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In March, the Sims 4 put out a major new update. Swiftly following the update, the most recent expansion pack, the Sims 4 Growing Together, was released. So, what’s been added to the base game? And is it worth getting the expansion pack too?
#Free The Babies
For a long time, Sims players have been asking EA for an update to the mechanics around babies in the game. We wanted a life stage where babies weren’t confined to their cradles. Where babies weren’t identical, egg-shaped blobs before aging up into full-grown toddlers. The March update finally delivered EA’s response with the introduction of the infant life stage.
With the March update, infants are now a new life stage between newborns and toddlers for all players. Infants are smaller and more helpless than toddlers, and they require lots more hands-on care. Once these little darlings are out of their newborn bassinets, there are new cribs for them to sleep in. They can’t learn the toddler skills but can have fun exploring new foods in the highchair. Ever want to find out if your tiny Sims prefer avocado, sweet potato or ice cream? Now you’ll know. All these details make play seem more realistic and feel like they add a deeper foundation for the preferences your Sims form in later life.
Of course, adding a new life stage has had some knock-on effects to length of life. While the newborn stage is now shorter than it was previously, the infant life stage has not taken any time away from the toddler life stage. If you feel your other Sims are also not aging up as fast as you’re used to, it seems that other life stages have been adjusted to match. In game, I began to feel that the later life stages now drag on and I would consider amending the lifespan down a setting. However, this change may well suit your play style if you tend to get attached to specific Sims. It will also give you plenty of time if there are other expansion packs you want to explore. In particular, High School Years and Get to Work both take you off the home lot to follow your Sims to new locations. The new lifespan will give you plenty of time to devote to each Sim in your household.
Along with this main change, there were some other additions and alterations. Sims can now have a ‘Science baby’ with a partner or as a single parent. New items were added in Build and Buy modes, primarily to support the new infant life stage. One of the most interesting is the crib that can be upgraded to a toddler bed by a handy (or cash-strapped) Sim. Other new additions can be found in Create-A-Sim mode. Some of these, such as the ability to breastfeed, support infant gameplay. Others are completely separate. Personally, I’m glad to see hearing aids in the new ‘Medical Wearables’ category and hope to see more changes like this in the future.
Growing, Growing, Gone
With all this content added as a free update and with the base game now free, is it worth buying the Sims 4 Growing Together expansion pack? Well, the short answer is yes.
What the update doesn’t give you is the real experience of playing with the new infants. Sure, it introduces the life stage. However, infant Sims don’t develop – they do the same things when they age up to toddler as they did when they aged up from newborn. They demand a lot of attention for very little reward.
With the Growing Together expansion pack, this changes. Infants start off unable to do anything other than lie down and smile. They then progress through milestones for fine motor, gross motor and social skills. How quickly they reach these milestones depends on how much they interact with your Sim and with other items, like the expansion pack playmat. Eventually, they begin to roll over, sit up, babble and crawl, ready for the toddler skills. These milestones bring the infant life stage alive in a way that the base game doesn’t and is the main reason why you’d want to buy the expansion pack.
However, milestones aren’t only a feature for the infants. Sims at every life stage can now earn life milestones. These mark exciting moments in a Sim’s life, whether that’s the birth of a child, a new job or getting struck by lightning. While these milestones don’t contribute to the Sim’s development in the way that infant milestones do, they do provide a record of your Sim’s life story.
Continuing the theme of personality development, there are also now new child aspirations, mirroring the introduction of the new teen aspirations in High School Years. These are particularly well suited to the Growing Together pack because they are not so heavily focused on developing one skill. Sims are also now able to pick up new personality traits later in life. As adults, they can keep collecting more traits based on the activities they spend time doing, although there is a limit to the number they can acquire. Since your Sim’s traits now end up reflecting their environment and behaviour more, you’ll find this feature adds to the game’s storytelling capabilities.
On top of all that, Sims now have a compatibility rating for other Sims they meet. Your Sim might have amazing compatibility with one Sim and bad compatibility with another. Being a family member doesn’t guarantee good compatibility, so this feature adds oodles of storytelling potential to the game. What’s more, Sims now have likes and dislikes categories for other people’s personality traits and for different types of conversation. Choices here can affect how easy it is to build relationships. Again, this new feature brings an element of realism to play that has been missing before.
Sul Sul San Sequoia!
As with all expansion packs, Sims 4 Growing Together comes with a new world. This is the world of San Sequoia. San Sequoia is a leafy, green, family-friendly world with some gorgeous costal views. It has several new community lots. You can travel directly to the child-centric library and recreation center. From the recreation center, you can walk to the small water park and the rabbit hole cinema where your Sim can watch a variety of movies.
However, there are very few vacant lots and those that do exist are extremely small. As always with new expansion packs, it would be great to see a greater density of new lots for building on to give a better feel for a town. With this expansion pack, this feels particularly like a lost opportunity as there are a number of new outdoors items that it would be great to place together.
If you’re more interested in building the nursery than playing the game live, there are some interesting new object types in Build mode. As well as the cribs, there are a range of playmats, changing tables and other nursery paraphernalia. There are also water park items, treehouses and bikes to extend the fun outside. In Create-A-Sim mode, there are a range of family-friendly clothes and hairstyles for every age.
Verdict
The March update introduced the infant life stage, which the Sims community have wanted for a long time. Building on this, the Growing Together expansion pack adds a range of new features that expand the reach and realism of the Sims 4. It provides a huge amount of content that makes the infant life stage make sense. What’s more, it adds a range of features focused on personality development and relationship complexity that bring huge storytelling potential to the game. Like most Sims 4 worlds, San Sequoia is very pretty but too small, and the other content is well worth having. If you haven’t played before, now is a great time to pick up the game. And in terms of value added, Growing Together is a fantastic addition to the basic gameplay. It’s charting high on my list of must-have expansion packs.