The Sims 4 will not feature toddlers or pools in the base game when it launches on September 2nd, even though these have been features in every base game to date.
Babies in The Sims 4 will morph directly into children in the game while the absence of a pool gives your Sims one less place to party. Longtime fans of the series have reacted to the news by launching a petition to see these features added, a campaign which has attracted the support of over 16,000 people, but EA has said that due to the game's ambition, certain elements needed to be cut.
In an update on The Sims' website, EA commented:
"The fact is, we owe you a clearer explanation for why pools and toddlers will not be in The Sims 4 at launch, so here goes. It begins with new technology and systems that we built for this new base game for The Sims – a new AI system, new animation system, new audio positioning tools, new locomotion logic, new routing intelligence and much more are all entirely new in this game.
"The vision for The Sims 4 is a new experience that brings your Sims to life in deeper and uniquely personal ways – through emotions, personality traits, behaviors and interactions. To do that, our technology base needed a major upgrade.
"So the bottom line is that when we sat down and looked at everything we wanted to do for this game, all the new tech we wanted to build into it, the fact was that there would be trade-offs, and these would disappoint some of our fans."
EA has also confirmed that a free Create-a-Sim demo is on the way shortly and players will be able to upload their creations to the gallery and share them with other gamers. The demo is confirmed for PC but Maxis has no news for Mac owners just yet.
Finally, Amazon Canada is currently selling the Premium Edition of The Sims 4 for $60, a third off the regular price, so it might be worth checking out Amazon where you are for any deals.
The Sims 4 launches on September 2nd.
