User Score
4.2

Generally unfavorable reviews- based on 2630 Ratings

User score distribution:
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  1. Feb 17, 2015
    0
    I didn't get very far in this game when I realized that my world and control had become nonexistent. Even when playing Sims 2 I had More freedom and opportunity with my Sims. I am truly disappointed because I had been looking to play this game for months waiting for it to be released on Mac and when it was it completely crushed me that they taken away everything that made the game funI didn't get very far in this game when I realized that my world and control had become nonexistent. Even when playing Sims 2 I had More freedom and opportunity with my Sims. I am truly disappointed because I had been looking to play this game for months waiting for it to be released on Mac and when it was it completely crushed me that they taken away everything that made the game fun and creative. I hope some time in the near future they do a major upgrade that will all me to have the open worlds that I had become used to in Sims 3 so that I can once again become a happy customer. Expand
  2. Feb 20, 2015
    0
    Just stick with Sims 3! Sims 4 is such a step backwards in comparison to Sims 3. Sure the graphics are better, but it doesn't make up for the lack of features. Sims 4 has decided to delete cars, the entire toddler age, certain careers, general ease of play (such as key buttons ie camera angles) and many more. Really disappointed. I have owned all the Sims in the past and their expansionJust stick with Sims 3! Sims 4 is such a step backwards in comparison to Sims 3. Sure the graphics are better, but it doesn't make up for the lack of features. Sims 4 has decided to delete cars, the entire toddler age, certain careers, general ease of play (such as key buttons ie camera angles) and many more. Really disappointed. I have owned all the Sims in the past and their expansion packs and wish that Sims 4 wasn't part of my collection. Expand
  3. Feb 28, 2015
    0
    DO NOT BUY THIS GAME! I wish someone had told me this!

    A HUGE step back for the Sims, what a shame. Something I loved about the Sims 3 was the ease of walking down the sidewalk to the neighbor's house, or driving to the park - now we've gone back to a closed world? Also, remember how you could adjust your effort at work, or complete opportunities to improve your work rating or
    DO NOT BUY THIS GAME! I wish someone had told me this!

    A HUGE step back for the Sims, what a shame.

    Something I loved about the Sims 3 was the ease of walking down the sidewalk to the neighbor's house, or driving to the park - now we've gone back to a closed world?

    Also, remember how you could adjust your effort at work, or complete opportunities to improve your work rating or skills? Not anymore.

    You can't even use Speed Option 4 (fastforward through current action), and extremely useful feature in previous Sims games.

    Romantic interactions have been getting less and less steamy since Sims 2.

    Some people are saying this is more like Sims 2 - I say it's more like Sims 1 with beautiful graphics.

    Terrible, awful game.
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  4. Mar 12, 2015
    0
    I have played the Sims since the first game, and sims 4 game is so disappointing. I am mad I spent money on it. I am trying to figure out what is so great about this game. To me, Sims 3 was the best. How can you backtrack from that. In sims 3 you could roam the entire world freely. Go places, knock on other people's doors, and go to community events posted in the news papers, takeI have played the Sims since the first game, and sims 4 game is so disappointing. I am mad I spent money on it. I am trying to figure out what is so great about this game. To me, Sims 3 was the best. How can you backtrack from that. In sims 3 you could roam the entire world freely. Go places, knock on other people's doors, and go to community events posted in the news papers, take classes etc. Sims 4 has none of that. I liked Sims 3 because you were always meeting new people randomly as you went through the worlds and it was never hard to socialize or make friends. Sims 4 it is hard to socialize and much time is wasted trying to do so. Sims 4 world is small with like three places to go and little room to build your own community lots. When you want to go somewhere, its like Sims 1 all over again, going to the load screen and then picking a place you can't do anything in. In Sims 3 when you had a child the child turned out depending on how you treat it as a baby and toddler. In Sims 4 the baby can be aged up as soon as you have it no toddlers. I will say that in Sims 3 the baby and toddler seem longed, by they could have just shortened it as oppose to getting ride of it all together. Even if they come out with really good expansion packs I do not see how this game can be saved. They should have started from Sims 3 and went up from there. I am not even sure if this is better than Sims 2. The interactions are better, I guess and that is about it. But you are confined to your house, I did not see any cars you can buy. And if you want to go to somewhere else then you have to wait until the games loads. I am sorry, but I fail to see the improvements from Sims 3. I mean the graphic are better and you can make a more detailed sim, but I rather have better game play that those things. What a waste. Expand
  5. Mar 20, 2015
    0
    This review contains spoilers, click expand to view. This is an insult to the Sims franchise! Seriously EA?!
    You can't explore the world.
    You can't place lots.
    You can't edit town.
    And it doesn't even have half the features of Sims 3.

    How dare you charge us so much for this crap?!
    You suck EA!
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  6. May 8, 2015
    0
    The Sims 4 is no doubt the worst in the series and aguably one of the worst PC games in 2010s. As a Hardcore PC gamer and a longtime Simer, this game is disgrace to the franchise....
    1. Online mode ONLY.... WTF ?
    2. No open world.... R U **** me ? 3. No Jobs.... da phuck ? 4. downgraded graphics.... the sim 2 with mods look better than this **** There are MANY more but i wouldn't
    The Sims 4 is no doubt the worst in the series and aguably one of the worst PC games in 2010s. As a Hardcore PC gamer and a longtime Simer, this game is disgrace to the franchise....
    1. Online mode ONLY.... WTF ?
    2. No open world.... R U **** me ?
    3. No Jobs.... da phuck ?
    4. downgraded graphics.... the sim 2 with mods look better than this ****
    There are MANY more but i wouldn't like to wasting more of my time on this garbage.... EA = Early Access.
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  7. Apr 3, 2015
    0
    A poor game compared to its predecessors. Even with updates, missing a lot of base game features found in 2 and 3.

    You'll find many little annoyances, such as everyone being exactly the same height, and lots of big ones, such as no more open world and families dying out through no Story Progression.

    Overall a huge step back.
  8. May 13, 2015
    0
    This game sucks. They basically stripped everything away that made Sims 3 great and want you to buy everything through expansions. To make it even worst, they require you sign up for their Origin account so you have to log in every time you want to play. This game sucked so bad, I stopped playing it for several months. I thought I would try it again to see if anything has improved butThis game sucks. They basically stripped everything away that made Sims 3 great and want you to buy everything through expansions. To make it even worst, they require you sign up for their Origin account so you have to log in every time you want to play. This game sucked so bad, I stopped playing it for several months. I thought I would try it again to see if anything has improved but forgot the stupid password. All the other Sims you can just pop it in and enjoy the game. Nope! EA want's their money. Stick to Sim 3. And for those that think this is just because Sims 4 just needs expansions, I played Sims 3 with no expansion packs the whole time and was satisfied with the game without any additional expansions. So, Sims 4 is nothing compared to Sims 3 vanilla. Expand
  9. Jun 16, 2015
    0
    First they strip game with all content which players like, now they sell these pre-made items via DLC for fanboys loved expansion packs with ridiculous prices. There's no limit to EA's greediness - I hope they burn in hell.
  10. Feb 3, 2017
    0
    A sequel of a sandbox game is supposed to be an upgrade. More features, more stuff, technically better...
    This game not. This game is a real downgrade in practically every aspect. The only improvements where made in the AI of the sims, as well as their ability to be multitasking. And those improvements are also not clean since they are followed by a new set of non-logical/natural
    A sequel of a sandbox game is supposed to be an upgrade. More features, more stuff, technically better...
    This game not. This game is a real downgrade in practically every aspect. The only improvements where made in the AI of the sims, as well as their ability to be multitasking. And those improvements are also not clean since they are followed by a new set of non-logical/natural behaviors and bugs.
    There are just so many choices which i can't imagine were approved by a brain-equipped creature. The same like with sim city, they wanted a reboot but got destroyed by the concurrence (cities skyline) which was better in simply every single imaginable way. Shame on you Maxis, you are trying to make games for everyone but are forgetting about the people which fed you by buying your games!
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  11. Jun 26, 2015
    0
    Not honorable to the sims franchise. Extremely lacking in content. Dissapointed, but not surprised. EA destroying yet another beloved franchise :( ...
  12. Jun 27, 2015
    0
    This game was good for about 10 minutes of giggles in Create-A-Sim, but other than that, this game was very boring. Within an hour, I had experienced pretty much everything the "deluxe" base game had to offer, and wasn't very impressed with any of it. I loved Sims 2 and 3, but Sims FreePlay is even better than this.
  13. Jul 16, 2015
    0
    Just a few improved feature but the negatives outweigh the positives.

    1. no open world 2. less customization 3. lazy design 4. it dose not feel like a real life simulation 5. stripped of content at release 6. and bloody loading screens. luckily i saved my money from buying this bad game. i thought they wud further expand upon sims 3 but seeing what they did was a huge huge
    Just a few improved feature but the negatives outweigh the positives.

    1. no open world
    2. less customization
    3. lazy design
    4. it dose not feel like a real life simulation
    5. stripped of content at release
    6. and bloody loading screens.

    luckily i saved my money from buying this bad game. i thought they wud further expand upon sims 3 but seeing what they did was a huge huge disappointment.
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  14. Aug 10, 2015
    0
    IMO lacks in comparison to Sims 3 / Sims 2 everything, it is a huge disappointment to me, just ugly.
    No color wheel or pattern system to design clothing or furniture the way you want, very limited color chooses specially for clothes, nothing matches because the colors cannot be adjusted and the predefined colors simply aren't enough. Totally closed and not connected world which means
    IMO lacks in comparison to Sims 3 / Sims 2 everything, it is a huge disappointment to me, just ugly.
    No color wheel or pattern system to design clothing or furniture the way you want, very limited color chooses specially for clothes, nothing matches because the colors cannot be adjusted and the predefined colors simply aren't enough. Totally closed and not connected world which means constant loading screens. You can't go in 3D from one neighborhood to another, the sub-hoods aren't connected through roads - you always have to go through map view.
    Loading screen into map, loading screen into neighborhood-selection, loading screen to any lot within the neighborhood. Even all lots in your current neighborhood (there are only 4-5 per sub-hood) are locked from view and you have to go through loading screens to visit lots within your current neighborhood. Very many annoying screens to go through e. g. the neighborhood selection screen appears all the time. Totally flat grounds and lots, no reachable hills and mountains, no private fishing ponds any longer, fake sky, fake horizon, fake grass. The grass deserved not to be named a grass. Bark, rocks and grass lack details and are just painted without a structure on it. Everywhere sparkle effects on foods and harvest items to hide the bad textures. Cartoon style on everything, huge oversize objects and in comparison tiny Sims. Sims with flat paper skin and lots of gaps in the body structure (neck, arms, legs, mouth gaps) and the old fashioned style burrito clothing again this time without structure and mature textures, just clothes appear to me like a piece of paper was brought in a shape. If you now expect better performance in Sims 4 because world is totally closed, most features were removed and graphics were heavily tuned down and the whole simulation was simplified (i would say in Sims 4 is no simulation any longer regarding to family and social reaction aspects) then I have to disappoint you: No faster loading screens, not less bugs but even more bugs, totally modding unfriendly and saving the game is only slightly faster at the very beginning of a fresh save game. So the Sims 4 has no performance gain for the huge sacrifice developers made on it. The world is incredibly small, the sub-hood ends already at your neighbors home, 4 lots are in the neighborhood only. Sims aren't simulated well, Sims only do sport and fishing and nothing else in the neighborhood. You will see them going alone down the road without a family or group. They are mostly jogging, making push-ups on the road, rarely they have an assignment to fish for a while and that's the whole simulation. Only walking, jogging, more walking everyone alone and mostly kids, teenagers and elders. Adults are mostly never on the road which is irritating.
    Kids and teens have no curfew, they roam the roads until 3-4am. Non-played Sims have no needs and no dress code.
    Skills go immediately uncontrolled on everything which is very annoying, from a single conversation your Sim might get already three unwanted skills like comedy, mischief and charisma. Just getting into the pool and out will make your Sim receiving the athletic skill and picking up a fruit will give the Sim the gardening skill. All skills start from level 1 immediately and going already to level 2 which is very confusing. In the other Sims games we had a lock on those skills until we take classes or read a book - here are not existing classes.
    No shops, no community buildings, no city hall, no work buildings, no hospital, only the tripled museums and gyms.
    Meals you buy on your fridge, books you buy on your bookcase, pregnancy is resolved on the toilet.
    Money is taking on the easel for each painting attempt, coffee machine takes money from the Sim and bar does - the floating money effect goes on everything and it annoys - other Sim games didn't that way. Huge bills which come only if you travel with your Sim to other lots, if you don't travel almost never comes any bill. The bill is snapped inside your mailbox, the mailman doesn't come, even if some Sims are working as mailman. The bill usually is snapped inside when you travel from CAS or into CAS or if you visit lots in the city. There is no newspaper and time scaling in weekdays doesn't work proper. Maid doesn't work right and doesn't come when you make a call. All other NPC were removed in this game (fireman, police, gardener, repairman). No repairman is in this game. Things break frequently, your Sim is enforced to do handiness each save game. No right money making or earning in this game exists for your Sim only painting is still profitable even after being downgraded already few times. Patches and updates don't bring fixes for this game - there are only downgrades, new bugs, new annoyances and trait downgrades or things being worsened or being removed from the game even. The graphic was downgraded with patches and more gaps were added to the Sims. Game crashes often or freezes on loading.
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  15. Aug 25, 2015
    0
    Simis 4 - there is nothing much to say - it just sucks. it. just. sucks. period. bought it before checking it out. did not see that **** coming. like ever. wish i could give it back ...
  16. Sep 27, 2015
    0
    I don't care what the rest of you say. This game is horrible and boring. So what is you can create people and play with them? I wanted a refund, but it was a 24 hour policy? Horrible system if you ask me. If you don't want to waste 40 dollars on things you can just do in real life, don't buy this game. I think it's way overrated.
  17. Oct 25, 2015
    0
    This review contains spoilers, click expand to view. I made an account just so I could let everyone know how horrible the wait time is to download this piece of poop game! i've been trying to download this game for 6 hours now and am still only at 46%! It is not worth the 60$. I wish I checked reviews before purchasing this game! if you did not make my mistake and decided to glance at reviews before buying, DO NOT BUY THIS GAME! Expand
  18. Aug 4, 2019
    0
    The game became so buggued now that it's absolutely implayable. Example amongt a ton of others : if a kid has a toy in his hand or in his inventory, and you try to make him take a bath, he will start the interaction, and cancel it before ending it.... because the toy just bugs the action.

    The developper has reached a stratospheric level of amateurism about bugs issues. This bug is known
    The game became so buggued now that it's absolutely implayable. Example amongt a ton of others : if a kid has a toy in his hand or in his inventory, and you try to make him take a bath, he will start the interaction, and cancel it before ending it.... because the toy just bugs the action.

    The developper has reached a stratospheric level of amateurism about bugs issues. This bug is known by them since 2 years, and nothing is done.
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  19. Jan 31, 2016
    0
    This game has made me give up on the sims entirely. I spent the price of a full game for something that feels like a demo. Maybe after all the expansion packs are out it will feel more like an actual game. Of course since this is EA you will have to pay hundreds of dollars just to make it play like a 50-60 dollar game.
  20. Feb 12, 2016
    0
    It is 3 in the morning and my Sim goes into a SPA and then NPCs begin to pop up out of nowhere. This is unreal and really really weird!
    The team keep adding non-relevant and not so important gimmicks (ice cream machine, popcorn machine) instead of core features (open-world, town size, toddlers etc).
    As for the GPs and EPs, it seems to me that the team have lost direction. Get to work is
    It is 3 in the morning and my Sim goes into a SPA and then NPCs begin to pop up out of nowhere. This is unreal and really really weird!
    The team keep adding non-relevant and not so important gimmicks (ice cream machine, popcorn machine) instead of core features (open-world, town size, toddlers etc).
    As for the GPs and EPs, it seems to me that the team have lost direction. Get to work is OK, but not as good as Ambitions in Sims 3. Get together is a farce with too few feature.
    The only good thing about Sims 4 is that is runs much smoother on my Mac compared to Sims 3. But that is because the irresponsible Sims 3 developers use cider wrapper instead of a native port.
    I've purchased every DLC and keeps getting disappointed and disappointed. Please stop developing this half-hearted Sims 4 and give us a real Sims game (Not Sims Freeplay on PC please).
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  21. Jun 20, 2021
    0
    June 20, 2021. CLP$ 678.600. Reportable. They only need to add loot boxes or "packs".
  22. Jun 17, 2016
    0
    Its been two years and sims 4 still cannot match sims 2 or 3 BASE GAMES. EA it is time to start fresh and give us a game worthy of being called sims 4.
  23. Jun 12, 2016
    0
    Nearly two years later, my initial optimism and intrigue into TS4 has been quelled. The expansion and stuff packs have not helped.

    TS4 is visually beautiful but gameplay feels redundant and less progressive than previous games. TS4 was overly ambitious as it fails to build on former Sims games strengths.
  24. Sep 8, 2017
    0
    This game is a uncomplete peace of ****
    Not even with 350€ in DLC's the game feels complete.
    The personalization sistem is horrible in a game that's all about that. Saint's Row 2 did it way better and that game is from 2008. (you can't even change the high of your Sims...) The vanilla game is so empty that your Sim can only visit 4 locations: A gym, a museum, a coffee and a park.
    This game is a uncomplete peace of ****
    Not even with 350€ in DLC's the game feels complete.

    The personalization sistem is horrible in a game that's all about that. Saint's Row 2 did it way better and that game is from 2008. (you can't even change the high of your Sims...)

    The vanilla game is so empty that your Sim can only visit 4 locations: A gym, a museum, a coffee and a park. Two of the DLC's locations are good, the others are terrible. (40€ every single DLC)

    DON'T BUY THIS GAME: CRACK IT
    You will delete it after 5 hours of terrible, slow, bad configurated, bad pathfinder gameplay.
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  25. May 6, 2017
    0
    It should be called loading screen simulator. There is no town, nothing really. Not even CC can save this mess. Overpriced on all levels. Why does this even exists on the shelves it's a greatest mistery. Talking about anything else or about it's halfassed overpriced expansions is pointless. Sims series are dead for me EA games is finished forever. I will care again for Sims games when itIt should be called loading screen simulator. There is no town, nothing really. Not even CC can save this mess. Overpriced on all levels. Why does this even exists on the shelves it's a greatest mistery. Talking about anything else or about it's halfassed overpriced expansions is pointless. Sims series are dead for me EA games is finished forever. I will care again for Sims games when it will be made by a different company, by different people who are passionate about their creations.
    Who ever plays this and praises this game or EA is an lost idiot not sure what else to say about them. Sadly looks like there will be always some amount of clueless people trowing money at EA and EA will ofc milk them with their unfinished products. So congrats to those people being idiots and funding the broken corporate world. Hope you're proud of your self, being an lost idiot.
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  26. Sep 11, 2017
    0
    Disappointed.
    I was hyped about sims 4 CAS and new build mode options, but when the game actually came out, a lot of things were unnecessarily removed.
    First of all: Open world. I loved the fact we had open world in The Sims 3, it made the game more realistic (it is a life simulation game after all) and it was a huge step forward. And now with better graphics and all, we got back to,
    Disappointed.
    I was hyped about sims 4 CAS and new build mode options, but when the game actually came out, a lot of things were unnecessarily removed.
    First of all: Open world. I loved the fact we had open world in The Sims 3, it made the game more realistic (it is a life simulation game after all) and it was a huge step forward. And now with better graphics and all, we got back to, what? The sims 1?
    Second of all: Freestyle modifications like Create a style tool in build and CAS mode were removed. After all these years it's impossible they didn't notice we like to create our own style and for example, be able to create L type stairs. If you don't want us to do this, AT LEAST import it in game and give us more options/designs to choose from. EA couldn't care less about their fans opinions and wishes.
    Third: Prices. Base game doesn't have cars, toddlers or anything and it is instead added in patches? Base game is basically like bread, and if u want a burger you are forced to buy all expansions (which are about the same price as the base game?). There is NO discount if you buy more expansions, so if you like the game and want to play it, you will end up spending at least $300 for all expansions.
    I don't know what the point of giving us a few upgraded things and removing all the awesome stuff was, but to me it seems terribly greedy, since I believe all of this will be added again in the sims 5 so people will think "oh, wow we have open world with great graphics and so many options i need this", which should've been there in the first place.
    Everyone hates EA for a reason(s). Extremely greedy and don't care about their fans wishes at all
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  27. Sep 26, 2017
    0
    Depressingly bad. It's no longer a "life simulation" game but (per EA's own words) the Sims franchise is now a "time management" game... a shallow, wrist-slitting, boring, truncated, iPad-oriented, numbing, braindead-and-drooling-pools-of-saliva stupid... "time management" game. EA has gleefully destroyed this franchise and scraped it flaming and wavering in stink on our faces.
  28. Jan 26, 2018
    0
    No cars, no open worlds, just like the sims 2, colors coustomizing is worse than the sims 3 - EA, what the hell? A lot of usseles DLC's, like "The Laundry"!? Toodlers was added by force, because everybody was mad. It's very dissapoitment how EA was trying to make players stupid. Money Money Money....
  29. May 9, 2018
    0
    A EA desenvolveu uma incrível habilidade de estragar grandes franquias. Decepcionante!
  30. Jan 22, 2021
    0
    Es sin dudas, el peor de la saga. Es un retroceso a lo que las sagas anteriores ofrecieron. Sin mundo abierto, poco gameplay, y sims que parecen robots. EA realmente ha lucrado con esta entrega dando pack de expasiones realmente vacios y malos, vendiendo todo por separado. Espero que en los sims 5 logren mejorar todo el mal que le han hecho a la saga de los sims. Mientras tanto seguiréEs sin dudas, el peor de la saga. Es un retroceso a lo que las sagas anteriores ofrecieron. Sin mundo abierto, poco gameplay, y sims que parecen robots. EA realmente ha lucrado con esta entrega dando pack de expasiones realmente vacios y malos, vendiendo todo por separado. Espero que en los sims 5 logren mejorar todo el mal que le han hecho a la saga de los sims. Mientras tanto seguiré jugando a los sims 3 y 2. Expand
Metascore
70

Mixed or average reviews - based on 75 Critic Reviews

Critic score distribution:
  1. Positive: 31 out of 75
  2. Negative: 2 out of 75
  1. Jul 23, 2020
    60
    While an enjoyable title that has been polished up and seems generally very modern, it cannot be expected that The Sims 4 is not going to be compared to The Sims 3. In this respect, it seems that while the game took a few steps forwards, it also took a few steps backwards by abandoning features that were very helpful and appreciated in the previous versions. It does have new features that people have been waiting for, such as emotions and more personality for the Sims. As for now, for some players it may not quite be worth to abandon The Sims 3 for it, but for new players looking for a first experience with the franchise, they may have an easier time navigating than former The Sims 3 players. People that have previously enjoyed the latter may be disappointed by the menus (Sim creation, building, or navigating town), as they have been so massively oversimplified that they are now actually confusing.
  2. Pelit (Finland)
    Oct 25, 2014
    80
    The Sims 4 is once again a new beginning. Needs more content and soon, please. [Oct 2014]
  3. CD-Action
    Oct 24, 2014
    40
    The Sims 4 is just a foundation of a game. How would you react if you bought a new Elder Scrolls game and realized that half of the cities are unavailable (because TES6: World Adventures is around the corner), there are only 4 weapons (TES6: Accessories), you can’t ride horses (TES6: Pets), there are only 12 quests (TES6: Careers), 2 guilds (TES6: Friends) and 3 spells (TES6: Supernatural)? [Nov 2014, p.50]