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The Sims 4's new For Rent pack is the game's "most impactful" expansion yet and adds "a new layer" to the life sim, according to its developer.
In an interview with PCGamesN, The Sims 4 senior designer Jessica Croft and lead producer Rebecca Doyle discussed the life sim's latest expansion and how it came together. In For Rent, players can create multi-family dwellings and use them to assign new roles to their Sims, such as landlord and tenant. There are also other new housing-focused features that make The Sims 4 more lifelike than ever.
When asked if For Rent was the biggest expansion to date, Croft explains that it "was certainly a lot of work to put together" and that it is the biggest in terms of being the "most impactful" expansion for the game. It also adds "a new layer" to how we play The Sims 4. The pack features a lot of "relatable experiences for a lot of folks," Croft explains, which shows both sides of renting out or living in rental properties.
More specifically, For Rent players have to deal with difficult things like broken utilities, mold, and infestations, but also heart-warming elements like potlucks, tight-knit communities, parties, and more. On the topic of these realistic features, Croft tells says the team had to "navigate that with caution and respect," and that it is "important for us to be able to approach topics that are a little raw."
The pack itself has received mixed responses from fans, with some excited to take on the new roles the expansion offers and others saying it's just a little too much like the City Living pack that was released seven years prior. This is most evident in the expansion's Steam page which has garnered mostly negative reviews since its release last month, though many reviews cite performance issues rather than content complaints.
If you're getting a little tired of The Sims 4, luckily there's now a lot of choice when it comes to life sims. For starters, there's the upcoming Project Rene - which is the codename for The Sims 5. We're still probably a while away from playing this one ourselves, but it's exciting to know that a new version of EA's sim is on the way. Outside of this, there's also Life by You, Paralives, and the prettiest one of all, InZoi.
Find out what else you could be playing with our games like The Sims list.
