State of the Game: The Sims 4 – a game of cycles that could do with starting anew

The Sims has been around for 22 years now, with even The Sims 4, and most recent, numbered entry being a venerable eight years old. My first time playing the original was a communal experience in the sixth form common room, crowded around a friend’s laptop. We created a replica of said common room, populated it with facsimiles of friends and mostly left them to their own devices. One of them forgot where the toilet was and peed himself, then cried about it.

The Sims 4Publisher: EADeveloper: MaxisPlatform: PC, PS4, Xbox OneLaunched: 2014Monetisation: Full-price game with large number of paid-for add-ons, bundles and packs (from £4.99 to £34.99).

The Sims 2? Not sure if I even played it. I was 21 when it was released in 2004 and, like much of my life back then, the memories are a bit fuzzy.

Number three meanwhile was inspirational. Not so much the game itself, although many would say it’s the high point of the series, but the writing about it. Robin Burkinshaw’s “Alice and Kev”, a blog chronicling the adventures of a homeless Sim and his daughter, really struck a chord and inspired me to try my hand at something similar. (It was rubbish.)

In 2014 we got the fourth entry. My life wasn’t in great shape at the time, but neither was the game. We’ve changed for the better since then, The Sims 4 and I, so let’s talk about that.

I can’t disentangle the stages of my life from that of The Sims. The series is all about stages! Sims grow from babies through childhood and adulthood, before eventually passing away. Your games start as micromanaged struggles for survival, evolving into a more sedate rhythm of career progression and acquiring more stuff. The games themselves are similar. They are released into the world, fresh and new, accumulate updates and expansions, then are put out to pasture when a sequel is announced.