Featured Graphic by Destiny Mizell
Story by Grace Howland
Starting a family in “The Sims 4” was always one of the most exciting parts of the game for me. However, once the mother would have a baby, I would have to wait until the baby would grow up before they could act as anymore than an object.
In the upcoming free update to all, there will be major changes to the babies in the game. They will no longer just sit in cribs until they become toddlers. Sims will be able to directly interact with babies in various activities. Babies can also crawl, spit up and bite their mom’s fingers.
On January 30, the first episode of “Behind the Sims” was released by Maxis and Electronic Arts as an unlisted YouTube video. It is a community series that dives into updates on the game. Within the episode, a small trailer that contains the baby update was revealed. Babies were seen crawling around the house and being carried by other sims outside. They were also seen in multiple different outfits and appearances, which is also completely new for “The Sims 4”.
On February 2, a trailer was released publicly on YouTube for the “Growing Together” expansion pack. While the expansion pack costs money and is separate from the update, the baby update will be free and available to all players when it launches.
The expansion pack revolves around social interactions that Sims can engage in, and their personality traits can be impacted by milestones in their lives. Sims can become friends at social events and families can experience fun moments and drama with one another.
One of the things that stood out in both trailers, however, was the fact that the babies could be taken outside of the house. The mother could hand the baby to other sims to play with and take care of.
In the earlier games, babies did not even have personality traits or appearances before they grew into children. Pregnancy was not an aspect of the series until “The Sims 2” was released. In “The Sims 3,” babies would have different colored blankets and you were able to view what their needs were. Even in “The Sims 4” babies were just inanimate objects just like the rest of the series until now.
The update is about to change all of this with the features shown in the trailer. Its even possible to create baby sims in the “Create-A-Sim” mode, and their appearances are completely customizable. As the series celebrated its 23rd anniversary on February 4, this may just be one of the biggest and most exciting updates the franchise has ever seen.
The update will be released for PC and consoles everywhere on March 14, 2023. The “Growing Together” pack is available for pre-order and will be released on March 16, 2023.
Grace Howland is a Lifestyles Reporter for MTSU Sidelines.
To contact Lifestyles Editor Destiny Mizell, email lifestyles@mtsusidelines.com. For more news, visit www.mtsusidelines.com, or follow us on Facebook at MTSU Sidelines or on Twitter at @Sidelines_News.
