As we go full speed towards the release of Adventure Awaits, many of you are likely tiding yourselves over with the recent base game update. And why wouldn’t you? The latest update for The Sims 4 had some neat additions, including playgrounds.
Perfect for your happy family to head out on a picnic or just get some fresh air. But the implementation has left some vanilla players out in the cold.
All work and no play…
Fair warning, it’s another Reddit story. But it’s something we might not’ve caught ourselves if user AmalatheaClassic hadn’t pointed it out. The new playground lot has some basic requirements for qualifying, such as benches, sinks, toilets etcetera. So far, so normal.
And one of those is for there to be at least six pieces of playground equipment. Simple, right? Well, not so because as you may’ve twigged there’s only two actual pieces of playground equipment in the base game; with some variations.
It certainly seems a bit much considering the limited variety. And unless you’re making some sort of mega-playground you would hardly make a dent in the overall catalogue even if you did have all the expansions.
Always picked last
Yes, I know. Shock, horror, call the police! But jokes aside this is a pretty blunt indicator of something I’ve mused on more than once about expansion bloat. There’s only so much that can be done with the limited number of content available despite this being a neat little addition.
Of course it’s not hard to think that Adventure Awaits will plug this gap. What with all the playground equipment and other outdoorsy stuff we see shown off in the trailers. But then that’s cold comfort for vanilla players not willing to drop $40 at launch for an expansion.
It unfortunately does just feel like another example of EA taking one step forward, two back and one right over a hose and into a pond. Yes, you can potentially plug the gap with creator content. But as the old saying goes: “If it’s only good with mods, it’s not good.”
