In today’s Inside Maxis Livestream The Sims Team answered some of the burning questions from Simmers regarding The Sims 4 and its future.
In the Livestream we got a confirmation regarding the plans for updating ALL of The Sims 4’s current NPCs – from Willow Creek to the latest world. This means that The Sims Team is currently working on updating the visuals (and lore, story) informations on all of the characters from the beginning of The Sims 4 Series.
Check out what @Ashaife, Assistant Producer on The Sims 4, has stated during the stream:
Question: Why are skintones getting lighter over the course of The Sims games?
Answer: Hundreds of townies have come to life since the first Sims game launch. A lot of love has been put into every single one of them and we acknowledge that they need unique care and attention – so it’s about time for a tiny overhaul.
We are currently in the process of updating NPCs in The Sims 4 including visuals as well as their lore. This will take some time to accomplish as we have to spend some time with each and every single Sim from Willow Creek to Henford-on-Bagley. That means we’re taking it step-by-step (or townie by townie) and we’re excited to update you at a later date.
Is it just me or did they avoid actually answering the question? They talked about how townie sims were gonna be overhauled and their visuals and lore were going to be updated (which I’m cool with), but they didn’t actually answer WHY townies like Bella Goth or the Caliente family were gradually made whiter and whiter when they used to be much darker sims.
I care more about “we’re going to fix it”.
Er, I don’t think there’s a good answer for it other than they messed up when creating the sims? I doubt they had a conscious decision of “less make them whiter”, it was probably a subconscious bias of picking lighter tones by default. The answer pretty much says they’ll fix it which is better than a justification of the mistake.
Because the answer likely is “we were a team of mostly white people so we just didn’t think about it too much” or “our game sells better in China when everyone is light skinned”, neither of which can actually be said publicly these days.
This! I’ve been hoping for a NPC update for years and I’m super happy to see it’s coming!
But… Can we spend less energy fixing Sims 4 and just makes Sims 5 right out the gate?? It’s been 7 years? Come on man. Stop wasting energy on the game that is old and tired and make the new one.
I don’t want them to leave sims 4 how they left sims 3, it would be good to fix things before they move onto another game again
So you’re basically saying “can we stop working on a game people actually play and throw all our resources into a game more than half the community doesn’t want because we’re going to screw it up with online functionality and massive microtransactions?”
I just hope they fix the Calientes. For God’s sake, her mom was changed from an arab woman of color to a white spanish-american mom, and even her NAME was whitewashed. Bella and Cassandra also had a darker skin. Would also be extremely fun if they put the updates they made in the Gallery directly to the game, such as the Pancake’s kid and Angela and Lilith’s parents.
Lol too late for that! Still I wonder what changes they will make
Is this still happening? It’s nearing the end of October and I’ve seen no further official update.