The Sims Community has been very vocal regarding the lack of skin tones options and blotchy and bugged variants that there are in the game ever since…well…the release of The Sims 4. In the recent weeks the community have pointed out numerous issues and problems that players are experiencing with the lack of proper skin tone representation in the game.
Today, Lyndsay Pearson, General Manager for The Sims Franchise has released an official statement regarding their plans to improve Skin Tones by fixing the existing ones and adding new ones. There aren’t too many details shared except for the fact that it’s currently among their top priority and that they’ll deliver these improvements to The Sims 4 this Fall.
Check out the full statement (and video) down below:
Hi Simmers,
First of all, I hope you are healthy and I hope you are safe.
I want to address a topic that is very near and dear to The Sims. Inclusivity is at the core of The Sims franchise. From the beginning, we set out to let you build Sims that look like you, or people you know. And we understand it doesn’t feel like we’re truly living up to that promise.
We hear you and recognize that we have not done enough to address the variety of skin tones and hair styles that you expect to find in The Sims 4. While we have made additions and improvements and fixes in the past, there is much more for us to do. We are making it a priority to release more options this year, as well as to address the visual issues with current skin tones- specifically, to improve the blotchy artifacts and ashy tones. We’ve iterated on these before, but we are doing a deep dive into our full pipeline to trace our assets through every step and compare the before and afters to assess any loss in quality.
As we have demonstrated, The Sims is committed not only to inclusion, but to authentic and respectful inclusion, which means we don’t do this work alone. We take feedback from a number of places that inform the work and hold us accountable in our execution. And part of that accountability is communicating to you; we will strive to keep you as up to date and informed as possible. So, as a start, we’re promising to fix the visual artifacts with existing skin tones and increase the number of tones available in The Sims 4 this Fall.
Our community is bigger and stronger than it has ever been, and we will continue to make sure our players are heard, feel represented and are able to create without boundaries. We are blown away by the incredible craftsmanship our mod community and what they bring to the game, and the ways in which they have expanded on the Sims 4 experience. There is no question that their contributions make the world of The Sims better. However, we know that this does not absolve us from continuing to grow and improve as well.
We realize there isn’t one single fix for representation. We are dedicating people to ongoing commitments to continue improvement over the long term. Thank you for caring so much about each other and caring about your experiences in The Sims 4 and thank you for being part of our continued evolution.
Sul Sul!
I want to acknowledge your concerns about the variety of skin tones represented in The Sims 4 & I have some updates from the team to share. pic.twitter.com/Nzeg8VwllS
— Lyndsay Pearson (@SimGuruLyndsay) August 12, 2020
Happy to hear this is set for the Fall (I’m sure a lot of folks are still working remotely due to COVID) and are aware of representation issues! I’m personally curious if we’ll get an August patch update (my fingers are crossed) because ever since the Eco Living patch, my game’s been horribly buggy (and super laggy). I know it’s not mods either, because they’re all updated + perfectly fine before that patch update…
Do you know if this happens for every player? because I’m hoping to get eco as a gift for my gcse results in a week but I don’t want to buy it if it makes my game lag.
I hope they bring back the color wheel for skin tones and hair colors!
Oh okay. In my opinion there are enough skin tones, because I mostly only use like three of them! 😀 But I hope a lot of people will enjoy this. ♥
That’s great for you personally, but there are so many people who can’t make themselves because they can’t find a skin tone that works
Im pretty sure that this is what that article is about. The Soms Team has acknowledged that factor.
There’s nowhere near enough, and darker skin tones aren’t diverse enough.
Yeah, I don’t know. It was enough for me but if you say it’s not, then I accept this. I can’t really judge it^^
Maybe there are enough for you, but there will never be enough because there are infinite skintones to the human rainbow.
They just need to get xmiramira to sit them down with her melanin pack and say, “here is a start to what you we should have”.
About fucking time! I can wait on babies and other things, but this is soooo long overdue and should have been in the game from day 1.
It’s sad we probably have to wait until the Sims 5 for the Color Wheel, Open World, and Cars.
But they had all those things in Sims 3 and the game was incredibly buggy and laggy because of it. I honestly can’t see them bringing them back. Sims 3 was a much better game content-wise, but Sims 4 runs so much better. Tbh I like that I can play without my game crashing constantly.
Speaking of blotchy does anyone have that issue with some of the clothes particular darker clothes? I’m curious if it’s because I’m using ultra and Reshade that it’s more noticeable or a side effect of using a lighting mod. Or if it’s in the vanilla game. It also effects some cc clothing swatches too. It’s not an issue when the texture is actually black and not the off black that some clothes use.
This is extremely specific but with the luxury party dress that has the cut out holes in the sides I have this strange glitch that makes the head look detachable from the body via a black line. But I do have that issue as well, some clothes being strange af looking.
Along the lines of skin, can we have vitiligo, psoriasis, scars, birth marks, and other skin conditions? Perhaps similar to how tattos are done in CAS?
Is sims 4 ever going to get another vacation spot?
I can’t wait tiill we’re able to add CC to the sims 4 om the PS4!!
ME 2 but….if they can’t I will take them to hire!!! Modders for free in game updates because name brand clothes! Baby hair hairstyle, eyelashes,nails&toenail polish is way too cute and they game expansion is fire big ups !!! TO ALL MODDERS &SIMS COMMUNITY together they can make this game amazing!!!!
This is fantastic news… But I think they should leave *some* of the ashy tones. A lot of what the sims community is asking for is perfected, beautiful skin tones, and that’s great, but there’s also beauty in realistic skin tones of all types. I think they should keep a few ashy ones, add more options for blemishes, and add the option for vitiligo type skins. Add scaring/stretch marks on the body and face (a very common thing for women especially). Having sims have perfect skin normalizes that that’s what beauty is defined by! Give us the beautiful imperfections!
I just have light skinned sims make babies with the darker ones and the kids usually turn out looking African American like people want. It produces more results then complaining to the sims team for years and getting nothing
And then you can work on fleshing out Island Living…?
I’m excited for a solution finally. Looking forward to it in the fall
I wish they would bring sims2 cornrows back
ME 2 what happened to the braids DIFFRENT styles good one especially for men
Hope this includes proper colouring of palms, soles, and lips on brown and black Sims!
What about eye lashes for the toddlers to adults it really confusing me why that they don’t have them we have eyelash from baby to an adult i want eyelashes on my son with out having to get a mod for that
Imagine us console players we don’t have the option at all we all so wish we are trapped with basic game options
I’m glad sims are going to improve the skin tones. But they need to fix all the skin tones. Also they need to fix the face structure too. They also need to fix the hair structure too. The long hair style they got now are not long enough. Under long hair style those styles should be under medium length. Long hair in the real world is down the middle of a person back and beyond the back. Some long hair reaches the butt area and beyond that. Also they need to fix the body structure too. In the sims 3 girls could have bigger chest area like size D in a bra cup size. I don’t like the face structure not every American face is Chinese looking. The sims 3 had better face structure also and it was great at making your sims could look so good. But also with how much these updates and buying all these games pack is taking up all the space on ps4 consoles the sims4 would have to be the only game a person could play on the ps4 system. In my house we play other games too. And you can’t have all the games taking up all the space on the ps4 system. When I’m not playing sims we’re buying songs for rockband and rocksmith that takes up space pn the ps4 also. Besides mortal kombat stuff and GTA. The only game that we have that doesn’t take up so space that we play is resident evil and monopoly. But the sims4 game pack and expansion pack cost so much money also. And with everyone being out of work the sims packs shouldn’t be charging everyone the prices like they are. Another thing we should see in the sims is everyday lives. Grocery stores and bakeries. More transportation. And I’m sick and tire of seeing the writing under where you go between live mode and build mode that tells you what your controller buttons are for now. If you play the sims you know this already. And we should see the sims say alot more stuff instead the same thing over and over. And fix the sound of their voices too. I turn my tv down to play cause I can’t stand the voices or the music. Alot of people don’t talk like the sims and alot of people like classic rock and roll music
If you’re improve the skin tones fix the other stuff too. One more things why can’t we own other pets too like birds, horses, and so on. Have better clothing and purses too. I wish I had a job working for the sims.
Regarding the complaint about the long hair, loads of people have complained about it but its extremely difficult for the sims team to do because they need it to work with all different body shapes and also need it to work with the animations e.g yoga, without the hair looking weird or glitchy.
Hell people are talking about long hair but at least they have hair to represent them and dont have to pay money to get a few extra semi decent hairstyles.
I LOVE….everyone of your ideas I hope they HIRE YOU!!!! too us console players NEED HELP !!!!
HIRE THE CC CREATORS AND MODDERS! XMiraMira already took care of your skintones years ago. Hire her!
I vote on that also HIRE CC creators AKA MODDERS PLEASE…….CONSOLE PLAYERS WOULD BE ESPECIALLY GRATEFUL
Eye color and hair color needs a serious makeover too. There is not nearly enough variety in the eye choices and the hair colors are a joke.
how’s about have an actual Height adjuster, instead of having mods that do that for you, but often break at random times.
Well that’s weird bc I’m not watching no video I want to see images!!!
i hate the fact that it takes nearly 3 minutes to get to the main page of game,3 more minutes to get to create a sim or load one,then over 4 minutes to actually do anything in the game,this i hope gets fixed
Many of these comments made me sick. The Sims team is doing what they can to give us what we want, and yet still so many of us are dissatisfied. Always asking for more. I would love to get cars and better babies. But what matters most to the majority of us is inclusion. Giving us better skin tone options is priority. I’m not saying we should bow down and kiss their shoes, but come on people. It’s a video game for Pete’s sake. I’m just happy that they ARE listening. They don’t have to give us anything. Yet even with soooo many people constantly criticizing and demanding more, they still try to give us what we want. No, Sims 4 isn’t perfect. But guess what? YOU DONT HAVE TO PLAY IT.
End rant.
This has been exactly what I have been saying! Thank you.
I know!!! people are expecting their game to load in 5 seconds when they have countless mods and don’t understand that the sims team has done so much more than other games for inclusiveness. It takes a lot of work to make changes to the game and aren’t going to change the entire concept of their game for one person.
Bruh
I want to see images!!!
Happy to hear for change, however, in the same vein as wanting to be on the forefront on inclusion would you consider including inclusive pronouns? More specifically.. would you consider adding in they/them pronouns. It’s great being able to really edit my character gender related traits.. however THEY are still called “she” in Sims. No, “he” isn’t any better. Why? Because this character best reflects me and my nonbinary identity. Seeing even my Sims going though the same strict “he/she” deal that I do real life isn’t a perfect life simulation where I can truly live life as I perceive. It makes my reality much more apparent than anything.
i hate the fact that it takes nearly 3 minutes to get to the main page of game,3 more minutes to get to create a sim or load one,then over 4 minutes to actually do anything in the game,this i hope gets fixed
Many of these comments made me sick. The Sims team is doing what they can to give us what we want, and yet still so many of us are dissatisfied. Always asking for more. I would love to get cars and better babies. But what matters most to the majority of us is inclusion. Giving us better skin tone options is priority. I’m not saying we should bow down and kiss their shoes, but come on people. It’s a video game for Pete’s sake. I’m just happy that they ARE listening. They don’t have to give us anything. Yet even with soooo many people constantly criticizing and demanding more, they still try to give us what we want. No, Sims 4 isn’t perfect. But guess what? YOU DONT HAVE TO PLAY IT.
End rant.
Well that’s weird bc I’m not watching no video I want to see images!!!
Eye color and hair color needs a serious makeover too. There is not nearly enough variety in the eye choices and the hair colors are a joke.
What about eye lashes for the toddlers to adults it really confusing me why that they don’t have them we have eyelash from baby to an adult i want eyelashes on my son with out having to get a mod for that
I’m glad sims are going to improve the skin tones. But they need to fix all the skin tones. Also they need to fix the face structure too. They also need to fix the hair structure too. The long hair style they got now are not long enough. Under long hair style those styles should be under medium length. Long hair in the real world is down the middle of a person back and beyond the back. Some long hair reaches the butt area and beyond that. Also they need to fix the body structure too. In the sims 3 girls could have bigger chest area like size D in a bra cup size. I don’t like the face structure not every American face is Chinese looking. The sims 3 had better face structure also and it was great at making your sims could look so good. But also with how much these updates and buying all these games pack is taking up all the space on ps4 consoles the sims4 would have to be the only game a person could play on the ps4 system. In my house we play other games too. And you can’t have all the games taking up all the space on the ps4 system. When I’m not playing sims we’re buying songs for rockband and rocksmith that takes up space pn the ps4 also. Besides mortal kombat stuff and GTA. The only game that we have that doesn’t take up so space that we play is resident evil and monopoly. But the sims4 game pack and expansion pack cost so much money also. And with everyone being out of work the sims packs shouldn’t be charging everyone the prices like they are. Another thing we should see in the sims is everyday lives. Grocery stores and bakeries. More transportation. And I’m sick and tire of seeing the writing under where you go between live mode and build mode that tells you what your controller buttons are for now. If you play the sims you know this already. And we should see the sims say alot more stuff instead the same thing over and over. And fix the sound of their voices too. I turn my tv down to play cause I can’t stand the voices or the music. Alot of people don’t talk like the sims and alot of people like classic rock and roll music
If you’re improve the skin tones fix the other stuff too. One more things why can’t we own other pets too like birds, horses, and so on. Have better clothing and purses too. I wish I had a job working for the sims.