When The Sims 4 was released in 2014, many fans of the Sims franchise felt there was a large void in the aging process. Rather than aging up from a newborn to a toddler like in The Sims 2 and 3, babies in the Sims 4 skipped a stage and went straight to childhood. The family no longer had to potty train their child or go over other basics such as walking or talking. The Sim offspring would magically know how to do almost everything themselves. This all changed on January 12 when a big patch featuring toddlers was finally released for players on both PC and Mac.
The development team behind The Sims 4 had provided a long list of reasons as to why toddlers were not available over the years. One of the reasons given as to toddlers were not available at launch was that they had to be exempt in order to give Sims their meaningful and believable emotions. Another reason was that the new technology created for the game made the development of toddlers extremely complicated. After a very long silence regarding the missing tots, fans were pleasantly surprised when the toddler life stage suddenly appeared almost overnight.
The toddlers of The Sims 4 are indeed tiny, complex individuals. They display a wide range of emotions such as anger, sadness, playfulness, and more. They also have different personalities such as the charmer who loves to socialize and warms up to new people a lot quicker than other toddlers. They can also be quite fussy and may get a kick out of causing trouble while throwing lots of temper tantrums when they don’t get their way. Much like real toddlers, these little sims can be quite the handful and their caretakers may need to call in some emergency help from a nanny more than once.
In addition to toddlers, this new patch features a wide range of decorations and interactable objects for these new mini sims to enjoy. The toddler-only Wabbit Tablet will provide toddlers with hours of entertainment with things such as the electronic colouring book, shape matching game, and videos. There are also the Tiny Teacher Nesting Blocks to help toddlers develop their toddler-specific movement and thinking skills. Additionally, many colourful and pretty wallpapers, floors, and window coverings have been added that even adult sims will enjoy. There are even customizable teeth available in Create-A-Sim now which can give sims teeth-straightening braces or rabbit-like buck teeth. With all of the things stuffed into the patch, even people who do not like the toddler life stage are bound to find a new item from the patch that they are happy to see in the game.
This January patch has truly filled a big empty hole in the life stages of The Sims 4 and it has given many former players a good reason to finally purchase the game now that their favourite life stage is available.
