Ever since I first started playing The Sims, I craved the ability to sculpt my Sim as if it was clay. I wanted to stretch noses and tug cheeks; I wanted to imagine a face in my mind, and bring it to life in the game. Instead of simply shaping my Sims’ faces with sliders, I wanted a more personal and intimate experience. I doubt I’m the only one who feels this way, which is why I’m so excited to tell you more about Create A Sim in The Sims 4! The features I have always dreamed of have now become a reality.
In fact, our new Create A Sim tool has been completely rebuilt from the ground up to be more tactile and intuitive than ever before.
With The Sims 4, you can actually grab onto Sims directly and adjust the way they look with a simple click of the mouse. You can now click on a Sim’s body and drag and pull it to directly manipulate their look and shape. You can start by selecting from a series of our pre-made facial and body types. Then dive in to sculpt your Sim’s face and physique by expanding and scaling to get the most custom looking Sims yet. Next, enter Detail mode which allows you to get much more advanced in manipulating each feature of your Sim. Zoom in on your Sim’s eyes, ears, nose, chin and mouth to adjust and tweak their smaller features. This tool finally brings you the ability to recreate virtually anyone – your family, friends or even yourself with much more precision and ease. This awesome new way of creating Sims, in my opinion, brings a much more personal experience to the game.
We have also added new facial archetypes that let you to create distinct faces for the first time. In the past, it was challenging to create Sims that captured unique facial differences from around the world. Now, you have the ability to adjust the underlying bone structure of your Sim’s face, which gives you the power to create Sims that carry varied and distinguished looks. You can use it to create anyone from around the world!
As every The Sims player knows, creating characters is more than skin deep. Create a Sim is not just about how your Sims look, it’s also about who they are on the inside. Like in previous Sims games, you select traits to manipulate personalities. But now, in The Sims 4, personality has a deeper impact on how your Sims interact and who they eventually become with the introduction of Emotions. Emotions affect everything your Sims do and how they react in various situations, which creates a new found synergy when combined with traits in The Sims 4. I’ve always loved the “Insane” trait, for example, and the effect of combining this trait with emotional states can lead to even wilder gameplay outcomes. We’ve added in some new traits to the game, such as my personal favorite, the “Bro” trait. This trait combined with emotional states can spark a new “bromance” for your Sim. In The Sims 4 it’s tons of fun to play with the various ways Traits work with emotions to bring smarter Sims and weirder stories to your game.
However, traits and emotions alone do not dictate the entire personality of your Sim. We’ve added in all new Walk Styles to really bring out your Sim’s individuality.. It’s amazing how much personality these Walk Styles bring to your Sims. The new styles help insinuate a level of confidence, humility or humor in your Sims starting in Create A Sim and carries forward to how they move in the game. This feature adds to an important underlying theme in Create A Sim: it is not just about how they look, Create A Sim is about bringing your Sims to life in a brand new way.
Speaking of bringing things to life, we’ve greatly improved our genetics system. As before, you can create two Sims and try for a baby. Their baby would splice their DNA together and their baby would grow up to have features representative of both their Mother or Father’s looks. Now, right in Create A Sim, you are able to mash-up the looks of two Sims to preview what their child will look like. Better yet, you can then manipulate the look of the child if you aren’t satisfied with the results. You can also create family members based off of just one of your Sims’ genetics! Want to give one of your Sims a brother, done! Or provide them with a kid sister, check! The improved genetic functions are dynamic, open ended and really fun to play with.
Like I said, this is the Create A Sim I always wanted, and I’m excited to share it with you when the game hits this fall.
Looking for more details on genetics or my latest “bromance”? Hit me up in the forums or on Twitter (@SimGuruRyan) and I’ll try my best to answer all of your CAS questions.
