Even in a drought of major content and new additions, we will still see major Sims 4 Updates and all the fun things the come along with them. Some things will be fixed, some things will be broken, and any mods will have to be updated. The Sims 4 May Patch is major and plans to answer over 150+ player-reported issues listed on the Laundry List recently released by The Sims Team. Everything from horrible caregiving autonomy to the dreaded black and missing photos, and really everything in between is at least being partially addressed.

While the majority of players have been through this before and this is not their first rodeo, it is always a good reminder to take steps to prepare for updates to avoid the many problems that can arise when you mix brand new features, fixes, and changes to the game when colliding with brand pre-existing saves and mods folders.

What To Expect?

A new Base Game update is dropping for the Sims 4, this coming Tuesday May 12th 2026. This update is set to include new features and over 150+ bug fixes of glitches, broken features, and problems in the game that have plagued the community for a long while, some for years. This update is set to come out for all platforms, including Windows PC (Both the EA App and Steam), MacOS, Playstation, and Xbox.

This update is part of a much larger project by EA to go back and correct issues for players that have persisted through the multitude of updates, DLC, and content over the life of the Sims 4. While this update will contain only certain fixes, the Sims Team is still actively requesting that players post on the EA forums, upvote problems that they’re also experiencing, and provide save files and other evidence of these issues.

To check the full laundry list and what is to come, click here!

What’s Coming In This Update?

To go over the major fixes in the Sims 4 May Patch, the Sims Team went over them in a massive EA Forums post, and they also hosted a livestream where the team played the updated game to show the fixes to an audience directly, answer questions, and dive deeper into what the update entails.

If you weren’t able to tune in, you can check out our livestream recap here!

Base Layers

A new system for “Base Layers” has been added to Create-A-Sim, functioning similarly to tights in the accessories category. They’ll be adding this category for all ages excluding newborns and infants, with toddlers having two options, children having four options, and teens and older having eight options. These includes t-shirts, turtlenecks, tank tops, and more to add extra coverage or warm up an outfit.

Infant Fixes, Changes, and Addition

A constant issue that has persisted since infants were added years ago is the inability of Sims to function as proper caregivers. Constantly checking on infants over and over, leaving bottles and diaper trash everywhere, picking them up and putting them down, or taking them out of a crib just to put them on the floor. These have made playing with infants, especially with autonomy on, irritating for most players and sometimes downright unplayable.

Including fixing these consistent caregiver issues, there is now also an option to fully disable caregiver autonomy, making the care of infants entirely manual and player-directed. This is not a recommended setting, and is instead added for a challenge, or for players who like to have a large amount of control. Sims will still interact with their infants as sims socially, but will not perform basic caregiving tasks autonomously.

A new playmat in nine swatches is also being added in this update!

The Major Fixes

There were five large updates that are a huge focus of this

• Black Photo Fixes – The team has fixed multiple instances where photos are turning black or turning white in between saves, though they requested people to keep reporting any new instances that might pop up.
• Infant Interaction and Autonomy Issues – Sims should no longer obsessively check on their infants, pick them up just to put them back down, and milestones should take less time.
• No secret witness sentiment for engaged sims witnessing woohoo.
• Can’t place item error for new and old saves.
• Sim stuck with a scandal, even after resolving it in some way, should no longer be stuck with their scandal.

Lady Bridgerton’s Masquerade Ball Login Event

Another planned content addition is the new Login Event in collaboration with the Netflix series Bridgerton. Like previous login events, this is primarily focused on how often players check in on the game during the period it is active, and will add new content and rewards over the time of the active event.

This is intended to line up with the upcoming release of the Lady Bridgerton’s Masquerade Ball Kit Bundle offer. The kits included are the Sims 4 Lady Bridgerton’s Masquerade Ball Fashion Kit, and The Sims 4 Lady Bridgerton’s Masquerade Ballroom Kit. This offer, similar to the Spongebob Kits offer from earlier this year, will also give three new items if purchased by August 14th, 2026. These include a Bundle of Joy Bassinet, the Bridgerton House Gazebo, and The Bridgerton House Piano.

Like the previous licensed Sims 4 Kits, the Sims 4 Spongebob Kid’s Room Kit and Sims 4 Spongebob’s House Kit, will retail for $6.99 USD separately, and $9.99 USD when combined in the bundle.

How to Prepare?

Saving Your Save Files

One of the biggest problems with Sims 4 Patches and updates is the havoc they can wreak on longstanding existing save files, especially those that have been modded. Outside of major updates, consistently backing up your files to a separate point on your computer can be important to give you a save point to return to in case of corruption, accidental file deletion, system crashes, etc.

To back up your Sims 4 save files, you can follow these steps:

• Go to your save files folder. This will vary depending on your operating system.
  • For Windows PC: C:\Users\[USERNAME]\Documents\Electronic Arts\The Sims 4\saves
  • For MacOS: Macintosh HD/Users/User/Documents/Electronic Arts/The Sims 4/saves

• Copy any save files you want to back up for safe keeping. These will just be numbers so finding them may be slightly difficult, but anything recently played will automatically be at the top. You can also choose to sort files by the date they were last edited, and anything recently saved over should be at the top.
  • If you’re not sure, a good practice is to just copy all your saves to a backup folder.
  • This can also be done with Your Sims 4 tray files, which are the files that contain the data for anything saved in your library through the Sims 4 Gallery.
    • For Windows PC: C:\Users\[USERNAME]\Documents\Electronic Arts\The Sims 4\tray
    • For MacOS: Macintosh HD/Users/User/Documents/Electronic Arts/The Sims 4/tray

• To back up your files, save them to separate locations. These can be folders on your computer (Like on your desktop or in a separate section of your documents folder), but it is recommended to use separate storage in case of hardware issues. These can include a USB flash drive, external hard drive, a cloud program, etc.
  • A good tip is to place them in a folder with the date of the back ups as the folder name.
• If a save needs to be restored to a previous version, you can just copy paste from the folder back into your main Sims 4 Saves folder directly.

Your Mods Folder and the 50/50 Method

The 50/50 method is a tried and true way of testing your mods after an update, or really any time when your game is not functioning properly or you can’t figure out what is causing a certain issue or unintended feature. As with all updates, it is good practice to remove your mods folder, keep gameplay and UI mods separate, and test them or wait for updates from their creators who will also test them before letting users know whether they are safe, need updates, or have been updated.

The 50/50 method is where you split your mods folder in half, and then test each section in your game to recreate errors or find bugs. If a folder functions properly and nothing happens that is abnormal, you swap to the next folder. When a folder starts to have issues or creates errors, you then split that folder in half and test both halves, storing folders and the items within them once they have been tested. This continues until you can find the file(s) causing issues that either need to be removed, updated, or replaced due to conflicts.

Gameplay mods will typically be anything that adds or changes features, often containing a .ts4script file. Since these can change how the game functions, they are very likely to break with updates.

UI mods are anything that changes the user interface. These include UI Cheats, More Columns in CAS, and any User Interface replacement mods. These, due to changes in the User Interface with new additions, events, and features, will also be very likely to break with updates.

It is also good practice to keep these items separate from your standard custom content, as they will require more troubleshooting than your custom hairs, clothes, skin details, etc.

For a more in-depth guide to the 50/50 method, ThatSimsLady has broken it down previously and provided a guide that walks you through it, but here’s a general diagram from Sims After Dark.

Another important rule is to always delete your thumbcache file. This file will regenerate every time your Sims 4 game is launched. It is good practice to delete it when you change your mods folder in any capacity, but it especially needs to be deleted before running every test while doing the 50/50 method.

It is also recommended, to avoid the issues and corruption that can occur when removing mods or saving with broken mods, is to use a fresh save file and to not save so you’re testing on the same save file in the same state each time.

Two points of note while doing the 50/50 method.

• Some mods come in two or more parts. These include mods that have optional modules, those that have separate .package and .ts4script files, and more. These will break and not function properly if the files are separated, so you always have to make sure they are being tested together in the same folder.
• If a mod has a dependency on another mod, make sure to test them together. Some dependencies include Lot51’s Core File, the XML Injector, Lumpinou’s Mood Pack, and so many more mods that help other mods to function. Always check the download pages for any mods you have for their dependencies.

Countdown to The Sims 4 May Patch Release

The upcoming Sims 4 May Patch is set to release on May 12th, 2026 at 10AM PT / 7PM CET / 6PM BT across PC, Mac, Xbox and Playstation supported platforms. To make things easier we’ve included a handy countdown below that’ll tell exactly when the latest Patch is available to download.

Make sure you stay tuned to Sims Community to be the first to know when the latest Sims 4 Update drops. Along with Patch Notes, previews and mod functionality after the patch!