Picture the scene: you’ve just got home from school and before you do anything else, you’ve fired up the PC for yet another evening ‘losing’ your homework to see what your Sims are up to.
After getting changed and now armed with a Capri-Sun and a bag of Flamin’ Hot Monster Munch, you’re ready to dive back in for the next shift in your Sims binge.
There’s nothing quite like the sounds of Bossa Nova to ease you into your arrival to SimCity. What a shame that for so many of us, these memories have had to stay in the past, with no word of a remaster from Electronic Arts, which is why it's finally time to see one.
A Sims-ple life
The arrival of The Sims back in February 2000 changed everything; it quickly became one of the best-selling PC games of all time and, for many, it was hard to understand why – that was until you played it. The simulation title offered us the chance to create ourselves or strangers and place them into a world completely unique to them.
Who can forget spending the afternoon with the infamous tutorial pairing that is Bob and Betty Newbie? Entering their humble abode set us all up; we learned how to interact with objects and other sims through their household, all the while having a break to swing dance in the kitchen before having a look through the paper to get a job.
It wasn’t long before we were building homes of our own and happily trawling through the Comic Sans written catalogs to furnish our new digs. And let’s face it, no house on Sim Lane is truly complete without the iconic aquarium. At least we’re still able to care for them ourselves with the desktop mini aquarium app – it still works from all those years ago! Yes, we had happy tears, too.
Livin-da-vica Loca
With a staggering reception to the first life simulator in the series, Maxis was quick to release expansions with Livin’ It Up being released a mere seven months later. Each expansion pack rewarded us with more items, outfits and community lots to visit, including a neighborhood extension in Unleashed as well. Simmers could enjoy two expansions released annually until its last installment, Makin’ Magic, in October 2003.
There was only a thin layer of dust on the final pack as The Sims 2 launched in September 2004. The new age of the franchise enabled us to live a full life cycle for our sims, unlike its previous installment. EA continued to roll out new iterations for The Sims 3 and 4, where we’ve been currently sitting since 2014.
As production for the newer versions of the Sims and for what feels like thousands of, expansion packs, its origin appears to have been left in the dust. For the 20th anniversary, Simmers waited with bated breath to see if our beloved original game and its add-ons would be ported and playable once again. Many of us were met with disappointment as the only thing we received was a complementary anniversary hot tub.
Yes. A hot tub. And no, it wasn’t the Niagara Love Tub from Hot Date – we could’ve let that one slide.
A remaster is long overdue
To this day, The Sims remains one of the most successful PC franchises of all time. However, with the constant pack launches, bugs and the knocking on doors for the next revival, many of us are tired. Thousands of us have continued to ask when we will get a port for the full collection of the original Sims for Origin or Steam. Easily said, but with the first iteration’s astronomical success, it seems appalling that these fan requests continue to be ignored, especially as it would prove incredibly lucrative for EA – so why are they stalling?
There are ways in which you can play your original Sims discs; however, in this day and age, we shouldn’t have to. We shouldn’t have to run a gauntlet just to be able to play the game that introduced us to the franchise and the title which gave it the legs it has now.
There’s something in the original’s simplicity that hasn’t been able to be replicated. It’s a part of PC gaming history that should be preserved, yet one that deserves to be revisited and enjoyed time and again. The music continues to remain iconic, the Simlish phrases that were delivered by Stephen Kearing and the late Gerri Lawlor are ones that we find ourselves saying to this day.
The Sims isn’t the only game that thousands of fans keep trying to will into existence; other titles such as Sid Meyer’s Civilization and its direct sequel have been placed on the proverbial wishlist for quite some time. Business sim, The Movies, has been a fan favorite since its release from Lionhead Studios back in 2005. Steam forums are crying out for it to be rereleased on the platform and, again, with a guaranteed audience, why is it not accessible?
While many appreciate that franchises need to move forward with the times, almost disregarding their past is not only upsetting to original fans, it also lends a hand to the past’s erasure.
Preserving these games for future generations should be a must, especially when it comes to cornerstones of PC gaming like The Sims truly is. The franchise will forever have a mention when it comes to the hall-of-famers and not being able to easily access this, really is a crying shame.
All we want to do is get in the recording booth and lay down the track for ‘Thonsivee’ in Studio Town; apparently, it’s too much to ask. Yet, we can only hold out hope as the 25th anniversary of The Sims pokes its head on the horizon.
In a perfect world, we’d have the complete collection available on Origin and Steam and a disc version with some exclusive artwork to really reach pure nostalgia. A twinned release of the complete collection’s soundtrack on vinyl would really be the cherry on the cake. Look, it’s been 22 years; we’re all adults now and we’re more than ready to spend the simoleons.
With the Sims Summit's announcement back in October, revealing that EA appears to be keeping the future firmly in their sights, classic simmers will have to keep swimming in the hopeful pool for yet another year - all we can hope is that that ladder will never be removed.
