Back in June, The Sims 3 celebrated its five year anniversary. During its lifetime we’ve seen a ton of expansions and countless items added to the game. As well as it’s been supported, its time to move on.
The Sims 4 is ready to debut in a week, and is looking to usher the franchise into the new generation. It’s making some bold moves, emphasizing creation and sharing while also making some adjustments to streamline the franchise.
Related: The Sims 4 Preview
Franky, The Sims 4 is very different from its predecessors. We’ve included all the information you need to know in the gallery below so you know what to expect when September 2nd rolls around.
The Sims 4 - Everything You Need to Know
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Create a Sim has limitless options
Character creation has always been an important part of The Sims. While there have been plenty of options in past games, The Sims 4 goes where almost no other game has gone before.
When creating a character using Create a Sim, you'll have thousands of options. There are more hair styles, eyebrows, and other features to choose from than previous games. Additionally, you can drag and sculpt the shape of your sim's body, allowing for even further customization. With all these options Maxis is confident that you'll be able to create a virtual counterpart of just about anyone in the real world.
But Create a Sim isn't just about physical options. Similar to The Sims 3, you'll need to choose from several options that define your sim's personality and skillset. Made better, you can choose a walk style to further define your sim's mannerisms. These options are more numerous than any of the previous games, and are reflected in a much more noticeable way in the game world.
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Build Mode is better than ever
A lot of the work that's gone into The Sims 4 has been to make it as intuitive as possible. Let's face it, previous games in the franchise weren't as easy to control as they could have been. One way it'll be easier to handle is in Build Mode, which allows you to create and customize a home for your sims.
Although most of what you've seen in the past is still here, there are new options that offer great flexibility. Here are a few of those options:
- Foundations - You can customize the foundation of your home, defining a starting floor height. This allows you to build a stairway leading up to the front door if you'd like.
- Room Shapes - Instead of rooms needing to be square or rectangular, you can now very easily shape them in a variety of ways, including triangular and octagonal rooms.
- Windows - There are tons of new options for windows. If you like those little windows top floor windows on Victorian homes, you can place those on your The Sims 4 home. Heck, you can make your entire home out of windows if that's what you're into.
- Floor Height - You now can control how tall each floor is in your home. If you like high ceilings, you can have them.
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Share and download whenever you want
Sharing is a huge part of The Sims 4. With it, the game experience is much more social than in previous iterations.
For one, you can share characters that you create. During demonstrations, Maxis have shown character created celebrities such a Chuck Norris, who look just like their real-world counterpart and have similar traits. You can create these for yourself, or download them online and make them a part of your community.
The Build Mode options are even better. It's difficult to design a good-looking home, and by hopping into the Share menu you can see what other people have designed, download the space, and place it into your home. Examples include dining areas and even living rooms.
It's important to note that players can rate shared creations. That'll make it easy to weed out the poorly designed content.
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Worlds have been divided into neighborhoods
The Sims 4 will have two worlds at launch: Willow Creek and Oasis Springs. You can visit either at any time, although there's a loading screen to be encountered.
What you might not know is each of these worlds have been broken up into neighborhoods, or districts. Instead of one big map to move around in, you'll have much smaller in scope portions of the map to play in at any given time. You can travel between neighborhoods, but there is a loading time involved.
Willow Creek in particular has six neighborhoods. These neighborhoods have a few homes on them, or even a park.
Thankfully, public spaces are accessible at any time. Public spaces include stores and other facilities to visit. There will be no loading time involved with these.
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Work has changed, and so have the Careers
Rabbit holes are gone. Yup. Instead, the work style of The Sims 1 and 2 are back. You'll leave for work and disappear into thin air instead of entering buildings around the city.
Here are the careers to choose from:
- Entertainer: Musician/Comedian
- Writer: Author/Journalist
- Painter: Master of the Real/Patron of the Arts
- Secret Agent: Diamond Agent/Villain
- Criminal: Boss/Oracle
- Astronomer: Space Ranger/Smuggler
- Culinary: Chef/Mixologist
- Tech Guru: eSport Gamer/Start-up Entrepeneur
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A pretty world
It's been five years since The Sims 3 released. Since that time, a lot has changed in regards to graphics in video games. In The Sims 4, the graphics are nice on the eyes. Outdoor environments are busting with color, and characters come to life with dozens of facial animations and walking styles. It'll be difficult for fans of the franchise not to become completely immersed in this world.
Here are the system requirements:
- REQUIRED: Internet connection required for product activation.
- OS: Windows XP (SP3), Windows Vista (SP2), Windows 7 (SP1), Windows 8, or Windows 8.1
- PROCESSOR: 1.8 GHz Intel Core 2 Duo, AMD Athlon 64 Dual-Core 4000+ or equivalent (For computers using built-in graphics chipsets, the game requires 2.0 GHz Intel Core 2 Duo, 2.0 GHz AMD Turion 64 X2 TL-62 or equivalent) MEMORY: At least 2 GB RAM
- HARD DRIVE: At least 9 GB of free space with at least 1 GB additional space for custom content and saved games
- DVD-ROM: DVD ROM drive required for installation only
- VIDEO CARD: 128 MB of Video RAM and support for Pixel Shader 3.0. Supported Video Cards: NVIDIA GeForce 6600 or better, ATI Radeon X1300 or better, Intel GMA X4500 or better
- SOUND CARD: DirectX 9.0c Compatible
- DIRECTX: DirectX 9.0c compatible
- INPUT: Keyboard and Mouse
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Some things have been removed
Maxis has already gotten a bit of criticism from the community for its removal of certain features. How you feel about this will depend on how you feel about the features to begin with. Some of these changes might come across as negative, but here are design reasons behind them.
Here are the most notable removals from previous games:
- Toddlers have been removed.
- Pools have been removed.
- Cars have been removed.
- Teenagers are the same height as adults.
- Districts are smaller in scope than The Sims 3's worlds. However, you can move between districts, although there is a loading time.
- Unplayed sims stagnate. Only played characters marry and get new jobs.
More can be read on NeoGAF here.
