A very unfortunate bug is making Sims want to date their family

A close up of a female sim in The Sims 4 with medium-length black hair and an off-the-shoulder orange top. She's looking off to the side with a scared expression.
(Image credit: Maxis)

The Sims 4 introduced a free patch ahead of the High School Years expansion, finally bringing back wants and fears, curved walls and a broader selection of orientations. Those are the intended additions, of course. Some rather unfortunate side effects of this patch appear to be your sims rapidly aging and, uh, wanting to date their relatives.

Yep, regrettably it looks like romantic wants have forgotten to exclude sims who share family ties. The issue was posted to Reddit, showing a sweet granny who wants to ask her son to be her boyfriend. Mind you, she does look rather horrified at the prospect, but that's beside the point. It seems like familial relationships aren't taken into account for some reason, with the want being triggered "from being friends" with her son.

why_is_my_sim_getting_a_whim_to_ask_her_own_son from r/thesims

The issue's also been shared on the bug report forum, with players understandably being a bit uncomfortable with the situation. One report read: "In the recent update I made a new save, more to have a new family and fresh start on my sims games. However this has unfortunately triggered the whim 'Ask <name> to be Boyfriend.' Which would be all fine and dandy if she wasn't thinking about it for her father." What a wild paragraph to digest on this fine Thursday morning.

Thankfully EA is aware of the issue. As well as the team acknowledging it on the forum, SimGuruNick took to Twitter to say "I just wanted to acknowledge that the want to date a family member is something we know about, we've reproduced ourselves, we're working on it. We're looking to get it fixed ASAP." He also mentioned that the rapid aging bug was being looked at, too. With High School Years mere hours away as I write this, let's hope the fixes are pushed out soon enough. 

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Mollie Taylor
Features Producer

Mollie spent her early childhood deeply invested in games like Killer Instinct, Toontown and Audition Online, which continue to form the pillars of her personality today. She joined PC Gamer in 2020 as a news writer and now lends her expertise to write a wealth of features, guides and reviews with a dash of chaos. She can often be found causing mischief in Final Fantasy 14, using those experiences to write neat things about her favourite MMO. When she's not staring at her bunny girl she can be found sweating out rhythm games, pretending to be good at fighting games or spending far too much money at her local arcade.