The Sims 4 was released more than nine years ago, and even though many fans criticized the game due to some obvious restrictions that the previous game in the franchise did not have, it was well enough played and pumped out a lot of additional content.
The publisher behind The Sims 4 has been working on the next-gen installment in the series code-named ‘Project Rene’ for quite some time now, and recently, we got new information regarding the project.
The most surprising news is, however, the fact that the game will be free and open for all, without seemingly hidden game mechanics that are designed to trick the players into spending more money.
Project Rene will be Free to Download. This means that when Project Rene is ready and fully open to players, you will be able to join, play, and explore it without a subscription, core game purchase, or energy mechanics. We want the play to be super easy for you to invite or join friends and experience new features, stories, and challenges.
But in the rest of the aforementioned blog post, the catch has been mentioned. For quite some time now, it’s obvious that the real monetization strategy of EA when it comes to The Sims games are not the initial releases but the plenty DLCs, content packs, customization options, and other resources that often come at a pretty hefty price and are often a target for criticism.
The Sims 4 is currently free to download, but to experience everything that the game has to offer, a fan should shell out hundreds of dollars to access some of the features that were left out of the original game and were included in the subsequent expansions.
EA confirmed that this monetization strategy will also continue in the future, as Project Rene will include content and packs, but the updates that add new features will be free to an extent.
Beyond regular updates to the core game, we will sell content and packs, but we plan to change this up a bit. For example, basic weather may be added to the core game for free, for everybody. And in the future, a pack for purchase may be focused on winter sports with activities like ice dancing or a snowman building competition. It’s important that with Project Rene we lower barriers to play and give all players the broadest shared systems because that feels like the strongest foundation for us to grow from.
Project Rene is, according to EA, still in the early stages of development, and quite a lot of time will pass before the game sees the light of day. However, you put it, there is an eager community waiting for any news related to the release.
Valentina Kraljik is a writer and editor at Game Horizon with a deep love for everything related to video games. With a degree in Information Sciences, she brings a well-informed and unique perspective to her work. Valentina's writing is known for covering a wide range of video game genres, but she truly shines in her expertise in open-world RPGs. From offbeat euro-jank games like "Gothic" to critically acclaimed titles like "The Witcher," Valentina is well-versed in this exciting genre. Her passion for imaginative storytelling is reflected in the topics she writes about, with favorites like "Disco Elysium," "Elder Scrolls: Morrowind," "World of Warcraft," and "Mass Effect" influencing her tastes in games. Even though nothing beats a good high-fantasy setting, she often wanders into the realm of first-person shooters, occasionally even hitting the target. With a commitment to objectivity and insightful analysis, Valentina strives to bring a fresh perspective to the subjects she covers, even when exploring genres that may be unfamiliar to her. Her blend of academic rigor and creative flair sets her apart in the world of media writing.
How Long Does It Take To Download ‘The Sims 4’? Can You Speed It Up?
The Sims 4 is still the world’s most popular life simulator game. The franchise’s fourth installment will be ten years old in 2024, and the fans feel that new content and game should be coming. Until then, The Sims 4 will be the go-to game for new and old players to play, and with the recent availability of the base game for free, Sims became even more popular. Of course, people are wondering if it is worth waiting for the download of the The Sims 4 base game with potential expansion packs. So how long does it take to download The Sims 4, and is it possible to speed it up?
The base Sims 4 game is approximately 50 Gbs, with the contents and save files storage being included. If you add in the expansion packs, for example, ‘Seasons,’ which requires 25 Gbs of hard disk space, the total size of the Sims 4 game is around 75 Gbs. Of course, if your internet download speed clocks up to 40 Mbits per second, the base game and the expansion pack of Sims 4 will take around 4 hours and 7 minutes. Download speed depends on the PC’s strength, household members using the Internet, and the processes your computer engages in during the download.
All things considered, The Sims 4 is quite a big game, at times comparable to the likes of God of War game, which is fascinating knowing that Maxis’ game is nine years old. If we include the expansion packs and other add-ons, Sims gets even bigger, which will be the main topic of this article. If you’re interested, stay with us until the end.
What is the size of The Sims 4 game?
Life simulator games are vastly different from RPGs or first-person shooter games because they focus on the opposite style of gameplay, and with that, the “machine” needs to deal with different things when running it.
The Sims franchise is notorious for its game size and many game expansions over the years, which escalated with the release of The Sims 3 game. This 2009 life simulator was the first Sims game that included the open world features, where the Sims could walk and travel to other ‘cities.’ The Sims 3 game was huge, and even good computers struggled at times to load it – it was just too big and “clunky” to load.
The process of loading the game was an issue, but the game was huge as well, even for the base game. This trend continued with Sims 4, which was released in 2014.
The game developers removed the open-world feature for the new release but expanded Sims 4 in other aspects – especially with the customization, add-ons, and graphics.
The Sims 4 game is huge, with the base game being around 50 Gbs in size, while the players also need to make sure they have additional hard disk space for the save files and other add-ons.
Now, the base Sims 4 game is sufficient enough for most players, but there is a reason why EA Games released so many expansion packs and add-ons over the last decade. They are supposed to expand the gameplay potential and add more things into the game so players have more to do, and the game manages to still be interesting.
If you want to dedicate yourself to the Sims 4 game, you’ll probably need at least one expansion pack that costs $30, and those need additional disk space on your device. For example, the ‘Seasons’ expansion pack needs at least 25 GB of disk space with an additional 1 Gb for safe files and other add-ons.
This makes The Sims 4 game at least around 75 GB in size, which will take some time to download on your device, but how long? Let’s find out.
How long does it take to download The Sims 4 on your device?
To determine the time for the download, we need to determine the internet speed. Of course, in this case, the download internet speed is the focus, and one can measure it with the special ‘speed tests that are available with one search on your browser.
Let’s make an example from my specifications and internet speed information. After measuring my download internet speed, the speed test clocked it at 40.36 Mb per second.
This is a fairly decent download speed if I consider that it was only 18 Mb per second only a year ago when researching the topic of Fortnite game download speed.
As I did then, I used Omni Calculator, which determines the download speed and how long it takes for The Sims 4 game to download on my device. I put in my download speed information and the approximate size of the game with the additional expansion pack.
The results showed that the 75 GB-sized Sims 4 would take approximately four hours and seven minutes to fully download on my personal computer. This is discounting other factors – other members using the Internet in your household and the strength of your device.
This software and tools mostly don’t consider those, so let’s apply these examples to my personal experience. How to speed up the download speed? Let’s find out.
How to speed up The Sims 4 download speed?
In this case, Task Manager on your Windows is your friend because you can ensure that the background task and applications don’t run and disrupt your efforts in downloading The Sims 4 game.
Task Manager is a go-to tool to relieve your device from unwanted processes and applications running in the background.
Believe it or not, those background processes really do mess up with your PC, so to prevent the disruptions, open the Task Manager by simultaneously clicking the CTRL+Shift+Esc buttons on your keyboard.
When the Task Manager is opened, the ‘Processes’ tab is where you can turn off unwanted applications – by ‘Right-clicking’ with your mouse on one of the processes and selecting the ‘End Task’ option.
Browsers are notorious for ‘eating’ out your PC’s performance, so make sure you don’t have one opened. Another issue that most people encounter is the temporary files, which are mostly the leftover trash files from deleted applications, which you can get rid of by going to the search tab using your ‘Windows Key’ and writing the ‘%temp%’ command in it and delete all files from that folder.
These files cause clutter on your PC, so make sure you clean out your folder regularly.
Of course, the internet router is another important culprit, especially regarding internet speed. If the members of your household use the internet during the download time of The Sims 4, you can expect slower performance and the longer time it takes.
If there is no one and you’re download speed is pretty slow, reset your internet router, which will “fix” the issue in most cases, or acquire a WiFi extender that increases the number of signals in your home.
Nevertheless, The Sims 4 will take some time to download because it’s a fairly big game, especially when we include expansion packs that are an important part of the game – and that’s not including other “smaller” add-ons and packs that EA Games regularly sells.
Dora Naletilic started developing her gaming skills on Game Boy and the first PlayStation consoles, with Tekken, Crash Bandicoot, and sports games dominating her repertoire. However, Dora truly fell in love with video games when she stumbled upon the Warcraft III game, which changed her perspective on gaming. After seeing the ultimate demise of Arthas and invading of the undead known as Scourge of Lorderon, Dora became a fan of DOTA, which made her a MOBA fan. Her nerves are tested daily on Summoner's Rift, but she still loves League of Legends very much. Dora especially loves action role-playing game franchises like Fallout and Mass Effect and has a special place for Mafia II, Uncharted, and the Metal Gear Solid franchise. Although she admits to being bad at shooters, Call of Duty and Destiny 2 have dominated her gaming life for years, while GTA made her excited about in-game bank heists.
For various reasons, life simulators were never the most popular gaming genre in the gaming industry. One of the reasons was that life simulators could erase the line between real and virtual lives, which made some people anxious. When Maxis first released The Sims in 2000, players were shocked at how one game replicated real lives without blurring the lines of real life. Sims were in their own fictional world, speaking different languages and living their lives with some supernatural happenings. After two decades, The Sims franchise became one of the most notable games worldwide, which made us think – are The Sims games fun?
Sims games are really fun. Some people would find this answer unbelievable, but since the first Sims game, the franchise has offered players many great features that made controlling their characters fun and immersive if they wanted to role-play. Game mechanics like socializing, going to the gym, and Sims trying to make it in their career is extremely fun. The games also offer less serious gameplay like Sims partying, supernatural beings making their appearance, or players just torturing their Sims. Sims is fun and full of content for every player to experience.
We will discuss this topic by mentioning why Sims games are fun, comparing the franchise games, and some aspects that need improvement. If you are interested in this topic, stay with us until the end.
Reasons why Sims games are fun
The gameplay of Sims is interactive and full of content.
One thing new players will like about Sims games is the content. The way your Sims can interact with almost everything around them. Kitchen appliances, throwing trash, cleaning, eating, sleeping, and socializing with other Sims are just “drops in the sea of the interactions” in The Sims.
You can go with your Sims to concerts and parties and attend various other events. Interaction with other Sims is one of the most interesting things about Sims, and players can hang out with their friends and even find their love interests. Sims can adopt pets and children, find love, eventually move in together, and stay together until imminent death. If Sims had children, players could continue playing with descendants of the original Sims.
These only prolong the experience and enrich the gameplay of Sims games.
Sims games always had good bonus content or expansion packs that added so much to the gameplay.
We already mentioned Sims game expansions that became part of the Sims experience from the franchise’s early days. The Sims Unlimited was the first expansion pack released for Sims games twenty years ago. Today, these packs are full of content and include the Get Famous installment, where your Sim can become a famous actor, High School years, which is focused on teenagers during high school years, and many more.
Expansion packs are expensive, and some fans won’t spend their hard-earned money, but most base Sims games are good.
Customizing your character is widespread and diverse for everyone to play.
Before you start the Sims experience, you can customize your character in any way you want. Sims 4 is best because it allows players to customize their characters from scratch. Mods and CC addons add even more options for players to use. Do you want your character to have merchandise from Harry Potter? Download CC from the Sims community and talented modders doing their best to make the game even more enjoyable.
In this aspect, players have many options, whether they buy expansion packs or find CCs or mods from the community. As players, we have many options, making Sims games even more fun.
Customization of the buildings is enjoyable, and one can lose hours editing them.
Building and customization of the houses in Sims games made the games so popular in the gaming community. Players can start building their homes after they customize their characters. First, you need to pick the land/area where Sims will live and start customizing their house.
Players can choose anything from the foundation and material of their roofs and even decide if they will have one or two floors in their house. After putting the foundation in place and the walls up, one can start designing the interior. This is the most exciting part about building because players have many options to choose from. Even though I love the pure gameplay of Sims, the building aspect is pretty “neat,” and it will take hours for one to work on the house.
Sims games are mostly about Sims, but Sims Unleashed presented us with special pet expansion packs, letting players have the whole Sims experience. Pets have become part of every Sims game since the first game, and Sims 2 implemented the feature fully into the game.
One of the funniest experiences I had with pets was in Sims 3. My Sim had an Animal Lover trait, and all of a sudden, dozens of dogs would come in front of my Sims house and just stand there waiting for you to adopt them. Of course, the interactions were the best part because you could feed them, pet them and play with them.
CC designers and modders added more animals to Sims games, and some expansion packs added animals like rats, guinea pigs, rabbits, and more.
Besides Sims, you’ll have to take care of your pets, which makes the gameplay organic.
Are Sims games fun to play?
With all being said, we can conclude that Sims games are fun to play. The game experience is innovative enough for players to enjoy it, and seeing the progression of your Sims is entertaining, with many features the Sims franchise offers.
Expansion packs that offer good unique features and storylines one can pursue while also making your Sim becoming the best in their field of the world.
Customization is a huge factor in these games, and your Sim can be edited in any way you want. Do you wish to self-insert your own look and put your counterpart in the game? Sims game will provide you with those tools. CC addons and mods from the Sims community are impressive and easily added to the game, so definitely check out the Sims community for those features.
Sims games are expensive, but there is an option to download the base Sims 4 game for free, and if you like it, purchase special expansion packs and more. Don’t worry; you won’t have to spend your money in most cases because the base game is enough.
Overall, each Sims game brought many great features: First two games added so many great new features to the game that revolutionized the franchise, and Sims 3 added an open world and dynamic gameplay that never got stale. Sims 4 focused on additional content and customization of Sims and houses, which are the best part of the most recent game, but the gameplay could use some work.
Sims games are fun, and we cannot wait for a new one to be released soon.
Dora Naletilic started developing her gaming skills on Game Boy and the first PlayStation consoles, with Tekken, Crash Bandicoot, and sports games dominating her repertoire. However, Dora truly fell in love with video games when she stumbled upon the Warcraft III game, which changed her perspective on gaming. After seeing the ultimate demise of Arthas and invading of the undead known as Scourge of Lorderon, Dora became a fan of DOTA, which made her a MOBA fan. Her nerves are tested daily on Summoner's Rift, but she still loves League of Legends very much. Dora especially loves action role-playing game franchises like Fallout and Mass Effect and has a special place for Mafia II, Uncharted, and the Metal Gear Solid franchise. Although she admits to being bad at shooters, Call of Duty and Destiny 2 have dominated her gaming life for years, while GTA made her excited about in-game bank heists.
How to Return Home After Visiting Community Lots in the Sims 4?
Sims 4 introduced many new activities your Sims can participate in. Most of them include leaving your home lot and exploring the vast world introduced with the latest installment in the series. We’ve previously covered all the differences between Sims 3 and Sims 4, and one of them is navigating the world in general. Sims 4 is not an open-world game, which makes traveling more constrained and dependent on how well you can manage various functions within the game. Due to that, we’ve decided to create this guide to help you out. Let’s see how do you return to your home lot after visiting community lots in Sims 4?
You can return home after visiting community lots in Sims 4 by clicking on a small house-shaped icon next to your Sim profile in the bottom right corner of the screen. This icon has “go home” functionality, and by interacting with it, you will be able to leave just about any lot. Alternatively, you can return home by opening the world map navigating to your house, and clicking the car-shaped traveling icon.
Now that we’ve covered how to return home, there’s plenty more to cover. If you’re interested in more, feel free to continue reading!
How to travel back home from community lots?
Sims 4 has some amazing social activities, from attending festivals and having a fun night out to going on whole vacations in distant and mysterious lands. All those activities have one thing in common, your Sim eventually needs to return to its home lot, which you’ve spent hours upon hours customizing, decorating, and organizing.
Sometimes we’re forced to end the fun earlier due to some unpredicted factors, and sometimes our Sim is simply in need of a shower or meal. Before your moodlets get out of hand and you acquire some nasty debuff capable of destroying your relationship with your friends, it’s best to go home, but how do you do that?
There are a few approaches to to “traveling” function in Sims 4, and traveling back home is actually pretty accessible. All you need to do is press the house-shaped icon right next to your Sim’s profile, and your Sim will start traveling home instantly. Since Sims 4 introduced a loading screen during every lot change, expect the loading screen to hit you pretty quickly. To access the “go home” option, you can click on your Sim as well. You will see it among several other Sim-related functions. It works the same as the house-shaped icon.
The second option to return home can be found on your local (and world) map. If you’ve found yourself in another world or neighborhood, and for some reason, you don’t want to (or can’t) use the “go home” function, you have an alternative:
Open the map by pressing “M.”
Navigate to your own neighborhood and find your home lot.
Select your home lot and click on the car-shaped icon in the lower right corner of the screen. It’s a giant icon. You can’t miss it.
Alternatively, you can organize a means of transport by using your phone and using the “travel” option. By choosing travel, you will basically travel home via map but with extra steps.
Each time you attempt to travel from one lot to another, you have the option to invite other Sims to follow you. But how do you visit other Sims in their house and community lots?
How do you visit another Sims house?
Visiting another Sim’s house is fairly simple, and the process is the same as when you’re trying to return home. All you need to do is open the world map and find the house of the Sim you would like to visit.
The household portrait will let you know whether the Sim you would like to visit is currently on the lot, the greyed Sims are not home currently, but you can still visit the lot, although you will not be able to enter their house (as long as you’re not BFF with the Sim you’re trying to visit).
You can invite other Sims to visit Sim’s residential lots with you. You can likewise invite multiple other Sims to visit your home and hang out with you.
How to return home from Vacation?
If you’ve decided to shorten your vacation for any reason and now you’re planning to return home, you will soon notice that while you’re in the destination world, the “go home” icon is absent, and the usual forms of travel won’t work.
To return home from vacation, you need to use your phone and click the “End vacation” option, which will immediately transport your Sim to its home world and home lot.
As you can see, traveling from the community lot to your home lot is extremely easy; all you need to do is find the “go home” button, and your Sim will start the process automatically. The process is different if you want to bring another Sim home. In that case, you’re going to have to either you the map or the “travel” option on your phone.
Valentina Kraljik is a writer and editor at Game Horizon with a deep love for everything related to video games. With a degree in Information Sciences, she brings a well-informed and unique perspective to her work. Valentina's writing is known for covering a wide range of video game genres, but she truly shines in her expertise in open-world RPGs. From offbeat euro-jank games like "Gothic" to critically acclaimed titles like "The Witcher," Valentina is well-versed in this exciting genre. Her passion for imaginative storytelling is reflected in the topics she writes about, with favorites like "Disco Elysium," "Elder Scrolls: Morrowind," "World of Warcraft," and "Mass Effect" influencing her tastes in games. Even though nothing beats a good high-fantasy setting, she often wanders into the realm of first-person shooters, occasionally even hitting the target. With a commitment to objectivity and insightful analysis, Valentina strives to bring a fresh perspective to the subjects she covers, even when exploring genres that may be unfamiliar to her. Her blend of academic rigor and creative flair sets her apart in the world of media writing.
