14 DAY TRIAL // Fans of the long-standing virtual-life simulation franchise The Sims have met the recent news that some features from the upcoming The Sims 4 game will not be available at launch with quite a vocal reaction, and EA has responded to their outcry.
The news that Sims will skip the toddler phase and move straight to youngster from the baby phase and the exclusion of swimming pools is what has gotten the community in an uproar, and the disgruntled fans have even put together an online petition that has registered over 16k signatures at the time of writing.
Last night, however, publisher Electronic Arts decided to respond to their fans and explain why the decision to exclude the two features had to be made.
"The fact is, we owe you a clearer explanation for why pools and toddlers will not be in The Sims 4 at launch," executive producer Rachel Franklin writes in a new post on The Sims blog.
"It begins with new technology and systems that we built for this new base game for The Sims - a new AI system, new animation system, new audio positioning tools, new locomotion logic, new routing intelligence and much more are all entirely new in this game," she continues.
She reveals that there is a lot of new content in the upcoming game, as Sims have seven unique walk styles, 320 emotion-based animations, and over 600 unique reactions to objects, and are now even able to multi-task. In addition to this, a standing Sim can now talk with a sitting Sim.
"So the bottom line is that when we sat down and looked at everything we wanted to do for this game, all the new tech we wanted to build into it, the fact was that there would be trade-offs, and these would disappoint some of our fans. Hard pill to swallow, believe me, but delivering on the vision set out for The Sims 4 required focus," Franklin points out.
EA first mentioned these issues last month, and made an attempt to appease fans by suggesting that the missing features would be added in a post-launch update or a future expansion, should the demand from fans prove to be favorable to implementing them.
"We recognise that some of you will be disappointed that pools and toddlers won't be available when The Sims 4 Base Game launches in September. You should know that we're building an incredibly strong foundation that is capable of fulfilling every one of your desires in the years to come. The future of The Sims 4 is bright," Lead Development Director Sim Guru Ryan wrote at the time.