Sims 4 Behind the Sims: All Announcements

The Sims 4 unveiled a new community stream titled 'Behind the Sims' where they revealed new information about the next expansion pack, the infants release date, and more regarding Project Rene. If you missed out on The Sims 4 stream don't worry, we have you covered. Below are the key announcements from the Behind the Sims community stream.

• If you're interested in the infants update, check out our guide to The Sims 4 babies update release date here.

Behind The Sims: Project Rene

One of the key announcements of the 'Behind the Sims' community stream was that early days of playtesting for Project Rene are commencing for players to get a sneak peek at the current status of the game.

They reiterated many times that the game is 'years out' so we won't be expecting it anytime soon, but head developer Sim Guru Grant (Grant Rodiek) promises that it is heading in an exciting direction, and they are progressing with development as planned.

They also confirmed that Project Rene will be on both mobile and PC and feature multiplayer alongside a more traditional single-player option. They showed more early footage of the game (subject to change) showcasing the colour wheel for build mode items and the different options for changing the textures and patterns of objects.

They also talked through concerns about Project Rene being a shallower experience due to it being optimised for cross-platform play. Most of the worries from fans are that the game will play as more of a mobile experience.

Sim Guru Grant addressed this by saying that it presents a difficult challenge, but they are looking to build two different experiences on the platforms that can meld together. They don’t want to change the intensive Sims experience on PC where a player can build for hours, they discussed perhaps optimising the mobile experience as an 'on-the-go' option where you may select from different template designs and play it alongside the PC version.

Behind The Sims: Infants Update

Most excitedly of all announcements, the 'Behind the Sims' community stream unveiled a new trailer for Sims infants and gave a precise release date, March 14^th.

Infants are a new life stage in-between the baby and toddler stages and will provide more gameplay opportunities and animations. Within the trailer, we saw a host of new content including new CAS outfits, new traits, and cribs with crib mobiles. This means we will no longer be stuck with putting babies in bassinets, they can now have a crib to sleep in before they upgrade to a toddler bed.

Along with these additions, the trailer showed the following new animations:

• A breastfeeding option whilst your sim is sitting down and relaxing. Before now, sims would awkwardly hover over bassinets to breastfeed.
• Burping animation
• Crawling
• Infants stretching
• An infant eating jars of baby food in a highchair
• An infant was being bathed with an assisted bath chair.
• Parents playing the peekaboo game with their infant.
• An infant chewing on parent's fingers.
• Reading a story to an infant.
• Infants will flop around more, and their movements will be exaggerated as they swap from one position to another.
• Infants will be able to be passed from one sim to another.
• Sims will be able to perform other tasks whilst holding the infant sims.
• Infants will interact with pets, and these will have different animations.

Along with this, infants will have a section in create-a-sim where they can be customised and dressed. New CAS details like birthmarks and new teeth options will be released with infants to show the stages of teething that they go through.

Behind the Sims: Meet the Michaelson Family

The next Sims 4 expansion pack was given a short teaser within the 'Behind the Sims' community stream. With just a short promo saying, 'Meet the Family', the Sims team promises to reveal more about the upcoming family expansion pack with another live stream on February 2.

You can tune into the live stream on the official Sims YouTube here.

• Check out everything we know so far about the next expansion with our Sims 4 generations expansion guide.

Behind The Sims: Sims Mobile Updates

In celebration of the fifth anniversary of The Sims Mobile, the development team is gifting a free disco ball plumbob to players. Also, the team has organised an in-game treasure hunt featuring new furniture items.

A new 60-day recurring festival event will also be hosted, where players can earn rewards inspired by Korean architecture and fashion.

Behind The Sims: The Sims Freeplay Updates

The Sims Freeplay will offer the following updates:

• Additional music will be added to the game including iconic intro and neighbourhood music from across all four main Sims
• Sims Springs is expanding with a third area added to the desert map.
• The new map area will release in April 2023 and will have more 'fixer-upper' house lots.
• A new Amusement Park lot.

• For more Sims 4 help, check out our guide to the creature keeper location in The Sims 4.