,iVBORw0KGgoAAAANSUhEUgAAAlgAAAGQAQMAAABI+4zbAAAAA1BMVEUAAACnej3aAAAAAXRSTlMAQObYZgAAADRJREFUeNrtwQENAAAAwiD7p7bHBwwAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAgKQDdsAAAWZeCiIAAAAASUVORK5CYII=)
I am a console player and I whole❤ agree we need more space and less limitations. The base game need to take a look back at sims 2 if u asked me. The game was growing in the right direction with the option of direct control and the different weather, and than they set it back. Why add something great with a great turnout and then just take it away..smh I definitely don’t get it. Many other games are open world, its the new way to go as well. I am excited about the new pack but its just different content which means my excitement will be short lived. Players that feel like I do if you haven’t tried RD2 and GTA are a good go to game for that feel with a lot more excitement!
You described it perfectly! The game absolutely has no soul anymore, and the gameplay is soo boring. I have so many saves and characters that I love, but there’s nothing to do with them anymore. Thanks for your honesty.
Looking forward to Paralives. EA has gotten lazy with no real competitors and just release cookie cutter or unpolished expansions.
I don’t blame you at all for losing your passion for the Sims franchise. It’s happening more and more to die hard fans and it won’t stop until EA makes some GENUINE changes. I have been obsessed with this series since the days of Sims 1, but the Sims 4 has made me legitimately hate EA. I went from spending thousands of hours playing, creating content, even spending hours learning how to mod for these games! Yet now I sit here feeling completely dejected. I have finally broken down and deleted the Sims 4 from my computer. I hadn’t opened the game in months anyways, but the recent Star Wars catastrophe was the last straw for me.
Calling this game soulless hits the nail in the head. What happened to the goofy quirkiness of the earlier installments? The Sims 1 with it’s playful creepiness. The Sims 2 with it’s heartwarming small details. The Sims 3 with it’s incredible ability to feel so alive. I miss the little things like seeing lovers snuggling up to each other while they sleep, or children running outside to hug their parents when they got home from work. I miss the little quirks we may have missed that were only discovered years later, like how I had no idea death by satellite was a thing in the Sims 2 until suddenly a sim I had loved was flattened on the sidewalk. These earlier games in the series were created with so much passion and it is clearly so! And while we can say that, sure, maybe the devs are still passionate about the game, where do we see it? All I ever see in the Sims 4 is a sim walking around with a big smile on her face after her husband tragically died because, by god, what a well decorated apartment this is! Or another sim feeling playful while watching his wife cheat on him with his own brother because he just saw a silly show on tv. And please, don’t even get me started on the valid soullessness that is the game’s “personality” system (or lack thereof). Every single sim behaves exactly the same, with the only deviation coming from what we the player decides they should want.
I’ve gone on this rant before and I don’t see myself shutting up about it any time soon. Like I said, I’ve been a fan on this series since the beginning. Watching it get better and better each time and then suddenly become this soulless tribute to capitalistic greediness has broken my heart. Give us back the passion! Give us back the love! Until then, I’m out, too. I’d rather hold onto my dollars, or better yet send them to independent creators who seem to actually LISTEN to the fans.
For now? I’m sending the money I would have spent on Sims 4 packs to Paralives and playing a heavily modded Sims 2 in the meantime. I’d rather see real emotion on old graphics than that empty, vapid stare of a Sims 4 sim.
Thank you for speaking out about this, I’ve also been a big fan of The Sims ever since the first one and I’ve felt like they need to make a new Sims game and put all focus on that. I hope they do it. I haven’t felt comfortable buying an expansion full priced (or at all for that matter) in a very long time and it makes me sad.
Same… the sims 3 was such a huge part of my life and it’s so sad that my computer struggles to load it. The sims 4 could’ve been amazing but the decisions they’ve made and what they’ve cut down has ruined it. I want to play it and love it but it’s so boring and repetitive. I just want to skip to the sims 5.
Poor journalist.. I said the same thing years ago about the sims 4. I knew once I saw the base sims 4, they were going to nickel and dime everyone for stuff that should already be in a base game.
Not to mention they now have more stuff/game packs than the sims 3, with only half the content.
Thanks fir having the courage to go public with your frustration… So many of us are… I hope EA really listens, but I, too have lost all hope in the prospect…
This sounds like the blog equivalent of those vague attention-seeking Facebook statuses, where the attention-seeker posts something vague about a problem but then refuses to go into any real depth about the issue; or even better, about the cause.
What don’t you like about it? Why does it feel soulless? Why does the base game do a disservice to each expansion pack? Why was this the straw that broke the camel’s back? And so on.
It’s fine not to like it of course; I’ve got my own pile of complaints like anyone else, but the lack of exploration of these complaints makes this whole article come off as a bit uninspired in my honest opinion. But also, that’s just me.
I agree, I would have liked more of an explanation. The Sims 4 complaints are nothing new in the post but I wanted to know why the pack is so bad that it can not be reported on
I can’t believe they still haven’t worked out these pre-existing problems. If they don’t drop a patch before this game expansion comes out I’m probably going to withdraw my pre-order and stop playing this game all together. This is absolutely ridiculous! Thank you so much for keeping it real with us about these ongoing existing problems with with the new expansion pack as well. It’s just disappoints me that our complaints are not heard or basically prioritized. EA and the entire Sims team have to do better because I’m totally about to walk away from this franchise.
Thanks for the honesty about the pack and the sims 4 in general. Very brave to speak out on this even though you’re a game changer and even more brave to leave TS4 after you put so much time into it! Hopefully the future sims installments will be way better and bring the life back into the sims 🙂 All we can do is wait and see.
Honestly at this point I won’t be reading your posts and reviews anymore. You even said you had an opportunity most wouldn’t by gaining early access, but because you just don’t feel like it, you’re not going to go in depth and explain why this pack isn’t worth it? Maybe you need a new career because it’s sounding like you just don’t like sims anymore, and aren’t willing to do your job. Also, you’ve most likely burned a LOT of bridges by what you did.
Author
It’s not ‘my job’. I’m not posting because ‘I don’t feel like it’, I’m not posting because the base game is still so buggy and unplayable that it doesn’t do any pack they lay on top of it any justice. Our priority as gamechangers should be to be constructive and give HONEST feedback at all times. If what I have posted burns bridges then so be it, Id rather be honest about my experiences in game than lie just for views.
After this pack came out I have to agree with you. I cannot find any interacting and fun Snow gameplay in this. For a pack that is called Snowy Escape, there’s only little you can do in the snow and all the meaningful gameplay is in the sentiments which come for free or in the lifestyles which have absolutely nothing to do with a snow pack.