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May 30, 2024 - The Sims 4's events system has launched today. We've updated this story to reflect the official info provided by EA.
Our Sims 4 main menu experience is crowded enough already, but it's now gotten more packed. Just ahead of its official announcement this week, players managed to dig up proof of the new "events" system that will dole out free rewards for logging in regularly. The first event is called "Happy At Home" and runs for the next 35 days with a total of 8 in-game rewards to unlock.
It sure looks and feels like a battle pass. It's located on the main menu screen with a horizontal track of rewards that you can claim for logging in a certain number of days during the given event period. Rewards are things like new hair and jewelry for Create-A-Sim, new furniture and objects for Build Mode, and a new Sim trait as well. It looks like you aren't asked to log in every day, with a set of three rewards possible during week one, two during week two, and so on. And though it feels like damning with faint praise to say it, well, at least it's free.
Content creator SatchOnSims has helpfully done a bit of comparison of all the items in the event rewards track to work out that most seem to be new color swatches or slight alterations on items that have previously appeared in different paid DLC kits and expansions. There's a recolor of a hairstyle from the Cats & Dogs expansion, a version of a mini fridge from the Discover University expansion, and so on.
"This first Event you get rewarded for jumping back into the game while the Event is active," EA says in its announcement post. "In the future there may be Events that take you on a quest where you’ll complete goals in order to earn rewards." It also says that the events system will not replace the current Sims Delivery Express ("SDX Drops") in which it occasionally adds a new free item for all players regardless of when they log in next.
Log in rewards are super common in online games as an incentive to keep concurrent player count strong but it's a weird thing for a singleplayer game to do. It's been a weird first half of the year overall for The Sims 4.
Back in March it added a nagging store button reminding you to think about buying DLC all the time. Just last week EA announced that it had "assembled a team" to better work on fixing gameplay bugs that have plagued the game for years. And yeah, it doesn't feel great that another naggy sort of system is likely going to roll right on out while a major bug fixing campaign seems to be just getting off the ground.
It's been a real mix of things nobody wanted and things everybody's asked for for years. It feels like The Sims 4 is getting pulled in four different directions like it's being stretched on a torture rack. Slapping in battle passes while that fad already feels on its way out of favor in the wider gaming community is just another shackle.
And although these "events" look like they're currently free, I can feel everyone getting nervous that they may not always stay that way, if not in The Sims 4 then possibly in the upcoming The Sims 5.
For now though, getting free variants on things like the mini fridge that were previously only contained in DLCs is something I'm generally in favor of, feeling "pressured" to play aside. If I could request a single-tile shower head like the one in Discover University to use in my base game tiny house builds, that would be great, thanks EA.
