EA has released another massive base game update for The Sims 4, featuring hundreds of bug-fixes, a new clothing category, and major overhauls to the way Sim-parents interact with Infants and Toddlers. GameSpot spoke to Sims 4 producer Morgan Henry via email to get a better idea of how these new features work, which bugs the team is working on fixing in the near future, and what’s next for The Sims franchise.
Henry has been a part of The Sims 4 team since 2018, overseeing the production of many of the game’s 100+ DLC packs. But she says the new base game update–which is available to all players, free of charge–is one of its biggest patches yet, and she’s especially fond of the improvements to interactions between Sim-parents and their Infants.
GameSpot: This new update is huge. What aspects of the update are The Sims 4 team most excited for players to get their hands on?
Morgan Henry: It’s a difficult toss-up between Base Layers and the updates to Infants. Base Layers add new ways to style existing Tops and Full Body outfits and provide more avenues for expression. We’ve had fun seeing the combos we can make with them. But… the Infants updates are so nice. I’m a big family player myself, and Infants are such a big part of that gameplay loop. Improving Infants was a real challenge, and the team put so much love and work into it.
One of the biggest issues players have been complaining about lately is a bug that makes all photos and selfies taken by Sims turn completely black. The new update addresses this bug, but the patch notes don’t clarify if it works retroactively. Does the new update restore photos in save files where they’ve all gone black, or does this fix only prevent future photos from disappearing?
Henry: “Black Photo” bugs are very complex, and we know they are very disruptive to our players, so addressing them has been one of our top priorities. There isn’t one individual “Black Photo” issue, as each one is unique both in [terms of] what’s causing it and how it presents itself, with [each type of photo bug requiring] its own steps to reproduce and requirements for a fix, which has caused a lot of confusion in the community, and even for us unraveling them at times.
One challenge is that some “Black Photos” can be restored and some can’t. After our last update, many of the reports involved photos not being able to be restored, even though the bug that caused the issue had been fixed. Recovery depends on if the image data still exists in the save and it failed to load, or if the photo was deleted. Because it varies from bug-to-bug, our patch notes now include detailed entries explaining each “Black Photo” fix and if it’s retroactively recoverable.
Each release, we’ve been fixing all of the “Black Photo” bugs in our database and closely monitoring reports, digging deep on each one to understand when, how, and why it was introduced. Our QV team also does extensive extra testing on the side to produce new ways to create [Black Photo bugs] to proactively address them for players. At this time, we’ve addressed all known “Black Photo” bugs in our database, but, we’ll be watching player reports on this topic closely and verifying new reports to see if there are examples of lingering non-retroactive fixes for old reports, or actual new unaddressed cases.
Of the many bug fixes featured in this update, which one was the most challenging for the Sims 4 team to tackle?
Henry: Frequent Infant pick-ups and put-downs was the most challenging issue we addressed as a whole. This was actually a series of different fixes and updates, tracked across multiple tasks. Summed up, Infants can’t walk, so they’re dependent on other Sims to move them around. Anytime Sims are physically holding or touching other Sims, things get complicated. Horses were complicated. Infants are no different. After all, what’s a caregiver if not a big horsey for the Infant? (Joking!)
We held break-down meetings where we watched a lot of gameplay in slow motion, checked logs, interaction queues, and determined the different reasons an Infant would be picked up. Sometimes, this behavior was on purpose. Other times, there were some valid conflicts that we needed to resolve with a bug. And that’s just figuring out when to pick them up! We also had to address improvements for when, how, and where to put them down.
There are times they’ll still be picked up and put down for positioning, which is just how the game works, but all-in-all, the experience feels greatly improved (despite how challenging it was) and our team is very proud of how it turned out. We hope players are as excited as we are!
It’s nice to hear we’ll have so many swatches for the new Base Layer items. Are there any plans to expand swatch options for other clothing items?
Henry: Because Base Layers are meant to mix and match with all Tops and Full Body assets across all packs, we really wanted there to be a wide variety of color and pairing options to start. We’re always listening to feedback, but we don’t currently have plans to add new swatches for previously released clothing items.
Will we ever see a color wheel option for Sim hair, like the one used to customize the fur of cats, dogs, and horses? Are there any plans to expand Sim hair color swatches to more than the standard 24 shades?
Henry: This isn’t something the team is actively developing right now, but we always appreciate hearing feedback from players about the customization options they’d like to see in the game.
How does The Sims Team feel about the player response to The Sims 4’s new paid mod marketplace?
Henry: We really appreciate players sharing their thoughts with us. The Sims community is passionate and creative, and feedback from our players and Makers is already helping us really understand what’s working, what needs to be a bit more clear, and how we can continue to improve the Marketplace over time.
Players can still enjoy The Sims 4 the way they always have with the custom content and mods that the existing custom content community continues to share. Our hope is that the Marketplace adds to that experience, not replaces it. It’s meant to give players more ways to discover content, expand creative options for console players, and create more opportunities to support our creator community.
Creative expression has always been a huge part of The Sims, and that’s something we want to continue supporting. As the Marketplace grows, we’ll keep listening to both players and Makers to make sure it feels like a thoughtful, complementary part of the larger Sims experience and creative community.
As far as bug fixes go, a large part of this update is dedicated to Infants/Toddlers and autonomous Sim behavior. Can you give us a hint about what part of the game you’re focusing your attention on next when it comes to major overhauls?
Henry: We know autonomy is a very important topic to players, it’s part of what makes The Sims so special! For our next few updates, we want to focus on general autonomy alongside top community-reported issues.
We already have a number of autonomy improvements in the works, from bigger changes like Sims properly facing each other during social interactions, to smaller tweaks like Sims who dislike gardening no longer gardening autonomously. We’re also planning to put a lot of effort towards cutting down on spam Sims get from their phones and in The Sims’ notification UI, which will hopefully make the game flow better and feel more relaxing.
We have more food, drinking, and dining autonomy improvements in the works based on other feedback we’ve received, too, and we’re always tracking top-reported and voted-on issues from EA Forums as well as feedback from our Discord and Reddit threads pertaining to these topics. We’re quite busy, but [are] having a lot of fun working so closely with the community to direct our focus!
