Throughout its lifespan, it has become well known that The Sims 4 often reuses assets from the base game and older expansion packs to create “new” objects. In many cases, this form of recycling has felt justified or even clever, such as the kitchen set from City Living, which presents a cheaper, more worn-down alternative to the base game’s standard kitchen.
However, the latest expansion seems to take this strategy a step further. With The Sims 4 Royalty & Legacy Objects, a significant portion of the newly released content appears to rely heavily on recycled assets from older kits and packs, sometimes with minimal changes. Pointed out first by player @lunar_britney, and later explored in more depth in a video by @CozyMarccu. This increased level of recycling makes the reuse far more noticeable than in previous releases and has sparked discussion among players about how much of the pack truly feels new.
Reuse, Recycling, and Royalty: The Three R’s of the Expansion
Since the first gameplay trailers for The Sims 4 Royalty & Legacy were released, the Sims community has speculated that the brand-new Dynasties system might be built on top of the existing Clubs system from Get Together. This suspicion was later confirmed with the release of early-access gameplay videos from content creators.
Reusing systems or assets is not necessarily a bad thing, and recycling has long been part of how The Sims 4 evolves. When handled well, this approach can be cost-effective and allow developers to focus on polishing other areas of the game. However, with The Sims 4 Royalty & Legacy Objects, the extent of this recycling feels far more noticeable, raising questions about how much of the expansion truly brings new content to the table.
Build & Buy Recycling in The Sims 4: Royalty & Legacy Objects
Here are all the new Expansion Pack items that appear to reuse or closely replicate assets from previous packs and the base game.
Thanks to The Sims Creator Program for the early access code
After comparing multiple objects side by side, a clear pattern starts to emerge. While asset reuse has always been part of The Sims 4’s development strategy, the Royalty & Legacy objects feel far more noticeable due to how closely many of the new objects mirror existing ones. In several cases, the silhouettes, proportions, and decorative details remain almost unchanged, with differences relying mainly on recolors, minor texture tweaks, or small ornamental additions.
This makes the reuse feel less like a clever reinterpretation and more like straightforward recycling, especially when multiple items follow the same approach. On their own, these similarities might be easy to overlook, but taken together, they raise valid questions about how much of the pack’s object catalog truly offers something new versus repackaging what players already have.
The Sims 4 Royalty & Legacy Continues Recycling Gameplay Features
The “gameplay” found in some The Sims 4 Royalty & Legacy buildings, such as the lighthouse located in Verdemar, is literally the same as the one in Brindleton Bay. We already know both lighthouses are the same build, but it would have been nice to see at least some new interaction or unique feature to justify its return, right?
When looking closely at the Dynasties system introduced in The Sims 4 Royalty & Legacy, it becomes difficult not to draw parallels with the Clubs system from Get Together. Both systems rely on a very similar foundation: a structured group of Sims, defined membership, specific values or behaviors, and passive bonuses that influence how Sims act while part of that group.
In the case of Clubs, these mechanics made sense as a flexible social tool, but with Dynasties, one of the core features of the expansion, the expectations were naturally higher. While reframing the system to represent noble lineages and family power works thematically, the underlying mechanics and interface feel strikingly familiar, giving the impression that this is more of a recontextualized Clubs system than a fully new gameplay layer built from scratch.
In the end, recycled content isn’t the issue on its own; how it’s leveraged makes all the difference. In The Sims 4 Royalty & Legacy, reused systems and features don’t always translate into noticeably richer gameplay, often feeling familiar rather than expanded. By contrast, The Sims 4: Adventure Awaits showed how existing frameworks could be pushed further, introducing a wide range of gameplay-focused objects and new skills, even when some mechanics, like retreats, closely mirrored business systems from packs such as Businesses & Hobbies. When recycling is used as a foundation for deeper interaction and progression, it can enhance the experience; when it isn’t, it simply becomes more visible.
Do you feel that recycled content in The Sims 4 Royalty & Legacy is being used to meaningfully expand gameplay, or does it feel more like familiar systems repackaged? Let us know what you think in the comments.
Even the Crowns!, and the clipping is atrocious. They don’t even try.
In my opinion this new crown is usefull for gameplay. The one from HSY could be considered to be a fake version of the original or used by fans who are not noble but admire royal sims… They are same, but different enought to see the difference.
Great idea, although given photos no longer exist permits the crowns to be switched as personally HSY crown looks superior to the royal one.
Saying the lighthouse is a re-use and needs to be justified is just crazy. It’s a lighthouse.
Also the Water, Wysteria, Hydrangeas, and Desks are different enough to not really feasible count as a non-unqiue remodel. Like a flat desk is vastly different to one with drawers for the vibe of a room.
The cabinet / fridge / whatever that thing is also an entirely different model they just vaguely look similar lol
Right! I honestly thinks it’s nice to have multiple variations (like that plant from RGS) And it’s honestly quite realistic happens all the time.
Ironic that this article is just reusing / recycling a single YouTube video without adding anything new.It’s not a reporting of different sources. It’s literally all from a video a creator made.
Yes. A website titled “Sims Community” will talk, report, and credit trending topics within The Sims creator space. That’s the whole point of the website!
To be fair though, when the article literally says a different looking lighthouse is the same. Because it has the same functions…like the video was legit just copy pasted for the article.
Agreed, plus the site relays too much on ai or reusing the same template. Its always the same generated “table of contents”
Are you serious right now or playing silly? I really can’t tell because I think it’s clear that website is something different than heavily priced DLC.
I am surprised by all the reused items. For the fridge it feels more like a similar style but for the other objects it’s almost copy paste. This honestly feels lazy for a 40€ price tag.
Me gusta mucho el pack, no era consciente de que habían reciclado tantas cosas otra vez. Es un gustazo leer artículos así.
The sims 4 in a nutshell… LOL
I agree recycling same objects with minimal differences is very sad. But I consider the similarity between Dynasty and Club system as advantage. Same as other systems: Nobility vs Career, Small Business vs Restaurant vs Veterinary etc. Because we are accustomed to use it. We know these settings. Why invent something new when the old works? And I appreciate adding new crosspack features to the older systems.
There’s a dress that closely resembles/is the same as a dress from Get Famous, I think. I put it on a sim the other day and then saw it in a video–without going in-game to check, I believe it’s a Get Famous dress. The base game reuse is pretty insulting. Everyone has those objects–why not just add new swatches like they did for base game items and Enchanted By Nature? I heard that they have swatch limits, so maybe that’s the reason, but I don’t think that that is a justification for something that egregious. The Get Together Chair is also just objectively the same object. The Romantic Garden Stuff planter doesn’t actually bother me. The Storybook Nursery end table definitely bothers me. The base game desk, even though it has the top removed, isn’t different enough to justify packaging a base game object as a new object in an expansion pack. The roof tiles should have ABSOLUTELY just gotten new swatches. And the citrus tree is crazy, too.
Claiming that the C&D lighthouse is the same object is wild; they’re clearly very different, and in the context of the sea, makes sense to be there. I don’t agree with criticizing that. I also think that the wisteria is much different than the wisteria in Cottage Living, and I personally like the wisteria in this pack way more. The refrigerator looks pretty distinct to me as well. I also don’t like the fridge from Growing Together, but I do like this one. And I also prefer the hydrangeas and the hydrangea bush that’s coming in this pack. If slightly similar objects bother a person, who am I to say that they’re wrong? I think that that is a matter of opinion, and personally it depends for me.
As for the Club and Dynasty Systems, I think that if we’re saying that Getaways and the B&H system are distinct enough, then I don’t see how it’s being said that the Dynasty and Club systems aren’t. In my opinion, they are different, and the dynasty system brings more to the table for me as a legacy player, and also allows way more sims to be added to it.
Some of these comparisons really weaken the quality of the overall article for me. There are valid complaints when it comes to recycling content, but throwing in things like the lighthouse, fridge, dynasty system, water color, etc. are dishonest comparisons. The lighthouse and fridge are clearly different models. The dynasty system does enough different from clubs that they are different systems. The water colors are visibly not the same.
I think it is necessary to call Maxis out for recycling content when it happens, but approach the topic in good faith or else it’s hard to take the complaints seriously. Sometimes I feel like the articles here border drama rather than journalism and is what led me to stop interacting with certain parts of the community.
Well said, and I fully agree. It damages the argument, from my perspective, and makes it easier to wave off the criticism when the comparisons are made in bad faith.
Having similar swatches would give us some much-needed variation. Things like the wall vines are different enough from Cottage Living’s vines to give off a very different feel. But I hate when items are almost exact clones of something we already have, and I hate that it’s become such a frequent thing with this game. And it also extends to animations, CAS, and even pack themes.
I also take an issue with the pack giving us a third magic wishing well, especially since the last one we got was only a couple of years ago.
They don’t care. They don’t try. But as long as people still eat this stuff up, nothing will change.
Reuse of existing systems is justified for additional features if the rest of the content in the pack is actually new. The pack if build primarily from existing content. It’s sad.
Reskins of base game items is somewhat fine but not ideal. However, direct ports of items from other packs is just lazy and cheap.
Most of these comments sound like people justifying spending 40 quid for trash. It’s just herd mentality at its best.
Simmers have swallowed the whole EA boot at this point.
EA are literally selling them identical clones at this point and they don’t care.
I’m convinced they could reskin and resell an old pack entirely and players wouldn’t care.
Genuinely, was anyone surprised? They’ve been doing this since The Sims 3, to my knowledge. S3-University reused S3-World Adventures code to the point that it had the same bugs from WA.
And that’s without getting into how Classes from B&H also reuses/is built upon the Clubs feature, or how following students in HSY is built upon/reuses the Active Careers code from GT(EP01). If they’ve been re-using code for this long, again, is anyone actually surprised to find re-used assets, especially this late in TS4’s lifespan? They know the community will buy it regardless, so why not?
Genuinely, if you have an issue with this? Vote with your wallet: don’t buy the pack.
I preordered it and now I want a refund
One thing as well is the secrets in For Rent. You can pry and snoop and easedrop but they won’t give you scandals. Only the packs secret mechanic… I wish there was more ways to get scandals with the For Rent mechanics.
Yeah I’m gonna pass
It reminds me of this one time I mentioned the recycled meshes in a cas kit to an ea partner in a livestream (because I got the impression she was being real), and they all started defending it. “Yeah, it’s not uncommon for games to resell meshes, they’re hard to make.” So I guess they eat up 5 bucks slop casually? Oh brother, I’m so glad I jumped ship when sims 4 was just a meh game and nothing else.