The Sims 4 Shows Off its Home Building Tools

Can these features be used to murder your Sims in new and interesting ways?

Wow!

This looks surprisingly great. I wish EA would release the Sims' building tools as a standalone for 30 bucks or something. They did it with the Spore creator tools, and they were undoubtedly the best parts of that game.

Dude. I fucking miss The Sims. Looking forward to this.

Goddamnit, I don't want to play this. I totally will though. I'll recreate my guy that sleeps with every random girl and works out all the time. Live life to the fullest.

Of course you can! In the Nomadic Peoples Expansion ($30 25.99 Origin Exclusive!), you can build teepees, yurts, wigwams, and even itinerant cave dwellings!

Looks good!

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I still find it annoying that they require expansions for things that were already expanded in previous games, like pets, which was an expansion for 2 and again for 3. It should just have been in 3.

I never realized you could MAKE houses in these games. I thought you were 'issued' houses. I'll admit my ignorance is due to not really knowing what sort of game play is part of playing the Sims. I assume there is some sort of quasi narrative/achievement progression in such games?

I wonder if Sims 4 will include the 'careers mode' that was an expansion last time in 3? Maybe it will be another expansion as well, in any case that would probably interest me more than just plain Sims.

I'm still waiting for a game that expanded upon Brenda Brathwaite's Playboy: The Mansion which was a fairly good 'business sim' for putting together a magazine, employing the right people for each part of the magazine, and hob-hobnobbing with celebrities in the Mansion you built. I really just want the building the magazine bit...someone could do it about Vogue magazine or Wired for all I care....I just like 'The Sims' but with business bits to manage.

@mrcraggle: Sims games haven't really launched effed up traditionally. The issue I had with Sims 2 and Sims 3 were that after all of the expansions for the first game, only having the base game feels like you are being ripped off. Like, who could really play a Sims game and NOT want pets? Well, you still have to wait for an expansion to get that every time.

In reality though, I always felt the base games had a ton of content for what they were.

You can still get Sims 3 on Steam. Sims Medieval too, in case anyone forgot that turd still exists.

Bella & Mortimer eh? Or should I say Morticia and Gomez!

The one who designed those characters is clearly an Addams Family fan.

whats your problem with origin? sims 3 is already origin..

I seriously might buy this game just for the house building alone. Pretty much all I did in the original sims.

The next EA fiasco, I'm so giddy I can't wait.

As cool as it is that there streamlining everything with the creation stuff, if the new AI stuff cant hold up there is no reason for this game to exists other then $$.

Alexis is gonna love this.

Too bad their greedy ass business model was created in the depths of hell, with full price (overpriced) expansions every 6 months, massive cash shop, stuff packs, basic features held back for expansions etc, which ruins a good series. Fuck Maxis/EA.

Looks cool, liking the tools they've shown off so far.

Bella Goth is an attractive young woman... I might have to look at this game closer.

yay, more sims. 3 was great but it always gets old when all they do is work. oh wait, this is probably going to be origin only... fuck that.

I like what I'm seeing. :)

I don't mind paying for expansions unless the expansions are just a couple of new furniture and 3 pieces of clothing like they used to do.

I can't wait for this. Also personally I'm in camp "don't kill my Sims", but hey play the game however you want right? That's the beauty of the medium.

This actually does look legitimately awesome. Still not a fan of the core Sims-gameplay though.

Oh man! I broke up Bella and Mortimer Goth way back in the original Sims. I wondered for a while why Bella's "little sister" and "brother" were so mad at me following that. Completely missed that one. Actually felt bad about it once I realized the super obvious.

Looks cool but... this is gonna have Oculus Rift support eventually, right? I'd buy that expansion.

I am super excited about the pre-furnished rooms. Interior design sucks.

They are going to micro-transaction this game to hell. They've done it retroactively with The Sims 3, they'll definitely do it to 4.

This will be even better after $600 of expansions

I remember my dad struggling with AutoCAD back in the day, then I would be playing the Sims and tease him that my house looked better than his :D

@ross2075: WigWams or bust!

The Goth's house is sort of the house I've always wanted, with that top room being my bedroom because fuck the rest of the house while I'm sleeping.

Sims don't "have" nightmares, they get willfully thrown into them - like the last time @alexisg and @dannyodwyer decided to do a charity livestream.

You know what guys? I'm really excited to play me some Sims.

Microtransactions where you have to pay a couple dollars for different furniture/clothing/tilesets etc.

I don't even want to think about how much it would cost to buy Sims 3 and all the expansions. Hopefully Sims 4 comes with at least some of that stuff from the get go.

They already said this wouldn't be the case after Sim City. I doubt they will mess this game up too much, they probably don't want to mess with the ridiculous cash cow that all the DLC and expansions for this game is.

I want more complex building tools and curved walls... Building houses is the best part of The Sims. I don't really care about the other stuff... :P

Always online requirement probably.

Man, the tech behind these games is utterly baffling / mind-blowing. Imagine if there were game-making tools half as powerful as the Sims.

Looks like I'll finally be able to build my wizard tower.

I wonder if they're going to sell us all the exact same DLC over the next few years again. For the 4th time.

What? Why would that comment get deleted? Unless that guy deleted it himself I don't see why it should be moderated.

I wonder if you can have apartments

Oh god Alex, what have I done. I was just talking about locking everyone in the house and watching the trash pile up like they did on the last Giant Bomb charity stream. Please don't think I'm a monster. It's just that in my experience that's what people enjoy doing more than watching sims go to work.

I remember people used to build a two story house and then delete the bottom floor with all the sims stuck on the second story. That kind of stuff. Not like SAW.

@damehasclass: It just looks to me like they are moving towards a even more "casual" (I hate that word) friendly approach to the entire game. In an of itself this isn't a bad thing, since most of the Sims' audience would probably fall into that category. Any tools in the previous games that were considered too complicated or not polished enough for the "casual" audience were just hidden away in cheat menus. From the video it looks all the advanced tools from the sims 3 have been added to the core building toolset, which probably means they are no where near as versatile.

I definitely hope that I'm wrong, but it just seems like this new Sims is falling into the same traps as Simcity, in that they are alienating the "core gamer" audience in favor of the more "casual" playerbase.

@gike987: The Sims has always been like that though so that's not really a surprise. Like with Sims City and Battlefield 4, those games were fucked and going forward I can only feel that every EA is exactly that.

For a brief time period in high school I wanted to be an architect. This awakens those days of AutoCAD.