This year, The Sims franchise celebrated 21 years of players embracing their inner megalomaniac while its fourth iteration, The Sims 4, marked seven years of existence.
While the game has come a long way since those early days of players superimposing Will Wright’s photo on Sims and calling it custom content, The Sims 4 has plodded along somewhat cumbersomely. And that’s not just referring to the simulation lag.
It is quite fitting ? for the purposes of this article anyway ? that the franchise marked its 21st birthday with an update in collaboration with custom content creators.
Because even though The Sims 4 has made some huge improvements since the wonky version it first released, CC creators and modders are the people who make it so much more bearable ? provided you are playing on a PC of course.
Sims 4 modders and CC creators saving our games
From giving Bonehilda her coffin back after the release of the Paranormal Stuff Pack deemed her unworthy of such, to stalwart modder Twisted Mexi’s release of Create-a-World (still in Alpha at the time of writing), the milkable cow release way before the Cottage Living Expansion Pack and many more which we’ll list below – 2021 was the year of modders and CC creators in The Sims 4.
Even before the bunk beds update that released in March 2021, Sims 4 CC creator Ravasheen had already released their own version. And before Dream Home Decorator made modular a thing, RVSN had been there, done that. And who was it that shared a useful tip for fixing CC chairs broken by the bunk beds update? Yep, Queen Ravasheen.
Let’s not forget that Bakie had been liberating those in-game VFX like fireflies and alligators way before it dropped in this year’s Cottage Living update. Bakie did this all while adding some of his own, stunning options – the existing Sims 4 pond tool can only dream of such biodiversity.
Body hair, colour wheels, improvements to simulation lag, story progression, cellulite, keeping Plant Sims as Plant Sims, better maps, getting rid of that eyeball ring and a whole bunch of other bug fixes have all been released by modders and CC creators over the last seven years.
For every glitch The Sims 4 throws up, there’s a modder out there willing to fix it. And for the most part, they do it for free.
Looking for new recipes with cuisines from all around the world? There’s a mod for that – several, actually. Bored of the same old randomly generated names for Sims, pets and bunnies? Yep, there’s a mod for that.
Indeed, even the cover image of this very article would not have been possible without mods from Twisted Mexi and deaderpool. Even if my Sim out-Simmed itself by setting themselves ablaze with the fireworks.
Sims 4 CC and mods: No such luck for console players
Console players are not as lucky as those who play on PC, though. Custom content and mods cannot be used on these platforms and many have been asking for integration for years, but that is yet to happen.
The technical challenges around this are a bit more complicated than simply being down to EA flipping a switch (and a topic for another article entirely), so we?ll move along swiftly.
For PC players, CC and mods have been game changing, literally. Whether you want to spice up your game with some not-so-PG-rated gameplay or simply want to freshen up your builds with some new themes, there is almost definitely a mod for whatever it is you want.
Including CC creators in the 21st birthday celebration of The Sims was not only deserved, it was long overdue. But the showcase featured only a handful of creators and only sampled a small portion of their work.
Since then, The Sims 4 added a new type of DLC to the game – Sims 4 Kits. These bite-sized (EA’s term) content packs have had nine releases over the last few months. And while they are produced by The Sims / EA teams, some might say they are essentially “official” CC – with the caveat being they come at a price.
These Kits have been a welcome addition for console players, but with the Sims 4 base game still riddled with bugs across platforms, it’s not all that enticing to pay for something which might make it worse.
Sims 4 mods and CC to boost your game
More to follow…
We want to add a list that is as concise as possible, so we’ll be filling this in over the next few days with some of our favourite creators as well as some of the most popular mods used by other players.
But we couldn’t finish the year without a huge thank you to the CC creators and the modders for stealing the show in 2021. The Sims 4 wouldn’t be the same without you, and we can’t wait to see what you have in store in 2022.