On April 2nd, The Sims released their latest SDX drop, centered on Pride! Though Pride Month is still two months away, the release is arriving just two days after Trans Day of Visibility. The drop features a collection of build objects and create-a-sim assets featuring pride flags and their color schemes, as well as a few additional black-and-white colorways. Read until the end to see our review of the assets we received!
The Sims 4 SDX Drop: Pride Content Review
Create-A-Sim
The release comes with six new unisex CAS assets. The eyeshadow has 9 swatches, all of which are equally colorful. Admittedly, the texture is somewhat underwhelming – I was hoping for it to have more sparkly quality.
The other form of body art available in this drop is a new tattoo, available to use on the upper left arm. The tattoo has a cute, wispy design, and the 10 swatches feature color schemes from different pride flags. My only critique of the tattoo is that it doesn’t look quite like an actual tattoo, but the design and concept are beautiful.
Moving on to clothing, there are four assets: a layered button-up with a ribbed shirt underneath, jean shorts, above-the-knee socks, and high-top sneakers. All are tagged for both masculine and feminine frames, and, thankfully, the items fit well on both frames!
The top has 14 swatches, the jean shorts have 9, the socks have 17, and the sneakers have 12. While most of the colorways are colorful, the top, socks, and sneakers also have plain black and white swatches, allowing the assets to be more versatile while still prioritizing the colorful and celebratory theme of the drop. The pieces all appear well-made and offer a wide variety of designs and colors. Notably, two of the assets – the high-top sneakers and the jean shorts – are also available to child sims.
The only noticeable glitch is with the jean shorts and bodysuits/tucked-in shirts, where the ‘concealed’ portion of the shirt sometimes layers on top of the shorts. The glitch did not always happen, but I only encountered it on feminine frames, and not on male frames.
Build-Buy
The build-buy addition features six new objects: a double bed, single bed, shelf, gallery, pride collage, and a new knit pride flag. The Burst of Pride double and single beds are essentially the same design, each with 11 matching swatches (including two black and white colorways). The Out & About Wall Shelf has 9 swatches and two small object slots on top of it. The Pride Rocks! Collage features 12 different swatches, each with slightly different details on the flag, posters, and polaroids. The Colorfully Eclectic Wall Gallery has 9 swatches, which, like the collage, also vary in their designs. And last but certainly not least is the Knitted Pride Flag, of which there are a whopping 23 swatches! Each of the objects is detailed, versatile, and aesthetically pretty.
Our Review
The SDX drop is filled to the brim with great new (and free!) assets celebrating Pride. The designs veer away from previous, more “kitschy” attempts to incorporate Pride into the create-a-sim and build-buy objects. Though I may have critiqued the renderings of the body assets (albeit mildly), that does not track for the rest of the objects. By making the game evermore inclusive and celebrating Pride, The Sims has reinforced their allyship for the LGBTQ+ community. Also, they gave us new beds for free! All in all, that’s pretty awesome.
Do you agree with our review? Let us know your thoughts on the SDX Drop in the comments!
That is nice! I am more of a cottage builder, with rather ‘grounded’ color plates, so the colorful/’kitschy’ styles don’t really suit my needs, but there are some nice objects as well I am looking forward to build with!
It’s soooo hard to decorate with items like this 🙁
I will always dislike EA’s pride items. They don’t pair well with anything and it’s too traditional corporate PR pride.
Pride is always about being proud of one’s identity and that being one of the issues makes any sort of take on pride kind of a joke. How about representing distribution of body weight properly, fixing the skin tones swatches, fixing the relationships so that the sim actually respects their interests and preferences, better hair type options, the list goes on.
Giving us rainbows, flags and clothing that looks like the children’s section of Walmart isn’t making me feel seen or proud.
I’ll present the counter argument since most people here are just expressing… feelings.
Corporate representation of Pride from EA is still very much welcome to see given the hard authoritarian shift the world seems to be going through right now.
EA/Sims4 has built a game with a base of players, much like DBD, that is welcoming toward marginalized groups. Any steps taken to reaffirm that stance are welcomed as people are facing less acceptance and even more dogma lately.
They also have not charged money for these trinkets. And trust they are simple trinkets that are easy to miss and ignore for those who are uninterested. It took a bit of time to track each thing down in the objects catalog.
That said, I fully understand the perception that corporations have a lack of genuine concern and care for marginalized and smaller groups.
But EA doesn’t seem to be that. They have gone all in on the Pride imagery which people will have thoughts about without genuinely taking a moment to reflect on the situation.
I do have to wonder, for the majority of comments is it really, “They don’t care about us, corporate pride, not real allyship, yadda yadda…” or is it really, “Hello fellow LGBTs, doesn’t representation and non commoditized bonus items in a game that has shown solidarity PISS you off? As a fellow LGBT…”
*eyeroll*