Just before all the hubbub about the Sims 4 anniversary updates yesterday, its predecessor got an unexpected update too. The Sims 3 just got its first patch in years this week and so far EA's just said nothing about it.
According to an old archive of Sims 3 patch notes, the last time the game was updated was in January 2014. There's no new entry for this week's patch to explain what's up, though one helpful player in the EA Answers Forum explains that the patch addresses an old issue with the game failing to launch on newer Intel processors. This seems to be a patch only related to the EA App version of the game and doesn't have a corresponding Steam update entry by the looks of it on SteamDB.
After the update you may get a new popup between hitting play in the launcher and the game opening which asks you to activate your product. The same helpful simmer suggests clicking "exit" which will allow you to continue. I entered my EA App credentials and was waved through that way without issue.
Surprising no one, EA's been mum about it entirely, though that never stops fans from reading the tea leaves. Part of the new seasonal roadmap shown yesterday was the date February 25 with just an 👀 emoji hinting at some unknown announcement. Some fans are theorizing re-releases for The Sims 1 and 2 while others are now suspecting there are more Sims 3 compatibility patches coming.
There's certainly now a precedent for re-releases after the announcement yesterday that it's bringing the updated MySims Cozy Bundle to PC in March.
In the meantime, hey, maybe The Sims 3 will run better on your machine—or run at all if it didn't previously. The biggest issue I've had with returning to Sims 3 has been a lot of lag time when I'm making heavy use of the Create-A-Style tool but I doubt this patch is going to solve that. If it inspires you to jump back in too, refresh yourself on the list of Sims 3 cheats so you can get your household up and running the way you want.
