The Sims 4 won't include pools or toddlers, concerned parents will be pleased to hear

Despite including a revolutionary feature EA and Maxis are calling an 'offline mode', The Sims 4 won't manage to include all the stuff you might have liked about the previous games - namely Create a Style, pool-building, and spawnable toddlers, features that have been left on the cutting room floor and oh god that didn't sound right at all. The bad news was rather skillfully buried in a super-upbeat blog post outlining the game's included features, but if you peer closely (or scroll down to the comments thread beneath it) it soon becomes clear that something's amiss.

Here's the relevant paragraph:

"While it's not possible for us to include every single feature and piece of content we added to The Sims 3 over the last 5 years, we've added features that you've asked for and that offer a whole new intuitive and fun way to build. These are features like Wall Height Adjustment, Dynamic Foundation Sizing, and Smart Windows! And though pool building won't be available in September, we do have a new Fountain Tool so you can create sophisticated landscapes."

Wall Height Adjustment and Dynamic Foundation Sizing - at times The Sims 4 reads like a game designed by Handy Andy . Did you notice that cheeky "pool building won't be available in September " line too? Suggesting features may return in the form of a patch or expansion pack/DLC at a later date.

As for the toddler part, it's in the line "as for ages, we have babies, children, teens, young adults, adults and elders". EA and Maxis once again discriminating against ghosts and embryos there.

Create a Style mode wasn't mentioned in the above blog post, but it's been confirmed that The Sims 3's recolouring/retexturing system will be absent from The Sims 4 as well. Of course - worries over these features perhaps being reintroduced later as paid DLC aside - Maxis/EA are rather hoping the game's new emotion system, and revamped character creator and build mode, will make up for any notable absences. We were fairly impressed by those things when we firstlooked at The Sims 4 last year .

Ta, RPS .

Tom Sykes

Tom loves exploring in games, whether it’s going the wrong way in a platformer or burgling an apartment in Deus Ex. His favourite game worlds—Stalker, Dark Souls, Thief—have an atmosphere you could wallop with a blackjack. He enjoys horror, adventure, puzzle games and RPGs, and played the Japanese version of Final Fantasy VIII with a translated script he printed off from the internet. Tom has been writing about free games for PC Gamer since 2012. If he were packing for a desert island, he’d take his giant Columbo boxset and a laptop stuffed with PuzzleScript games.

Latest in The Sims
The Sims 4 - stacks of laundry machines in a small laundromat small business next to chairs with laundry
The best part of The Sims 4 Businesses & Hobbies expansion is just coming up with fun small business ideas
The Sims 4 - A business owner looks at a customer angrily
How to get disruptive customers to leave in The Sims 4 Businesses & Hobbies
The Sims 3 - A burglar cackles while holding open a bad to steal from a house
The Sims 4 is finally bringing the burglar back to the series after a decade away
The Sims 2 - a sim in sunglasses and a moustache frowns
This Sims 2 mod makes all your sims very horny but that's not actually the best part
The Sims 2 - a sim with white hair and a beard wears stylish sunglasses on the sidewalk
This cheat mod makes The Sims 2 feel like a god game and it turns out I am a cruel, cruel god
The Sims 4 Businesses & Hobbies - A sim focuses on spinning a pottery wheel while a child watches with excitement
The Sims 4 Businesses & Hobbies expansion includes a ton of cross-pack play that I'm pretty psyched for
Latest in News
Grand Theft Auto 6 trailer still - woman in the front seat of a car, looking out the back window while holding a wad of cash
The specter of a GTA 6 delay haunts the games industry: 'Some companies are going to tank' if they guess wrong, says analyst
Image for
Warhammer 40,000: Darktide’s getting a new roguelite wave defense mode that sounds a whole lot like a souped-up take on Killing Floor
Battle Brothers
Nearly 2 years after its last update, the excellent Battle Brothers gets 'a bucket load of fixes' and free new content
Western outlaws with masks and guns
'Players don't explore': former Grand Theft Auto 6 and Red Dead Online designer lays out the perils of 'open world fatigue'
Person battling bizarre four-eyed monster with stylish UI elements surrounding them
Persona and Metaphor: ReFantazio's UI designer is open to accessibility options for players who find the stylish menus overstimulating: 'That is something we understand we'll need to work on and provide in the future'
Split Fiction screenshot
Split Fiction is reportedly at the center of a bidding war for its movie rights