When The Sims 4 was launched in 2014, it was met with some unhappy players and bad reviews. Over the years there have been many updates to the base game, but personally I would like to see what the 2014 base game experience was like. Is the 2022 base game enough now? Come along with me as I explored some form from 2014 and eight years later in 2022. Hey everyone, I hope you're staying well. I have noticed that only a small percentage of people that watch my videos are actually subscribed. If you're not subscribed and you enjoy my videos, please consider subscribing. It's free, easy, and you could unsubscribe later if you want to. I hope you don't, but it's always an option. Let's go straight to the point. The Sims 4 launched with many missing elements. I want to see how the game has progressed since then and check out the differences between the base game from 2014 versus 2022. In addition, I want to touch upon a huge fantastic update from yesterday which would be the long awaited pronoun update. When you launch the game you'll notice right away that the main menu is very different. In fact, the main menu has gone through numerous different iterations before becoming the one that we're used to today. Actually, wasn't it changed a few weeks ago? Aside from the main menu, the loading screen was different, and this too has gone through a few different changes, most notably when they changed it to this and every single person complained. So they changed the background color to a better shade of blue, a shade of blue that wasn't headache inducing and wasn't a personal attack to our eyeballs. Now, this is one of the biggest changes to the game visually, at least, not anything in depth or gameplay wise - just visually it was the biggest change, and it was this the map of the world in 2014. The maps were this kind of blank, black and whiteish kind of style. And when you hovered over a neighborhood in the neighborhood would become colored. Personally, I dislike this look. It looks like they didn't give the designer enough time and released the game without the finished product. I'm not that fond of the Sims 4 map when compared to the other games. If I ignored the other Sims, then it's fine. But gosh golly Miss Molly, I miss the free camera movements and the 3D look of the previous world maps from the old games. Talking about worlds, at launch Sims 4 had two of them: Willow Creek and Oasis Springs. Since there were only two of them, there is no need for a world menu like what we have nowadays. They were simply featured up at the top left hand corner. I need to note that the icons are different looking. I'm not sure why that bothers me so much, but it does. Going back to the two base game worlds, we got an update in June of 2015 that included a brand new blank world called Newcrest. Personally, I wish that they would do another base game update like this that includes a brand new blank world. You know, for all of those builders simmers out there. Let's head into create-a-Sim now. There hasn't been many changes around these parts. I think the main updates would be the ones for the colour swatches and skin tones. When the game launched, we only got these hair and eye colours, so there was an update that included additional swatches. We need more base game eye colours. I don' want to have to rely on CC for that. At some point, I believe it was 2018, they added in ten new skin tones. Later on, in December of 2020, we got an overhaul of the skin tone system. Now you have access to thousands of custom options using a combo of the skin tone swatches and skin tone sliders. Alongside this patch we got an update to the makeup so that they also included sliders, meaning you could tweak the makeup to look good with any skin tone. This overhaul was long overdue, especially for a game that has a tagline "Play with life". I did a few videos about this back in 2020 and I'll leave the links to those in the video description. Going over to the aspirations and traits. Over time they've added in a few aspirations and new traits, including the jealous and kleptomaniac traits, as well as the villainess Valentine and neighbourhood confidante aspirations. I feel like there should be way more traits and aspirations for the base game. How has it been eight years and there's still not that many? Although looking back at the 2014 version, it's a lot better nowadays. In 2016 there was a free gender update. It gave players the ability to select feminine and masculine clothing and hairstyles alongside the ability to pick any walk style, physique and tone of voice for their Sims no matter their gender. You can select if they get pregnant, get others pregnant or neither. Plus if they would stand or sit when peeing. This was a fantastic update. Yesterday they released a brand new pronoun update. With this update you can change your Sims pronouns. Furthermore, you can actually create custom pronouns. To do this, you click on the top right here and select change pronouns. You'll find a few choices including They/Them, She/Her, He/Him, and custom pronouns. If you want something else, you can click custom pronoun and be able to type up your preference. This feature is only available in English, but they have said that they're going to expand it and improve it over time. This update is so very important. Players should be able to represent not only themselves, but the unique diversity that is humankind. At launch, there actually weren't any toddlers. Isn't that insane? Your baby would age up to the child life stage. They were finally added in 2017. Like, think about that. Wow. 2014 to 2017. There was no toddlers. Wow. It's interesting to point out that toddlers in The Sims 4 appear to be older than in previous games. In Sims 2 and 3, they seem to be around one or two years old. They couldn't walk to start off and were quite short. In Sims four, they appear to be four to five years old and they can walk even with a low movement skill, although they do stumble every so often and they do get better as their movement skill increases. They even manage to walk up and down the stairs with little to no movement skills. But like I said, their walking ability does get better as their skill increases. Weirdly enough, when Seasons was released, they included hot and cold outfits within the clothing category for the base game. Moreover, they gave toddlers a swimwear outfit since a kiddy pool came along with Seasons, even though if you only have the base game, there wouldn't be a need for the swimwear outfit for the toddlers since they can't swim anywhere. These free updates were included despite the fact that the base game has no weather or seasons. I guess this was good for players who want to role play seasons. It's also useful for certain mods. A major update for Create-a-Sim would be the Create-a-Sim stories, which came out in 2019. You answer a series of questions and the game will randomly generate a Sim for you. The same will have an aspiration, traits, as well as a chance to start their career and skill levels at level three. Their starting funds will either be standard, above average, or high. You can edit the Sim, but you cannot change their aspiration or traits. This is very cool, despite the fact I personally never really use it, but it is pretty cool if you want to start a new storyline and you don't really want to create a backstory to a character, you can use this to do it for you or to help you out a little bit. You got a Sim and now you might want to build a place for them to live in. Let's head on over to build mode and check out the differences there. In 2014, you could only build three levels above ground. Later on in 2015 they added the ability to build a basement, not just one basement floor, but you could build to basement floors. Eventually, they added a few more levels. Nowadays, builders can play around with four above ground floors and four below ground floors. The game also launched without pools. Don't fret, they did add them pretty quickly after the release. That's crazy since we all know pools in the Sims go together like peanut butter and jelly. However, I do want to point out that it's much harder to drown Sims in Sims 4. This is because they can get out of the pool without using a pool ladder. So now you have to like build a fence around it or build a wall around the pool. And even then, they take forever to kill. Talking about ladders, we're going to come back to ladders in a few. So keep that in mind. The base game didn't include any hot tubs. Actually, hot tubs were first introduced in the perfect patio stuff back in 2015 for the Sims 20th anniversary in 2020. They finally gave out one hot tub to base game players. Another missing core element from the previous games was the terrain toolss. We couldn't manipulate the ground whatsoever until 2018. Then we got the water tool in 2021. The water tool allowed players to create ponds. This was very exciting. But at the same time it was kind of sad that took that long for these features to make a comeback. A popular cheat, bb.moveobjects, wasn't included with the release of the game. It was added a few months after. In addition, the debug items weren't available for years after the release, so you didn't have access to all of those cool things that really elevate your builds. It was a rough life being a builder for a while. The 2014 base game didn't have any custom stairs or ladders. A stair update came in 2019. This allowed players to create better custom staircases, although it's not a perfect update. It is a good one. Ladders were included in the game in 2020 and it's very helpful for those who like to have tiny homes and other things of that nature. Obviously there has been tons and tons of updates to the build by mode for the base game. In 2014 it was missing a lot of stuff. One could argue it's still missing a lot of stuff in 2022. I'm going to quickly go through the updates that have been added throughout the years: We got the ability to move the entire lot. The custom wall tool, half walls, the ability to duplicate rooms, stairs and rooms, and advanced roof tool with more curve options, additional half wall heights, octagonal, pentagonal, and round roofs. The ability to shrink items down, glass roofs, dishwashers, ceiling fans, a lighting update so that the lighting was more realistic with the shadows and whatnot. An update to the foundations and how they worked, which means you have different foundation heights on one lot, but you still can't connect them, lot traits and then eventually they updated that to include a lot traits and lot challenges, platforms, and finally, all of the various new colour swatches, build/buy items and sets that have come out every so often. Whew. That's a lot of updates. I don't think I could ever be happy with the build/buy mode from 2014 after knowing about all of these new additions to the game. Lastly, there's been a few changes to the gameplay, although not nearly as much as the other categories. For starters, ghosts were added one month after the release. I remember that being a big deal. Eventually you had the ability to hire nannies, hire bartenders for bars within your home, repair people, and gardeners, and the Tragic Clown came back. The Tragic Clown was an NPC that's been in every single version of the Sims, starting with the Sims 1. If you want to learn more about them, click the pop up at the top right corner of the screen and look for the link in the video description below. We got the business career, the athletic career, freelance careers, and you have the ability to name your own career. We got paid leave, family leave and family trees. Wait. Hold of family trees weren't in the base game. What?! In other updates, we got the ability to lock doors, claim beds, and children were able to experience the wonderfulness of monsters under their beds. The grilled cheese aspiration made its return. Gardening got two overhauls over the years We got the first person camera, the calendar and the addition of the scared emotion Plus, players were treated to numerous events, including the PlantSim event, Sim Sessions, and the Spring Challenge, just to name a few. Over the years, they've changed how you can look at your relationship with other Sims. At first it was like this: you hover over the Sims and your relationship panel. It shows you basic information, like their name and who they are to you. After Snowy Escape was released, we got this more in-depth Sim profile. They add this because they include a new feature called sentiments. The sentiments are how your Sim feels about the other. You can also see what the other Sim feels about you. These happened over time and after particular moments. For example, after cooking together, getting into a fight or falling in love and getting married. The sentiments do fade over time, and you can see it happening if you click on the Sim profile. And other ones will pop up every so often, they do actually affect your Sims mood this as well. So let's say you get into a fight with someone, your Sim will feel angry or sad or tense if they're around that person. Or maybe they had a good time cooking together. Your Sim will feel a happy moodlet when they're around that person. Another update that came about around the time Cottage Living came out would be the cooking together. Before you Sim had to cook all by themselves. And now they can actually select to cook with others. You do this by clicking the counter and selecting this option. And yes, kids can actually cook with you. Another thing kids can do would be to garden. Two of the biggest updates nowadays would be the neighbourhood stories and the scenario challenges. Scenarios were introduced as a way to incorporate challenges into the game because the community loves player made challenges. There are some scenarios that stay there forever and some that are limited time only essentially once you've completed it, you receive satisfaction points to spend at the Rewards Store. Neighbourhood Stories, on the other hand, spiced up the lives of the other Sims in your game. It leads to life changes for individual sims that could be influenced by the player, but also might happen independently. Now your neighbours may adopt, become pregnant, adopt a dog or cat (if you own Cats and Dogs), join and leave careers, move into and out of lots and die in all different kinds of ways. This certainly wasn't the experience that you would have had in 2014 and it's definitely a breath of fresh air for the game. I feel like this sort of background gameplay was missing. So that's very nice. The Sims 4 base game in 2014 was, there is no easy way to say it, it was boring. It was incomplete and lackluster. There's been many, many improvements over the years. Some of them were much needed and some of them were long awaited. Despite all the updates, I would still say that The Sims 4 base game isn't the best game by itself. Purchasing the expansions, game, and stuff packs truly does add much needed content, particularly the expansion packs. What do you think about this? Do you think that the Sims 4 base game is enough? Did you play the base game back in 2014? Let me know your thoughts and feelings about the 2014 and 2022 version of the base game. Hopefully you enjoyed this look back at Sims 4. Honestly, it was pretty bizarre playing the 2014 version of the game and weirdly enough it was kind of slightly nostalgic, which was a very strange. Anyhoo, thank you so much for watching. If you enjoyed this video, please don't forget to like it and subscribe for future Sims 4 content. I hope you stay happy, healthy, and hydrated. Make sure you drink water! I'll talk to you very soon. Bye.