Fishing rears its ugly head in all sorts of games, but it's become a plague for me personally now that it's stock standard for all of the many cozy game derivatives of Animal Crossing and Harvest Moon. If we were to rebrand the whole lot as "4F games," it would be a critical member: farming, foraging, fishing, and friendship. But one of those things is not like the others.

Fishing, uniquely among activities in the farmlife sim umbrella, forces me to stop playing the game. In a genre where time is the ultimate resource, fishing makes me waste it. Each day of Stardew Valley involves a lengthy checklist that I can never quite complete. I need to water crops, chop trees, say hello to the villagers, and remember to sell my goods, hopefully sliding into bed just before 2 am. But if I want any chance of completing the community center bundle to unlock my greenhouse before the first winter I need to spend time fishing, too.

But time fishing is spent, well, just fishing—and looking down at my phone while I wait to hook something. Every minute my bobber is in the water I feel antsy, like I should be doing ten other more important things. I don't resent it so much on rainy days when my crops get watered for free, but on a sunny summer afternoon I can't help watching the day tick away, imagining all the trees I could be cutting or friendship I could be earning if I weren't stuck with my feet planted at the edge of the river waiting to catch another pile of trash.

When that happens—catching things I don't even want—it only adds insult to injury. I plant carrot seeds and get carrots. I buy cows and get milk. I cast my fishing line and I get… who the hell knows what? In most farmlife games you're meant to learn which fish spawn in different waters and conditions like catching salmon in the river only during the autumn. Even if you know your stuff though, you could just go home with a lot of seaweed and smallmouth bass instead.

It's realistic, I'll give it that. I don't even think I would want fishing to be more guaranteed to give me what I'm angling for. It sure does raise my blood pressure when I waste a whole afternoon without catching that one thing I still need to add to the community center, though.

Fishing continues to fail at hooking me because the pool of fishing minigames itself has stagnated. The most dominant style is Stardew derivative: press a button repeatedly to balance your fishing bar over the top of a moving fish. The slightly less popular stamina-based fishing minigame asks you to pull on your rod to exhaust a fish from fighting, though not so much you snap your line, and then reel it in while it rests. Others don't actually involve a minigame at all and you just need to press a particular button on cue when a fish bites your hook. I still don't know if I'm grateful to that style for reducing the demands fishing makes on me or if I resent it for making fishing feel even less engaging.

There are a few standouts among fishing minigames in the farmlife space. I do enjoy how Roots of Pacha turns fishing into a sort of stealth game where I'm chasing a fish with my bobber and trying not to alert it. The Garden Path also has a novel fish concept that involves whistling a tune and trying to navigate to the right pitch on a grid while you fish.

Fishing turns up in other genres, too, but even without the pressure of a life simulation's daily clock I just find myself checking out bored. Survival crafting games like Valheim include fishing, as do some MMOs like Final Fantasy 14. I can almost get behind fishing in an MMO where I already enjoy a bit of lounging in town chatting with friends. In that case, though, I don't really need the fishing as a watercooler activity excuse. Heck, fishing is even in some of the Yakuza games. I wouldn't know if it's any good though—I refuse to try it.

I accept that fishing is just a non-negotiable part of one of my favorite genres. It's a popular minigame, including with some of my PC Gamer colleagues, who were scandalized to discover my anti-fishing stance. But I'm not afraid to say it anymore: Fishing is the worst part of any game it's in. Except maybe fishing games, but even then it's borderline.

(Yes, Stardew Valley comes up a lot too, but everyone knows that one: these discussions are usually started by people who have already played Stardew and are looking for a recommendation in the same vein.)

In Travellers Rest you've inherited a run-down old tavern and set to work turning it into a cozy inn, where you cook meals, brew drinks, and serve customers, using the gold you earn to expand your tavern, farm crops, and unlock new recipes. As you build your business you can design and decorate new rooms, hire servers to help out, and employ bouncers to keep order, all while experimenting with new drinks and dishes to keep your visitors happy.

Travellers Rest launched into early access on Steam in 2020, and it's been steadily adding new features since then like beekeeping, farm animals, and fishing, along with regular patches and fixes. Back in 2023 it added support for local co-op, and now online multiplayer is now underway, too: you can try out the new multiplayer beta and start running your pub with up to three other pals right now.

I've only just started playing Travellers Rest myself, but online co-op feels like the perfect addition to the busy (but still chill) sim, and now I'm hoping to convince a couple friends to join me so we can manage an inn together. As a bonus, the game is great on Steam Deck, so it's a good one for chilling on the couch after a long day.

Here's more on the multiplayer beta, including instructions on how to back up your saved game to avoid any issues.

In his weekly teaser for fans in Inzoi's official Discord server, game director Hyungjun "Kjun" Kim got into talking about the paranormal, specifically ghosts. He acknowledges that Inzoi is mostly focused on realism, which is obvious from its glossy, well-lit visuals but also the features it's chosen to prioritize. Kjun does want to see some fantastical elements make it into the game though.

"We want to keep the playability of ghosts fairly limited so it doesn’t overshadow the main gameplay, but we also want to make sure the experience is engaging enough when it does happen," Kjun told players in Discord.

'Ghost gameplay' as Kjun's currently explained it revolves around Inzoi's karma system, which we saw a little of during some Inzoi playtests with content creators last year. They showed some karma-affecting actions (like farting?) and a karma score in each Zoi's profile.

Kjun says that Zois who die with enough karma points will pack up for the afterlife peacefully, but those with poor karma will remain as ghosts and will need to hang about attempting to restore their karma. Ghosts as they'll be implemented for Inzoi's early access in March will be present but you won't be able to control them. That's planned for later.

"Any further development for ghosts will have to come after the release," Kjun says. "That said, our current build allows you to encounter ghosts at set times under certain conditions."

As for what's planned for even further down the line, Kjun doesn't count out the possibility of other paranormal Zois. "While we’re committed to refining the realistic elements of inZOI first, I’d love to explore more fantasy-driven elements in the future," he added.

The majority of life sim players coming from The Sims 4 will be familiar with the popularity of "occult" sims like ghosts, vampires, werewolves, mermaids, etc. They're a whole popular gameplay category, some with their own dedicated expansions packs. As Kim says, that's not really Inzoi's aim, but it's nice to see Inzoi Studio entertaining the idea of dipping into some of those popular fantasy characters.

You can keep up with everything we know about Inzoi ahead of its early access launch in March and in the meantime keep track of the other upcoming games like the Sims that we're expecting this year.

The new expansion pack is all about the rise and grind lifestyle of turning your hobbies into small business hustles. It now has its first look trailer—after the requisite leaks and trailers that preceded it, of course—so we've got a decent overview of what exactly is coming in this pack.

Businesses & Hobbies release date and trailers

When is the Sims 4 Businesses & Hobbies expansion release date?

The Sims 4: Businesses & Hobbies release date is on March 6, 2025. The new Motherlode season roadmap now says that we can also expect a bigger gameplay reveal for the expansion on February 18.

There's an unknown reveal for February 25, which is the week before the expansion release. I'd bet that's the drop date for a free game update related to the expansion. As in past expansions, we can probably expect a couple related game features to get added to the base game.

Check out the Businesses & Hobbies first look trailer

The first reveal trailer for the Businesses & Hobbies expansion confirms a lot of the broad details about the new tattooing and pottery skills. It also gives a quick look at the new menus for running small businesses and building multi-purpose lots—more on those below where I'll cover all the details gleaned from the Businesses & Hobbies announcement post.

Businesses & Hobbies gameplay features

Main features

• Own businesses and run them from dual-purpose commercial/residential lots
• New pottery and tattooing skills with custom tattoos
• New skill "mentor" system

Pottery and Tattooing skills

The two new skills fueling your small business aspirations in this pack are tattooing and pottery, both of which look like pretty involved skills that let you go hands-on instead of just letting the skill bar slowly tick up.

With tattooing you'll be able to custom create tattoos in a Create-A-Sim menu. You can pick lots of new pre-made designs but also create your own by layering elements and choosing colors or just drawing directly on your sim's body. It's not far off from how painting custom coats for pets in the Cats & Dogs expansion works. You'll also be able to share and download tattoo designs from the gallery.

As for pottery, it looks like it has a lot in common with the jewelry making skill from the Crystal Creations pack. You'll choose a ceramic shape from a list for your sim to create on a pottery wheel and then choose whether to glaze it with a color or leave it unglazed in the kiln.

New ownable businesses

One pretty neat part of Businesses & Hobbies is how much cross-pack play it's going to support. The ability to run your own shop won't just be restricted to the ones existing in current packs and the new tattooing and pottery skills. You'll also be able to open businesses related to other expansion packs—and some game packs and stuff packs—that you own:

• Pet cafes (Cats and Dogs)
• Dance clubs (Get Together)
• Arcades (Get Together)
• Karaoke bars (City Living)
• Acting school (Get Famous)
• Spas (Spa Day)
• Laundromat (Laundry Day Stuff)
• Bowling Alley (Bowling Night Stuff)

After creating your business, you'll also have a menu where you can set a name and logo as well as entrance fees and the kinds of customers you'd like to attract.

Multi-use lots

The part I'm psyched about, as a Build Mode enjoyer, is that the Businesses & Hobbies expansion is going to expand the multi-unit lot features we got in the For Rent expansion to now handle multi-purpose lots which are both residential and commercial. Instead of creating a new "Small Business Venue Lot" you can instead add a small business on an existing residential zoned lot.

Like in For Rent, you can designate entry permissions by room. In this case it's public, residential, or employees only. That means your enterprising sims can have a private loft with their family built on top of their tattoo parlor, for instance. Oh, here's a freebie idea: building a dance club with the Get Together pack beneath your sim's ground floor home in the style of a speakeasy.

Other gameplay features

• New world: Nordhaven
• New skill: Tattooing
• Custom tattoos that you can draw or design with layers
• Sharing tattoo designs on the gallery
• New skill: Pottery
• Advanced pottery skill Kintsugi
• Become skill mentors and earn Mastery Perks points
• Teaching classes or lectures as a mentor
• "Hobby meetup" events to find sims with similar interests or skill mentors
• Ticket kiosk for controlling whether visitors pay a one time or hourly entrance fee

Over the past year I've gotten back into playing The Sims 3. I have a lot of love for its more realism-driven Build Mode and bygone tools like Create-A-Stye, but to my surprise I found a lot to love in Live Mode too, at times struggling to put it down and return to my usual MO of quietly building little houses.

The Sims 4's approach to Live Mode is massively different from the series' past, a phenomenon that I got to ask about when interviewing Sims series boss Lyndsay Pearson last month. Where The Sims 4 is terrified of stepping on your toes—with popups asking everything from whether you want to confirm that a Sim officially "likes" a hobby they're trying, to random neighbors calling to ask your opinion on who they should make friends with, let alone allowing your sims to die—The Sims 3 is happy to throw potholes in your path and make you navigate around them.

I've recently had fun digging into becoming a car thief in The Sims 3, enamored by how random events like burglary or romantic attraction make The Sims feel so much more lively than The Sims 4 and its constant permission-asking to make anything interesting happen.

The Sims 2, however, is completely unhinged. Here's a loose retelling of events from just my first night playing:

• Day 1: I load up the Goth family to find Cassandra Goth hopelessly crushing on neighborhood playboy Don Lothario. Cassandra foolishly proposes marriage to Don, spiraling into despair as her little brother Alexander bashes on the piano nearby.
• Day 2: Mortimer Goth and Dina Caliente mutually have crushes on each other already—Dina because she wants to marry rich and Mortimer as he laments the disappearance of his wife Bella. Unplanned by me, Mortimer sweeps Dina off her feet into a kiss as a greeting the first time she visits the house. So he's not that torn up.

• Day 2 (cont.): While Mortimer and Dina canoodle upstairs, I react to a thunderstorm setting a tree on fire by (foolishly) sending Cassandra out to extinguish it. I don't know what I thought was going to happen but Cassandra gets struck by lightning in her underwear and lives just long enough to walk back inside and die in the kitchen.
• Day 3: Alexander is the only one to notice Cassandra's death. Mortimer is too wrapped up in Dina's arms to bother feeding his son, who subsists on potato chips. Alexander comes home from school to find out that Dina is moving in with them already. When I try to promote household harmony by having Alexander ask Dina for homework help, he accidentally walks in while she's cuddling with Mortimer in bed and hates his new not-stepmom instead.
• Day 4: Dina and Mortimer get engaged and I notice that Alexander has three different wants in his list for buying a pet, so Mortimer takes him to the pet shop to adopt a large terrier who they name Worthington. That night, Cassandra's horrifying underwear-clad electrocuted ghost haunts Alexander causing him to wet his pajamas.

• Day 5: Mortimer plans a birthday party for Alexander but basically nobody comes. Despite that, Alexander is happy (because of Worthington) and successful (after doing his homework unassisted), though when he ages up into a teenager and picks his turn-ons he is (as prodded by me) suspiciously into characteristics that Dina has.
• Day 6: Dina fulfills her wish to start a job in the law career—which seems to defeat the purpose of her desire to marry rich but Dina contains multitudes. Worthington gets a job (because pets can have jobs) as a movie set extra but decides on his first day that he's feeling too lazy to go to work.

After all that, I look at Mortimer's lifespan timer counting up days until death and wonder if perhaps Dina should put off this marriage and wait to marry the new Goth family heir. Maybe he'll get over the trauma of catching her in bed with his dad by the time he ages up again.

I had to drag myself away from The Sims 2 that night, past my real-life bedtime, and realized that I'd not touched my beloved Build Mode at all.

I played The Sims 1 and 2 as a kid, but I've slept a few times since then and my CD-ROMs are likely gathering dust in a box in my childhood bedroom. I'd forgotten so much of its inherent silliness that I either took for granted or never quite noticed back when it launched.

Now that I've spent time in all four mainline Sims games within the same week I can confidently say that The Sims 2 is the one that nails the chaos and humor of Live Mode best.

Ghosts are an incessant menace floating around the Goth household, even before Cassandra's demise. My sims' basic needs are a constant battle to keep filled, unlike the much more forgiving Sims 4. It has whole cutscenes to mark big life events like first woohoos between partners and marriage proposals. And heck, dogs can have jobs. I love that.

Something about The Sims 2's interface puts all the drama immediately at my fingertips in a way that The Sims 4 has never managed to. Existing townie relationships draw my eye as a place to begin stirring the pot and the way that The Sims 2's simulation chooses to constantly ramp up the dramatic tension without my say-so keeps the madness going.

Build mode has my heart in The Sims 3 and 4. And the re-release of the original The Sims has reminded me just how novel a concept it felt like at the time. But as a newly-minted Live Mode drama-seeking freak, The Sims 2 is an absolute winner.

Charted psychologist and author Dr. Audrey Tang sat down to take a look at how sims behave: their basic needs, personality traits, the power of moodlets, and more. She was able to give some reassurances on one of The Sims' weirder deaths—extreme emotion could possibly exacerbate a heart condition or give you shortness of breath but dying of it? Probably not. Laughter is good for you, physically and psychologically!

While death by joy doesn't get a pass for realism, Dr. Tang gives props to The Sims for other psychological principles it incorporates. Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs, while not really scientifically proven, is a handy framework for looking at human motivation and prioritizing basic physiological needs over social and self-actualizing goals. Dr. Tang says it is actually quite neat that The Sims 4 mirrors that prioritization—by not allowing a sim to do fun tasks like practicing music while they're dead tired.

Dr. Tang also says that giving yourself a pep talk in the mirror to increase your self-confidence really does have some research to back up how it by primes your brain to see the positives throughout your day. Meanwhile short term comforts like good food can offset big emotions like grieving the loss of a loved one, but the process of mourning lasts a lot longer than the meal does in real life. That's an interesting one that The Sims 4 has built on itself recently with the Life & Death expansion pack and its grieving styles.

In all, Dr. Tang gives The Sims 4 a passing grade in her reality check. The game isn't meant to rigorously simulate true human behavior, sure, but she says "there's a real sense of effort that was put in there to make it as realistic as possible."

Such uncertainty is the secret spice that makes PC gaming so exciting. So I was disappointed to see EA has released a new patch for the Sims 1 + 2 legacy, which among other fixes ensures The Sims 1 "should now launch in most situations". Note it doesn't say "will now launch in all situations", so there's still hope for runtime daredevils such as myself.

Base functionality is one of numerous issues EA addressed in its patch for the Sims 1 + 2 Legacy, after both packages launched last week to a less than stellar reception. Both games and their included expansion packs currently sit with a 'Mixed' rating on Steam, with players citing issues ranging from the games booting in super low resolutions, to frequent crashes, to the aforementioned failure to launch at all.

For the Sims 1, the patch fixes several issues surrounding use of Alt+Tab and Alt+Enter, which could cause the game to crash or for the taskbar to be hidden. It solves a problem where players were unable to click on various parts of the neighbourhood map, as well as a flaw where "the travel screen, when travelling between neighbourhoods/worlds, can sometimes appear garbled, or glitched." And of course, there was that startup issue whereby "on some systems, The Sims can appear to launch and then immediately exit", which the patch fixes. Mostly.

As for The Sims 2, EA fixed a crash caused by Alt+Tab and Alt+Enter, as well as the sequel's annoying tendency to launch at 800x600 before scaling said resolution to "fill the entire monitor". It also nixes a problem where "the game would sometimes crash when creating a family", which anyone who has created a family in real life will empathise with, alongside a glitch where "sometimes non-adult Sims (children, pets) would disappear." There's nothing worse than walking your dog for them to suddenly warp into null-space, so I'm glad EA has resolved that.

You can read the full patch notes here. EA stresses that some issues "may still be in the process of being addressed" and includes some "general notes" about both games. These discuss issues the Sims team is currently investigating, and advise players on performing certain actions the games aren't really designed to support (such as moving the window between multiple monitors with different resolutions).

None of this changes the fact that both packages appear to be extremely basic ports reminiscent of Konami's Metal Gear Solid rereleases from 2023. Not that every rereleased game needs a Nightdive-level makeover, but ensuring these decades-old games look crisp on a modern display and run without fuss isn't much to expect when being charged £20-30 a pop.

It was nothing like the fires in The Sims, which are usually caused by someone with a low cooking skill being anywhere near a toaster. Wright's house was caught in the Oakland Hills firestorm. "When I returned to the ashes of my house, I noticed that the only things still alive were ants," Wright said. "They had burrowed deep into the ground to survive the fire and were living off the dead carcasses of what they could forage."

Rebuilding his life, and having to reacquire so many of his basic possessions, fed into the idea for The Sims. But so did his observations of ants, which he'd been paying attention to as SimAnt was a year into development at the time. When it came time to program Sims, they were given a similar AI to SimAnts, only where the ants prioritized activities based on pheromone markers in their environments, the Sims cared about objects. The fridge broadcasts its ability to reduce hunger, the bed broadcasts its ability to reduce tiredness, and so on.

The problem was, Sims were too smart about prioritizing their needs. "In early versions of the game, the autonomy was too good," Wright said. "Almost anything the player did was worse than the Sims running on autopilot."

Maxis had to dial it back, and instead let each Sim choose randomly from a selection of their top priorities. Which is how we ended up with a game where Sims wet themselves instead of going to the toilet, make themselves a bowl of cereal instead of cleaning up, and wander off to do something else before they've even eaten the cereal.

The sequels dialed this overcorrection back a little, making it possible to sit back and watch your Sims go about their lives without disaster. Having been trained on the original, I can't help but micromanage my Sims still, even though I don't always need to. What if they burn the house down and there's nothing left but ants?

Normally in games where you inherit a farm or plant shop or garden from an elderly relative, you conveniently have enough of a green thumb to keep that farm or plant shop or garden alive and thriving. (At least until winter.) Not so in Greenheart Necromancer, a game in which your thumb is only green when it's got a bit of rotting flesh on it, because you are, as the name suggests, a necromancer.

This upcoming game from indie studio Silverstring Media reframes the idea that letting the azaleas die is a 'bad thing' by giving you the ability to bring them back to life, and make them even better the second time. As the Steam page puts it, "Grow your plants' levels to unlock special traits and increase their yields through a cycle of life and undeath and resurrection".

Having a thriving undead balcony garden will let you attract ghost bees, which provide mystical honey you can then sell at the market. Casting spells will help your plants grow, change their likes and dislikes, and protect them from pests, but you won't have to keep an eye on them all day long. Greenheart Necromancer will be an idle game, but one that, according to the Steam description, "rewards you for stepping away".

"We wanted to explore an idle game that really respects players' time and attention," said Lucas J.W. Johnson, Silverstring's studio director, "something that you want to keep running through the day but that's not constantly demanding your focus. You can set it aside and just enjoy the gothy plants vibing to the music while you work, and not have to worry that they might die—because you can always bring them back!"

According to Silverstring's creative director Claris Cyarron, "Players will have the opportunity to create and tend to a vibrant place of power, reflection, and repose that will support their day. The balcony will be a cozy, nostalgic, and expressive space. The game's decor style is best described as a mixture of 'witchcore' and 'whimsigoth' with a healthy dose of 'grandma chic' added in there as well."

Greenheart Necromancer has been announced as part of Steam's Idler Fest, a sale on games that play themselves a bit, which runs until February 10. The classic Cookie Clicker is 66% off, while the new desktop frog hotness Ropuka's Idle Island is 10% off. Greenheart Necromancer doesn't have a release date yet, but you can wishlist it on Steam.

This is the point in the series where some popular staples like bigger money cheats and needs cheats came into play, which we'll walk you through below. It's also the game that has a handy registry of cheats if you type "help" into the cheat console. That thing is a bear to scroll through though and doesn't always provide the context you'd want to figure out how to put those cheats to the best use. I'll walk you through the most helpful cheats in The Sims 2 along with some that aren't actually listed in the in-game menu.

How to enable Sims 2 cheats

To open the cheat console in The Sims 2 press Ctrl + Shift + C which is the same as all the other Sims games. Type in one of the cheats below and hit enter and then type "exit" and hit enter to close the cheat console when you're done.

The Sims 2 console doesn't give much acknowledgement that the cheat you entered was successful so you'll have to keep a close eye on the interface to verify that you got the results you wanted.

Best Sims 2 cheats

Sims 2 money cheats

Sims 2 needs cheats and mood cheats

Unlike The Sims 1, luckily The Sims 2 does have a couple cheats for controlling your sims' moods. It refers to a sim's needs as "motives" in cheats parlance. You can make your sim instantly happy with the "maxMotives" cheat and then disable decay on all their needs with "motiveDecay off" if you want to keep them happy until you decide otherwise.

You can also use testing cheats and the Shift+Click cheats (below) to click on the lot mailbox to make everyone on the lot happy at once.

Sims 2 move objects cheat

The move objects cheat in The Sims 2 is "moveObjects on" and like The Sims 1 it works a little differently than you're used to if you've been playing The Sims 4 for over a decade.

The Sims 2 move objects cheat does not give you full gridless placement but it does let you ignore placement distance requirements between objects. That means you can place furniture pieces clipping into each other or closer together if you want. See the build mode cheats below for more on better object placement.

The main function of move objects in The Sims 2 is still allowing you to pick up and move objects that aren't normally editable. With move objects on you can move lot items like the mailbox and garbage bin or delete annoying things like leaky puddles. You can move objects while sims are using them or move prop objects they've pulled out. You can even move a sim or delete them entirely—though I don't recommend that as it removes them from your family.

Sims 2 live mode cheats

Sims 2 build/buy mode cheats

One of the best build mode cheats for The Sims 2 is "setQuarterTilePlacement on". Since The Sims 2 doesn't have gridless placement, this helps you build homes that look a little less artificial with more precise object movement. After using the cheat, press Ctrl+F to toggle quarter tile placement on. You can use this in conjunction with "moveObjects on" to make use of small spaces by placing objects closer together than a single tile. Just make sure to test that your sims can still actually use them.

There is also an individualRoofSlopeAngle in the cheat registry but there's a handier tool in the interface for that which will allow you to set a specified roof angle and click on individual pieces of roof to apply that angle.

Sims 2 UI cheats

The following Sims 2 UI cheats can remove certain elements like plumbobs and thought bubbles for taking better screenshots or add unlockable post-processing effects.

Sims 2 Shift+Click cheats

As you may remember in other Sims games, The Sims 2 has a set of Shift+Click cheats available for quickly triggering certain effects without typing in a command. Before you can use them, you need to enter the cheat "boolProp testingcheatsenabled true" and then you can hold shift and click on your sims or other objects to use the cheats below.

"We recognize some fans are currently experiencing issues with The Sims: Legacy Collection and The Sims 2: Legacy Collection," an EA employee wrote in a post to The Sims Game Info Hub on the EA forums. "We are currently investigating these issues and hope to have more information on fixes soon."

It's a fairly boilerplate, cards close to the chest sort of response, and does not quite measure up to how much these Sims re-releases seem to be fundamentally borked. Combing through the Steam reviews of both Legacy Collections, the issues I've seen repeatedly mentioned include:

• No UI scaling at resolutions of 1080p and above (you know, modern ones), leading to small, difficult to read icons.
• This is even worse for the pre-rendered Neighborhood view, which seems to be presented as a small, low-res window in the center of the screen.
• Crashes at launch and after assorted durations of play time.
• Lack of modernizations, QoL fixes, or basic features like Steam Cloud saves or MacOS support.
• Retention of known bugs from the original release of The Sims 2.

I've seen some positive reviewers contest the UI complaint on The Sims 2, but overall, these re-releases appear to be fundamentally compromised. What's more, even once you get past the overt failures, EA is charging $20 and $30 for The Sims 1 and 2 respectively when they are, in the best-case scenario, bare bones ports of the original games to Steam⁠—Nightdive's The Thing: Remastered charges $30 for a version of the game with numerous light touch quality of life, graphical, and gameplay upgrades. MSRP for Beamdog's Baldur's Gate Enhanced Editions, which similarly add a ton to their respective games, is $20 a pop.

The situation reminds me of the disastrous initial release of the Metal Gear Master Collection, where similarly basic ports of classic games were compromised by a multitude of technical issues. That collection has redeemed itself somewhat through updates, but I still had to turn to mods for the best experience on Steam Deck. It has not been a good week for EA: After its latest Sports FC and Dragon Age: The Veilguard underperformed sales expectations, it appears that the publisher has gutted BioWare, with a number of veteran developers either shuffled to other studios or laid off entirely.

There's a lot of frankly incorrect and unreliable info out there about Sims 1 cheats after 25 years of internet clutter, console versions, and other re-releases. I've personally tested this whole list of Sims cheats and can verify that they work, at least on the EA App version of the Sims 1 Legacy Collection re-release.

I've cut out a lot of rumored cheats that either don't work in this version or just don't really have much practical application so we can focus on cheats that you'd actually want to use. I'll keep adding to this list as I uncover other Sims cheats that still work in the new re-release.

How to enable Sims 1 cheats

You can use Sims 1 cheats by pressing Ctrl + Shift + C while in game, typing a cheat into the box in the upper left of the screen, and then pressing enter. It basically works like every other Sims game and it will be totally familiar to you if you use a lot of Sims 4 cheats.

One nice function is that it will warn you when a cheat doesn't exist or if you've gotten the syntax slightly wrong, unlike the Sims 4 which sort of just ignores you if you enter something incorrectly.

Sims 1 money cheats

Rosebud is pretty much the go-to money cheat for The Sims and there isn't a handy bigger increment cheat like "motherlode." To get a ton of money at once, use those ;! variants above.

Sims 1 live mode cheats

The set_hour cheat will set the current time as specified but it doesn't actually advance the simulation to that hour. So your sims won't experience a ton of needs decay if you set the clock forward 12 hours.

You can use the autonomy cheat to make your sims stand around waiting for orders but you can also toggle free will off and on in the Options > Play Options part of your interface.

As for setting sim_speed, the most useful version of that cheat will be choosing a number like 1, 100, or 500 since there isn't an interface button to slow Live Mode down to those speeds. Normal speed is 800.

Sims 1 move objects cheat

The Sims 1 "moo" cheat is move_objects on but it doesn't do what you're used to if you're coming from The Sims 3 or The Sims 4.

Turning move objects on does not let you freely place items in buy mode or place them clipping into other objects. Instead it lets you pick up objects that aren't normally interactable. You can use it to pick up and delete water puddles or trash piles instead of having your sims clean them, for instance.

It will also allow you to move an object that a sim is currently using like a bed that's being slept in. If you were an unsupervised child on your family computer in the year 2000 you might remember that you can delete a shower while a sim is using it. We don't need to talk about why.

Is there a Sims 1 needs cheat?

There doesn't seem to be a working needs cheat for The Sims 1 re-release. A lot of Sims 4 players will be familiar with cheating to make their sims automatically happy but there isn't an equivalent in The Sims 1. Rumor has it that in some versions of the game you can use "move_objects on" to pick up and delete your sim, which will reset their mood. I've not been able to get this to work in the 2025 version of the Sims 1 re-release.

If you check the "Sunblink mail" section of your in-game menu for notices from the developer, you'll spot one ominously titled "time manipulation breaks the game."

That will sound familiar to a lot of Animal Crossing players who are familiar with a cheat involving changing their Nintendo hardware's device time for a date in the future. Since Animal Crossing—and lots of games of a similar style like HKIA—involve tracking real-world time to control growth of plants, in-game seasons, or other time-gated content, players can often unlock those things early or just make progress faster by cheating their games into believing extra time has passed. The warning mail for HKIA reads:

"Many players may be used to time manipulation or 'time travel' from other cozy games, but in Hello Kitty Island Adventure, it can permanently compromise your save file. Here's what to know: You will lose access to multiplayer. Time-based functionality (daily items spawning, flowers growing, and events progressing) will not work retroactively. There is nothing we can do to restore a save file once it is in this state."

A week after launch, Sunblink has reiterated to PC Gamer that time-travelling can cause irreversible game breaking bugs and cause you to miss out on seasonal content. Here's what it said:

• Players will not be able to play with friends or complete multiplayer quests, even if the other players have also time-skipped
• Players will be unable to trade with other players
• No access to friend cabins
• Exclusion from future seasonal events and/or limited-time content, even if you engage with them in the future (such as birthdays or holidays), because their content is not yet released/implemented
• Resetting of event calendars when moving between years

"Note that these effects are per save file and kick in when the save file is accessed," Sunblink adds. "Normal travel through time zones and across the dateline should not trigger any of these. Adjusting the clock when the game is closed, as long as it is reset to real time, should not trigger any of these."

Although you can get away with this cheaty stuff in Animal Crossing: New Horizons—I had multiple friends who raced ahead to summer season within the week of its March launch back in 2020—doing so in Hello Kitty Island Adventure is clearly a big no-no. Losing an entire save file to corruption is not something you'll want to deal with.

So if you're jumping in thanks to the new PC release, make sure to try out some Hello Kitty Island Aventure multiplayer with pals and maybe cheat just a little bit by referencing our Hello Kitty Island Adventure gifts guide. But don't go time travelling: Or you won't be coming back.

Yonks back, just after the turn of the millennium—as evidenced by the Y2K-inspired Sims website that gave us serious nostalgia yesterday—The Sims took an unsuspecting world by storm. Or at least I think it did. My handle on the broader gaming culture wasn't too strong at age eight so I mostly remember waking up early to play The Sims before jumping on the school bus (a real sign of commitment as a child), learning the cheats to make Sims naked, and the ever-present dilemma of trying to think up new rooms that a huge square mansion should have. They usually include one room featuring a solitary grand piano, yes?

To relive that era of strategic suburban survival, you can now pick up The Sims: Legacy Collection including all seven of its expansion packs: Livin’ Large, House Party, Hot Date, Vacation, Unleashed, Superstar, and Makin’ Magic for $19.99 on Steam, Epic Games, or the EA App.

Four years later the phenomenon that was The Sims 2 arrived, bringing with it a lot of expanded gameplay that's become standard for the series like more life stages and aspirations. Oh, and the rise of "stuff pack" DLCs alongside the many expansions.

You can pick up The Sims 2: Legacy Collection also on Steam or the Epic Store for $29.99 which comes with all of the following DLCs:

• The Sims 2: University
• The Sims 2: Nightlife
• The Sims 2: Open for Business
• The Sims 2: Pets
• The Sims 2: Bon Voyage
• The Sims 2: Seasons
• The Sims 2: FreeTime
• The Sims 2: Apartment Life
• The Sims 2: Holiday Party Pack
• The Sims 2: Family Fun Stuff
• The Sims 2: Glamour Life Stuff
• The Sims 2: Happy Holiday Stuff
• The Sims 2: Celebration! Stuff
• The Sims 2: H&M Fashion Stuff
• The Sims 2: Teen Style Stuff
• The Sims 2: Kitchen & Bath Interior Design Stuff
• The Sims 2: Mansion & Garden Stuff

Alternatively, you can grab the lot in the The Sims: 25th Birthday Bundle for $39.99 (that's $10 off getting them separately) which also comes with two kits (Throwback Fit and Grunge Revival) for The Sims 4.

Bear in mind that these are definitely not remakes or even remasters—they're being called re-releases. So what's actually different in the re-released versions? Well, not a lot, other than the fact that they'll run on your modern system. Here's what EA says in its Sims 2 Legacy Collection explainer:

• it can now run on Windows 10 and Windows 11
• it has an updated rendering engine
• it has a more versatile pixel resolution scaling on large monitors
• some legacy and community-reported bugs are fixed

EA says that if you have very old save files laying around for either game they should be compatible with the re-releases. Same goes for mods, in theory.

Where to find Rubber in Hello Kitty Island Adventure

Rubber spawns across the entire Seaside Resort area of the island, which is where you start out. It has the potential to be anywhere around the resort, but from my experience it tends to spawn in bushes or at the base of palm trees. I usually find the most rubber in the bushes or around trees by Chococat's tent, but also have a recurring spawn behind Hello Kitty's Cafe in the center of the resort.

Rubber will respawn each day, so if you've met your daily limit of 7 balls and you can't find any more, you'll just have to wait until the next day. Alternatively, you could visit a friend through multiplayer and see if they're willing to gift you some of their spare rubber. It's worth noting though if you do go looting your friend's island, you're the only one who will reap the benefits, so definitely ask first before you have a grand falling out over bouncy balls.

Even if you don't need it immediately, it's always worth collecting since it's one of those resources you'll always need on hand for crafting. I've found that it's best to try and gather as much as I can whenever I log in to give my islanders their daily gifts for when I inevitably need it in the future to save myself the stress of having to find it there and then.

Each of the 13 characters around the island has a unique set of likes and preferences which are bound to make your gift giving experience slightly easier. But you won't know exactly what these preferences are straight away. You unlock knowledge about each character the more you cook and craft items. If you need some general guidance as to what to prepare for each character, we've pulled together everyone's preferences and their ideal gifts to save you having to hunt them down yourself.

How to give gifts in Hello Kitty Island Adventure

When you approach a character in Hello Kitty Island Adventure, you'll have two interaction options. Pressing E will initiate a conversation, whereas pressing R will open the gift menu. Any suitable gifts for that character will be highlighted in your inventory. You'll be able to give each islander 3 gifts a day, and each time you'll be rewarded with an item specific to that character, like Sugarkelp from Kerropi, Dough from Retsuko and Tofu from Hello Kitty.

Visiting the friendship tab in your phone will show you each character's likes. It won't give you a detailed breakdown of which gifts are worth giving, but it is a guide in the general directions. For example, if you don't have any gift ideas unlocked for Pekkle and you can tell his likes are anything Musical or Mountain-based then it's worth starting to look at any crafting recipes or foragables you might have to fit that description.

Every character's favourite gifts in Hello Kitty Island Adventure

Gifts are separated by a heart level in Hello Kitty Island Adventure. A gift marked with 3-hearts will give you the biggest friendship boost, but are a lot harder to find. 2-heart gifts require a little more work to find and usually involve either cooking or crafting, whereas 1-heart gifts are usually items that can be found around the map. Here is every main character from Hello Kitty Island Adventure's likes and their ideal gifts:

Hello Kitty

Likes: Fruity, Baked, Fancy

My Melody

Likes: Sweet, Pink, Dreamy

Pochacco

Likes: Trophy, Healthy, Veggie

Tuxedo Sam

Likes: Fabric, Tropical, Fancy

Keroppi

Likes: Critter, Swamp, Wood

Kuromi

Likes: Soda, Fall, Spooky

Pompompurin

Likes: Dessert, Calm, Milk

Pekkle

Likes: Musical, Mountain, Calm

Hangyodon

Likes: Aquatic, Fish, Fabric

Retsuko

Likes: Fire, Musical, Ingot

Chococat

Likes: Mechanical, Book, Chocolate

Cinnamoroll

Likes: Coffee, Chocolate, Spicy

Bad Badtz-Maru

Likes: Joke, Tropical, Pizza

For a few months, Inzoi's game director has been running a routine "Kjun's Concerns" thread on the official Discord server, sharing thoughts, announcements, and feature plans with fans. The server also maintains a "wishlist" channel for players to lodge requests like more careers for Zois, platform and language support, and a whole lot more.

A few weeks ago Kjun's Concerns covered the Smart Zoi AI tech that Krafton is partnering with Nvidia to bring to the game. The week after that there was a breakdown on the cooking system, four days after which Kjun responded to player feedback with a list of new requests that Inzoi would implement for early access (and some for after). Last week was a broader look at the ongoing player wishlist with, again, more commitment to early access features.

Kjun knows that the launch date is March 28, right? Here's some of what Inzoi has committed to getting into the game in time for its early access launch just from the past month:

• Effects like "food coma" given based on foods your Zoi eats
• Ordering food delivery
• Higher quality cooking animations
• New animations for fights between Zois
• Determining the "winner" of a fight based on Zoi stats
• A more comprehensive tutorial for new players

That's not even counting the other features like pets, gas stations, culinary careers, and other features that Kjun's snagged from player comments and added to the post-launch to-do list.

I'm as antsy as any Sims player to finally see some legitimate competition for the long-reigning series arrive this year. There are plenty of ways to contrast what Inzoi is offering with The Sims 4, and the level of communication that Kim and the Inzoi Studio have had with fans is close to the top of the list.

It has meant that keeping up with the actual list of Inzoi gameplay features planned for launch has been a bit challenging—how many of those planned life stages for Zois are actually going to be in the game on March 28?

Compared with EA's chronically constipated communication that leads to a fanbase eager to latch onto leaks and rumors every couple months, it's nice to have overcommunication for once. Krafton may find out the hard way at launch that making lots of promises can occasionally backfire, but the community hunger for Sims alternatives means it's got a pretty hefty stash of goodwill to burn through.

Inzoi's team has been out of office for a South Korean national holiday, so at least the studio (and me) get this week off from tracking the moving bullseye that is the early access feature list. Beware though, Kjun's Concerns may be back in force next week with even more commitments.

I mean hell, even the URL is giving me major throwback vibes: www.the-sims-y2k.com. The dashes between every word is practically screaming early 2000s at me, but the thing I love the most is the fact that you quite literally have to type the "www." for the URL to actually work. You know, like the… old days? Try and type the address sans-World Wide Web and you'll be met with an error. It's such a small detail that I'm not even sure was intentional, but I really hope it is.

The website itself is an absolute visual nightmare which, again, how perfect is that? There's a loading bar when you first punch in the address, each asset on the page slowly transitions in from the sides—remember when old-ass websites would cram every animation and soundbite into them like a 10-year-old's PowerPoint presentation?—and every icon makes a wee noise as you hover over it.

As for the features contained within the site, they're fine. There's the "Sim Urself" page which, as it turns out, is not taking a photo of yourself to be turned into a Sim like I originally thought. Instead it's a painstaking throwback to the days of taking pictures with different filters using your crusty old webcam, something which I spent far too much time doing as a child. Yes, of course I used the filter of Don Lothario in the hot tub, thinking about me through the lens of my work laptop camera.

Slightly more atrocious is the "Meme Jacuzzi," which feeds a random selection of pretty appalling memes. They're more modern than the top text/bottom text of old, and for the most part I regret to say they're pretty naff. Except the one about my sims making out with other people's wives. That one is pretty accurate.

Finally, no old-school website would be complete without downloadable wallpapers, and The Sims Y2K has two of them—one for the original game, and one for The Sims 2. There's an option for both desktop and mobile wallpapers, depending on how you like your nostalgia fed to you these days.

It's rather… interesting how much of a focus is being put on the first two games in particular here, considering the current rumours about Sims 1 and 2 re-releases swirling around. Whatever the connection is, I'll be over here enjoying my ridiculous Comic Sans text and funky little easter egg that appears if you spend a little too long idling on any one page. I won't spoil it, go and find out for yourself.

The best news is that playing with friends in Hello Kitty Island Adventure is actually pretty great. Unlike some other social sims that restrict your activities, HKIA lets you do pretty much all the usual collecting, crafting, and story progression while you have a friend visiting. So don't feel like you need to set aside specific time for a friend to visit. They won't cramp your quest progress or resource-collecting plans.

How to join multiplayer and play with a friend

To invite a friend to your island in multiplayer:

• Press Tab to open your in-game phone
• Select the purple Multiplayer app icon
• Copy and send them the displayed 7-character code
• As a guest, press Join Friend, paste in the 7-character code, and hit Ok
• Click "Yes" to leave your current world and enter your friend's

After a loading screen, you should appear on your friend's island! If you get booted back to the main menu either you've entered an invalid code, have an unstable internet connection, or possibly your friend closed the multiplayer app on their in-game phone. Just to be safe, leave the multiplayer menu open while waiting for a friend, and make sure you've both updated your game recently. There is also a limit of one guest on your island at a time, so it's a two-player co-op-only situation.

To host a friend in multiplayer, you need to complete the Friends From Afar quest from Keroppi which comes after the Power Up The Gates and Open the Nature Preserve quests. If you are hosting rather than travelling, once your friend joins your game the "invite friend" button will turn into a "kick player" button, which is the biggest indicator of a successful connection.

You can actually be a multiplayer guest before completing the above quests though, so new players can totally get carried a little by joining a friend's island to collect resources and complete challenges together.

What can you do with a friend in multiplayer?

Hello Kitty Island Adventure is pretty top-tier among Animal Crossing-style social sims and lets you do a lot of things together while visiting. Here's what you can do in multiplayer:

• Complete any of the host's story quests
• Buy items from My Melody or Tuxedosam's stores
• Cook in Hello Kitty's kitchen
• Speak to islanders (but not give them gifts, as a guest)
• Gift inventory items to each other
• Fish or catch bugs
• Complete agility courses
• Pick up resources off the ground
• Take selfies together
• Unlock friendship level bonuses

Be aware that picking up items off the ground like sand dollars or pineapples means you're grabbing that item from your friend's world and you'll take them with you when you leave. So be mindful and don't steal all their stuff unless you've asked! At a later friendship tier, there is an unlockable ability that allows you both to receive items when collected from the ground which is worth working towards.

As a guest, you'll have access to your friend's fully unlocked map, so if you haven't quite finished exploring the island yourself you can still see the sights in theirs.

What are the friendship level rewards?

Just like with the cast of the island, leveling up friendship with a buddy will unlock new rewards. To complete friendship goals, press the icon shown by the minimap. There will be a weekly list of tasks to complete like taking selfies, collecting items together, among other activities.

Here's what you unlock at each friendship tier:

I've been waiting for Hello Kitty Island Adventure to release on PC after its debut on Apple Arcade in 2023. I tried to avoid people talking about it as much as I could since I wanted to go into it completely unassuming of the adventure ahead when the PC launch eventually rolled around, and I can happily confirm it was well worth the wait. As far as life simulators go, it's exactly what you'd expect. It's got a reasonably sized map to wander around freely, plenty of opportunities to collect items and craft or cook, and a very cute cast of characters to develop relationships with and complete quests for each day. Plus, it's Hello Kitty and her friends so it's very hard to not immediately praise, as someone who's a fanatic for all things cute.

Considering how many life sims I've played, I fully expected to be bored of the routine of fetch quests and very simple crafting. But there's something about the island's inhabitants that compelled me to keep playing to see what ridiculous adventure I'd go on next. From trudging through the labyrinth of Kuromi's haunted mansion to facing the peril of a minecart through an active volcano with Retsuko, you really never know where you're going to end up next, which is what I quickly discovered to be one of the game's main appeals.

But before I could embark on these epic adventures, a lot of my early hours as an island resident were spent running around trying to gather my bearings on what is frankly, a pretty significantly sized map. One of your first tasks is unlocking a gate which leads you to a swamp and spooky area where you'll find Keroppi and Kuromi. After this, and once I'd got the flippers that let you swim around, I started to really appreciate the world at my fingertips and was eager to see what challenge next awaited me depending on who I spoke to.

In each of the world's eight regions, I stumbled across a variety of Sanrio characters, each with a unique personality that shone through their dialogue. I was already pretty confident in my Sanrio knowledge, but I still learned a surprising amount about each character from the way they spoke to me, like PomPomPurin's passion for pudding or the critter-obsessed Keroppi, or even Pochacco's love for a morning jog. This didn't initially seem like an important factor besides being a way to help me remember each character. But, these personalities were the key to learning each character's preferences for gifts, which I soon realised were the gateway to quickly increasing friendship level with literally anyone.

Unlike the vast majority of other games which offer the risk of potentially gifting an item that the receiver won't like, and the potential to damage my relationship with them, Hello Kitty Island Adventure only has the chance to give each character something they like. It sounds easy enough, but to add some challenge, the knowledge of what each character likes isn't dished out immediately. It's something I had to gain as I cooked and crafted different recipes and spent more time with them.

This took the pressure off since I'm incredibly forgetful when it comes to things like this, and I wasn't sure I was ready to face a spreadsheet level of commitment to my island. It also meant I could quickly whip around the whole map each day and increase my friendship levels enough to hopefully unlock the next main quest. But as convenient as this sounds, I quickly found that the pacing of Hello Kitty Island Adventure is the one downside of island life.

Although I appreciate what it's trying to achieve by giving you a reason to check in every day, it does limit your progression a bit. You're restricted to giving each character three things a day, and the vast majority of main story quests are locked behind friendship levels. So, there are bound to be a few days where you're a little bit limited on what you have to do. There are a handful of ways you can fill this time, whether that's by taking photos with hidden Gudetama around the entire map, participating in minigames, or completing daily and weekly quests. But I can imagine these elements lose their charm if you're already a few weeks in and have a decent chunk of the story completed. I'm yet to get to this point, but I'd be lying if I said that I couldn't see it on the distant horizon.

So it would be a wasted opportunity for Hello Kitty Island Adventure to not add more areas, more permanent characters, or more minigames later down the line. Although it's only just launched I know I'll be waiting at the front of the line (right next to Butters) when the first DLC or significant update drops. As much as I wished I could've played Hello Kitty Island Adventure when it initially launched on Apple Arcade, I'm glad my first experience was on PC where a life sim like this really fits in amidst a mass of equally cute cozy games. It's basically the closest we will get to ever having Animal Crossing on the platform, each villager has just been substituted for an equally adorable Sanrio character who I will inevitably spend a lot of money finding merch for.

Down below I've got all the details you really need to know about Inzoi, from its post-delay new release date to confirmed gameplay features, system specs, and a comparison of features with The Sims 4 to help you keep track of what to expect.

Inzoi release date

When is the Inzoi release date?

Inzoi launches in early access on March 28, 2025. It was originally expected at the end of 2024 but was delayed just a bit into spring of this year.

"This change in our release date represents our dedication to giving Inzoi a stronger foundation, so we can embark on this journey together in the best way possible," game director Hyungjun Kim said in the delay announcement from November.

Inzoi gameplay

What's the Inzoi gameplay like?

From what we've seen, Inzoi will feel very familiar to Sims series fans. There's a character creator for building your family, a build and decorating mode for designing homes, and a live mode simulation for enacting all your dramatic schemes.

The concept in Inzoi is that you're a new employee at a place called AR Company where you're managing and controlling the lives of digital people called Zois. So aside from the usual three game modes we're used to in life sims, Inzoi allows a lot of extra world settings control like determining the level of cleanliness, natural disaster, and other factors in a city along with editing the city decor itself.

Here's just a quick overview of features I've spotted in months of keeping tabs on Inzoi's demo videos:

• Open world and ability to control any Zoi at any time
• Three cities at launch: Dowon (Korean-inspired), Bliss Bay (US-inspired), and Cahaya (Indonesian-inspired)
• WASD or point-and-click control of Zois
• Eight basic Zoi needs: hunger, hygiene, bathroom, fun, social, energy, sleep, and "recognition"
• Active play jobs for Zois where you'll complete a list of tasks
• A karma system
• Spreading rumors, trends, and colds
• Drivable cars
• Auto-save functionality
• Difficulty settings for relationship progress
• Support for mods and custom content
• A user-content gallery called "Canvas"

Inzoi and Sims 4 features comparison

Life sims are a big prospect so there are a lot of features to come to grips with. Not to mention, a series of playtest videos from creators and routine communication from Inzoi's developers on its Discord have made it a little hard to parse what's actually going to be in the game for early access, what's planned for later, and what isn't planned at all.

I won't cover absolutely everything, but here's a look at some popular features from The Sims 4 and Inzoi for comparison:

Inzoi's character creator is extremely pretty

One thing everyone's drooling over is the Inzoi Character Studio. There's no arguing that it's super beautiful and lifelike and I think it's going to be extremely popular with the "alpha CC" segment Sims fans who enjoy glossy, perfect faces.

There was a publicly available Inzoi Character Studio demo available late last year and people managed to create some great lookalikes in record time. I found that the lifelike face textures made for some really great creations but there were some things lacking in that demo that I'd have liked to see, like various types of piercings, outfit categories, and height sliders.

Inzoi's furniture is customizable

This is a feature from The Sims 3 that I've sorely missed in The Sims 4 so I'm really looking forward to customizing decor in Inzoi. For each object you'll be able to set the colors and patterns for different materials along with pattern scale and level of glossiness. You'll be able to make furniture as beautiful or as uncanny as you'd like.

How Inzoi is using AI

Krafton is leaning pretty heavily into experimenting with various AI systems—across the board, it seems, including in Inzoi. Here are the AI-based features we know about in Inzoi so far:

• Pattern creation: A generative AI system that will use text prompts to create patterns for clothes or artwork for walls to use in-game
• "3D Printer": Uses photos of real life objects and turns them into in-game 3D objects that you can decorate a house with
• Smart Zoi: Using Nvidia's "Co-Playable Character" tech will let Zois using this feature make autonomous decisions about how to act based on their personality and change their own daily schedule each night in response to their experiences

Inzoi system requirements

Inzoi system requirements

Izoi's recommended and minimum specs are worth paying attention to. Even if you only want to run it on minimum settings, you're going to be struggling if you were running The Sims 4 on the same toaster of a laptop for 10 years. For recommended specs you're going to need *checks notes* a newer GPU than mine, unfortunately.

Recommend specs:

• Requires a 64-bit processor and operating system
• OS: Windows 10/11
• Processor: Intel i7 12700, AMD Ryzen 5800
• Memory: 16 GB RAM
• Graphics: NVIDIA RTX 3070 (8G VRAM), AMD Radeon RX 6800 XT
• DirectX: Version 12
• Network: Broadband Internet connection
• Storage: 75 GB available space

Minimum specs:

• Requires a 64-bit processor and operating system
• OS: Windows 10/11
• Processor: Intel i5 10400, AMD Ryzen 3600
• Memory: 12 GB RAM
• Graphics: NVIDIA RTX 2060 (8G VRAM), AMD Radeon RX 5600 XT
• DirectX: Version 12
• Network: Broadband Internet connection
• Storage: 60 GB available space

There's already one game like The Sims in early access that you can play right now with two more scheduled to launch in 2025. I'll lay out which games you can expect to play and when and a few bonus options for games that aren't exactly like The Sims but do capture at least part of that experience while we wait for more to launch.

Games like The Sims

Tiny Life

Release date: 2023 (Early access) | Developer: Ellpeck Games | Steam

So far, Tiny Life is the only true sims-style life sim out there that isn't an EA spinoff of its own series. It's still in early access with a small development team but it already meets so many parts of the quintessential Sims experience. You can build homes and community lots, create families with silly traits and goals, and manage their unpredictable life journeys in an open world with multiple neighborhoods.

The pixelated art style won't be to everyone's taste but I already had a surprisingly good time digging into Tiny Life's early access version. It makes keeping an eye on traits and relationships pretty easy so I always felt like I was able to appreciate its funny moments of simulated weirdness. The open world is also great, bringing a bit of old Sims 3 nostalgia for those that miss it.

The Sims 3

Release date: 2009 | Developer: Maxis | Steam

Since there's still just one true option for games like The Sims to play I am going ahead and recommending The Sims 3. I've been returning to it myself in the past year and honestly having a blast. Visually, The Sims 3 may have aged like milk—though I do have a soft spot for the crunchy old homes if not the characters—but the way it forces you to play is still great.

Unlike The Sims 4, which always asks for permission before sending your Live Mode story spiralling in a new direction, The Sims 3 very deliberately throws speedbumps at you. I really enjoy being forced to react to burglars, unlikely romantic attraction, and other chaos. It's a matter of taste definitely, but if you're someone constantly feeling bored of The Sims 4 and not sure what you want to do in game next, The Sims 3 is my answer.

Games kind of like The Sims

While we wait for more Sims-like to launch, I'll also recommend some games that capture the same vibe as just part of The Sims experience. And I promise not to pretend that Stardew Valley is like The Sims just because it's a life sim—it isn't.

Upcoming games like The Sims

Inzoi

Release date: March 28, 2025 (early access) | Developer: inZOI Studio | Steam

The next to launch game like The Sims will be Krafton's life sim Inzoi. This one has been hotly anticipated for its very pretty, realistic visual style and character creator. I've got no doubt that this one will fill up my PC with screenshots of gorgeous builds and characters. It's been more difficult to tell what the real depth of Inzoi's simulation will be like. There have been small demonstrations of things like driving cars or swapping to any playable Zoi in a city, but just how much you'll have to do beyond cooking, chatting, and going to work has been slightly harder to judge. We'll find out how it fares when it launches in early access in March.

Paralives

Release date: 2025 (early access) | Developer: Alex Massé & Paralives Studio | Steam

Paralives has been in the works for a long time from a small team and finally plans to reach early access in 2025. It leans even harder into stylized visuals than The Sims 4 does, with characters that almost look painted. The big appeal of Paralives for me is its very adaptable build system that lets you do things like resize windows (imagine that), turn objects like tables and lamps into different size variants easily, and grid-free wall construction. On the simulation side Paralives looks like it's definitely going to lean into developing a character over time by growing skills, changing jobs, and more.

According to an old archive of Sims 3 patch notes, the last time the game was updated was in January 2014. There's no new entry for this week's patch to explain what's up, though one helpful player in the EA Answers Forum explains that the patch addresses an old issue with the game failing to launch on newer Intel processors. This seems to be a patch only related to the EA App version of the game and doesn't have a corresponding Steam update entry by the looks of it on SteamDB.

After the update you may get a new popup between hitting play in the launcher and the game opening which asks you to activate your product. The same helpful simmer suggests clicking "exit" which will allow you to continue. I entered my EA App credentials and was waved through that way without issue.

Surprising no one, EA's been mum about it entirely, though that never stops fans from reading the tea leaves. Part of the new seasonal roadmap shown yesterday was the date February 25 with just an 👀 emoji hinting at some unknown announcement. Some fans are theorizing re-releases for The Sims 1 and 2 while others are now suspecting there are more Sims 3 compatibility patches coming.

There's certainly now a precedent for re-releases after the announcement yesterday that it's bringing the updated MySims Cozy Bundle to PC in March.

In the meantime, hey, maybe The Sims 3 will run better on your machine—or run at all if it didn't previously. The biggest issue I've had with returning to Sims 3 has been a lot of lag time when I'm making heavy use of the Create-A-Style tool but I doubt this patch is going to solve that. If it inspires you to jump back in too, refresh yourself on the list of Sims 3 cheats so you can get your household up and running the way you want.

In the past six months EA and Maxis:

• Completely upended our understanding of Project Rene by announcing The Sims Hub during a publicly viewable investor presentation without ever following up to explain the announcement language aimed at fans
• Ignored leaked screenshots from a playtest that massively differed from players' expectations, providing no clarity on whether this was Project Rene or some other test
• Gave a slightly scold-y non-acknowledgement of the above in its Behind The Sims news post this week saying "what you might see are slices of experiences that are in very early phases of development."

A little more than two years ago, Pearson was the one to announce Project Rene, saying at the time that the studio would be sharing information about the in-development game sooner than The Sims ever had before with occasional updates and closed playtests.

It has continued to share updates but each Behind The Sims presentation just keeps getting shorter, leaving the ravenous fanbase desperate for information about what to expect. That's the environment that the EA Investor Day put its foot in last September, dropping on players that Project Rene is actually not The Sims 5 as we'd been assuming and that The Sims 4 would be sticking around getting new DLCs even after Rene's eventual launch.

"It definitely happens in these franchises like The Sims, where you have a lot of things happening, you're going to end up with crossed wires occasionally," Pearson said during our conversation. "I think we are always evolving our communication strategy to try and figure out what is the right way to share the right information at the right time that isn't confusing or misleading."

Learning about EA's vision for The Sims Hub as a foundation for several different Sims games on PC from an investor presentation was pretty confusing, especially when no further explanation was forthcoming. Pearson wasn't able to take questions about The Sims Hub during our chat, but I imagine if I'd been able to ask whether that was the way the team wanted that announcement to reach players the answer would have been a (politely worded) "no." What Pearson did tell us on the subject was, yeah, pretty diplomatic.

"What you saw us doing this past fall with EA's big investor day—and we announced a whole bunch of things in Behind the Sims around then too—is symbolic of the kinds of things you might see like: how do we give a bigger, broader message about what the franchise is up to?"

That broad message left a lot unanswered as the studio carried on like business as usual without giving any version of the same message to players in a way that actually felt comprehensible. If that set of announcements was a hot pan of grease, subsequent leaks from playtesters in October were cold water—which, as a reminder to anyone in the room with level 1 cooking skill prone to starting fires while making grilled cheese, are dangerous to combine.

"Leaks are unavoidable, unfortunately," Pearson said. "So that's a hard one too, because sometimes it's before we're ready to share something. And you're like, I don't have that message quite buttoned up because it was an experiment. Or sometimes it's leaking in a really weird, backwards way, where it's something from a year plus ago and you're like 'How did this get out now?'"

Ultimately, huge publishers struggle to communicate with players in the way that we want them to and EA isn't alone in that. We see similar struggles from Blizzard and Ubisoft, for starters. It's difficult to tell from the outside who's making the calls on what to share when and in what ways information is getting clogged in the pipes against the hopes of the developers.

"We're always trying to learn and iterate and grow and all those buzzwords," Pearson told us. "But it's true. We're always trying to say, how can we do this a little differently, a little bit better?"

For all that Pearson mentions wanting to learn and iterate, the recent "just a reminder for all the Simmers that have helped us in our playtests," aside in the Behind The Sims blog post that "what you might see are slices of experiences that are in very early phases of development, and we’re still finalizing the final product," doesn't really inspire a lot of confidence that the studio isn't just going to continue retreating into secrecy rather than communication.

Project Rene wasn't mentioned directly in the Behind The Sims presentation at all and we were told ahead of our conversation that Pearson wouldn't be taking questions about it, which doesn't really feel like a step in the right direction either.

Despite all that, I've found myself pretty positive on the things that Maxis is actually doing with The Sims 4 in the past several months, if not the way it's communicating with players. I think the new main menu is great actually, as are the townie home refreshes and the limited time in-game quests that it's been running, along with other Sims 4 anniversary update plans. I was originally psyched that Project Rene seems to be reviving the Create-A-Style tool too.

Project Rene could end up being great, no matter the secrecy and uncertainty EA puts us through during development. I just wish it would quit claiming it's going to share more information while constantly shutting us out.

Remember that kinda weird, chibi-Sim Animal Crossing-adjacent spin-off game? I wouldn't blame you if you said "no," considering the original MySims is the only one in the series that ever made it to PC back in 2008. But now it's re-releasing on our humble desktops alongside MySims Kingdom, which puts a lil' medieval spin on the whole formula.

The bundle landed on the Switch back in November of last year, so this isn't exactly totally new even by re-release standards, but I'm always happy to see old games that didn't make it over to PC finally getting their much-deserved port.

PC Gamer spoke to Sims series VP of franchise creative Lyndsay Pearson earlier this month, and had the opportunity to ask her a little bit about MySims. "At its heart, it's still very, very Sims," she said. "It's the little characters that have a lot of really silly personalities, and you get to customise their world, meet their neighbours, make friends with them. And so I love that DNA of The Sims which comes through with such a different feel."

Pearson added that the spin-off series "scratches a very different itch than I get out of The Sims 4 or 3 or any of our other bigger, traditional HD offerings on PC. So it's fun to be able to sort of reintroduce a different flavour and give new audiences a chance."

Hey, it's me, I'm the new audience. I never actually got around to playing MySims as a kid—I loved The Sims and had a Wii, but it was more of a Mario Kart box than anything I actually remembered to buy games for. I'm excited to dive in and give the games a go, and who knows? Maybe if we're good we'll get a MySims Agents port somewhere down the line, too.

If you've forgotten how things changed over the years (I did) the Sims Community fansite has a helpful refresher on several old Sims 4 start screens. Sat next to each other, it's a little unnerving how the list of packs you own just kept encroaching on the menu over the years until 2020 brought us the panelled look that gives me Windows 8 flashbacks. Lest we forget already, this is what we were rocking as of last week:

It was awful, sorry. It looks like a game launcher trying to cram in the latest update news while enticing me to make purchases, for starters. Somehow there are three different buttons on that screen that want me to try out the scenarios system, which makes no sense. The Sims 4 start screen had gotten pushier than door-to-door pesticide service salespeople.

My fellow Sims-liker Mollie Taylor and I got the chance to talk with Sims series head honcho Lyndsay Pearson leading up to this and other anniversary announcements, during which she acknowledged that information overload was definitely one of the pain points in the old menu.

"One of the challenges is the first thing you see when you open the game," Pearson said. "There's probably 100 things we could tell you, right? It could be: what were you playing last time? What is new in the gallery? What is new that you could play that you haven't played yet? There's so many messages that could be there. It becomes overwhelming to figure out how to curate where you might want to go."

The main menu had indeed accumulated approximately 100 things it was trying to tell me every time I started the game. The Sims 4 menu did take a step in the right direction when it added that 'resume' button indicating your most recently-played household. The new menu goes all in on that concept and really I dig it.

Squad vibes aside, this menu finally puts my save file front and center—literally. Things like scenarios and the gallery have been moved over to side modules while the ever-present DLC-pushing and the new limited-time events are relegated to different tabs in the menu entirely. It even includes a little context on the family you were playing with their name and household funds.

"What we've really learned is, the way that players often come to The Sims is you may play for a lot of time all at once, and then take a little break for a little while," Pearson said. "But sometimes you forget where you were, so bringing that family front and center is helping kind of draw you back into your story and say, 'Hey, remember these people? Remember what you were doing here?' And the sims are the heart of the experience."

I don't spend a lot of time praising The Sims 4 lately—it's got a lot of goodwill yet to claw back after years of buggy DLCs and a lot of confusing communication about future games—but reframing the opening of the game to feature my sims instead of my next DLC purchase does really feel like the right attitude for Maxis to be kicking off 2025 with.

"I think the reason The Sims continues to be so unique is we can offer this breadth of content through DLC and over the years," she said, adding that such a large scope is "really difficult to capture in a lot of experiences, because maybe it doesn't always make sense and it's a lot of things to get to work together."

Similarly to what ex-Sims head Rod Humble told PC Gamer last year while he was making the now-canned Life by You, Pearson pointed to the sheer complexity that making something on this scale entails. "How do you make all those sort of pushes and pulls on the simulation make some amount of sense? And there's this very fine balance between being too smart, and your characters don't need you at all, and not being smart enough where they don't do anything unpredictable," she said. "That is really hard to get right. Even The Sims has swung back and forth over the years, right? Like, you go back and play an old Sims game, it's hard to keep your Sims alive.

"So there's a balance to find there. And I think that all the teams that I've ever met that have been working in this space struggle to find that, which is partially why they end up going after this particular niche, because then you can really focus towards whatever that story is. So it's really that open canvas that is a little daunting."

But despite the challenges other developers have faced—Life by You's demise, Inzoi's delay into 2025, and even EA's own challenges with Project Rene, Pearson is ready for more contenders in the life sim space. "I'm excited to see more people trying, because I think we can learn from each other, and we can look at what's going on in the space and see what players are reacting to, which is always great," she said. "I like to be challenged and try new things."

I'm glad to see Pearson ready to welcome her life sim rivals with open arms, and I hope those challengers actually begin to manifest themselves this year. After all, we've got Inzoi on the way, hopefully launching into early access on March 28, which is probably the closest thing to The Sims we have in terms of scope. There's also the smaller Paralives, which continues to chug along with a vague 2025 window, and Sims creator Will Wright's recent revelation of his new bizarre-sounding AI-driven life sim Proxi.

Personally I'm pretty positive on the new start screen, which feels like a great departure from the cluttered menu full of announcement boxes that looked inspired by Windows 8's tiles. In addition to that there are refreshes on old content, new items, and another limited time event coming too.

Also don't miss our big interview with Sims series VP Lyndsay Pearson about the new announcements, updates, and future plans for the series.

What's coming in the 25th anniversary base game updates?

On January 14:
Redesigned start screen featuring your last played family
Redesigns of townie homes for Pancake, Goth, Caliente, Landgraab, and BFF

On February 4:
70+ new items for CAS and Build/Buy mode
Limited time event called "Blast from the Past" with in-game rewards

New start screen

The Sims 4 just got a new main menu screen, and it's a pretty big change from what the menu has looked like for the past decade. It totally does away with the tiled announcements format that we've had for a while and instead features your last-played family really prominently in the center. It's actually a great change, sweeping DLC purchases and scenarios reminders into side panels and different tabs so that the focus of the screen is on you and your actual game.

Townie home redesigns

As it's been doing with redesigns on specific sim families, Maxis has also refreshed and updated the designs for some townie houses. The Goth, Pancake, Caliente, Landgraab, and BFF houses are all refreshed with new exterior designs and furniture swatches. You can really spot the difference on the Goth mansion which got a really overhauled roof design and much better contrast in its window trims, fences, and other details.

New CAS and Build/Buy

On the actual anniversary on February 4, The Sims 4 is getting another big content drop with new CAS fashion and Build/Buy items too. Maxis bills it as over 70 new items across CAS and Build/Buy. Revealed in EA's post are:

• Two new hairstyles
• Baby hairs added to three existing hairstyles
• A new goatee
• A toddler hairstyle
• Gold chain necklace
• Pearls necklace
• Fitted cap headwear
• Heels, sneakers, and sandals
• New clothes including a turtleneck, bodysuit, jackets, jeans, bike shorts, and more
• New windows and doors
• New wood finishes for kitchen cabinets
• A large pirate ship kids outdoor playset

Blast from the Past event

Maxis is also running another limited time event with rewards for The Sims 4. Like the recent Halloween and winter holiday events, there will be themed quests to complete in Live Mode that reward in-game items over the four weeks. The theme is a nostalgia-fueled "blast from the past" so there's some iconic Sims 1 stuff in there like colorful inflatable chairs and a giant cake along with more general aughts nostalgia like milk cartons and home phones.

PC Gamer recently got to sit down and chat with Lyndsay Pearson, vice president of franchise creative for The Sims, and whose history with the series goes all the way back to The Sims: Vacation in 2002. Having just hosted the Behind the Sims presentation—dropping news of a sizeable base game update for The Sims 4, including a townie home refresh, and the re-release of two MySims games on PC—Pearson spoke a little on the past of the series, as well as what's happening right now and what's to come.

Giving spin-offs a new coat of paint, and the old ones left on the backburner

With MySims being the first spin-off to be getting some attention in a hot sec—and also seeing MySims Kingdom released on PC for the first time—I couldn't help but poke Pearson to see if that would open the door for more re-releases down the line. After all, games like The Urbz, The Sims Bustin' Out, and The Sims 2 Castaway are huge wells of nostalgia, and I would absolutely kill to strut around a city while The Black Eyed Peas blast their songs in Simlish once more.

"I think there is a chance now to say 'Oh, maybe there is new life in these other titles, and that spin-offs have a place," Pearson tells me. "So one of the things that I get to think about is like, where should The Sims go next, and how do we create all these different experiences and touch points for different audiences? And I've had a lot of conversations lately about, like, what could this mean for other titles in our collection?"

As Pearson points out, her 23-year career on the series has never actually involved the spin-offs. "I was always on our core—Sims 1, Sims 2, Sims 3, Sims 4—but I very much wanted to be part of those teams as well. So maybe this is like, my chance to be like 'Great, now I get to do it again in some other way.' So I think it gives us an opportunity that maybe we didn't think was there before, which is really exciting."

Bringing townie homes to their full potential

Another big Behind the Sims announcement was the revamp of some iconic base game townie homes: the Pancakes, Goths, Calientes, and the Landgraabs being some of the lucky families to receive an architectural upgrade. It's been over a decade since The Sims 4 released, and in that time a lot has changed. I mean hell, we didn't even have pools in the original 2014 launch.

But now there are more tools, and a lot more player investment in the lives of these pre-created people. "The Pancakes, for example, were certainly not a family we thought would gain traction the way that they did," Pearson tells me. "And I love that it has, because that's one of the magic things that happens in The Sims." Pearson says the advancement in the game's tools and each family's story has offered the team a unique chance. "It's a really fun opportunity to go back and say 'Okay, what have we learned? What do people love about these characters? What do people love about our catalogue, and how could we show them off in a different way?'"

She continued: "I mean, particularly when you look at the architectural tools, there's so many more things you can build in a house now that we just didn't have when the game first came out. So it's a rare chance to be able to go back to something that you shipped originally and say 'Oh, I can refresh this and give it a new update.' And now we know that we don't have to build them to be the cheapest houses someone might kick them out of and move in to. We can actually build it as part of a story and part of the lore of the world."

Life sims are damn hard to make, it turns out

The conversation around life sims—and EA's continued monopoly on the genre—feels like it's ramped up over the last couple of years. The Sims continues to go largely unchallenged, though that's not without several attempts by other developers. Ex-Sims head Rod Humble tried with Life by You, a game that found itself unceremoniously scrapped at the finish line following several delays.

Humble had told PC Gamer last year that life sims are "the most complex RPGs ever written," a sentiment which Pearson echoed when asked what she thinks makes the genre so hard to replicate.

"You really can play it in so many different ways at so many different times, depending on how you kind of feel that day," Pearson said, explaining the sheer scope The Sims has. "And I think that that breadth is really difficult to capture in a lot of experiences, because maybe it doesn't always make sense, and it's just a lot of a lot of things to get to work together.

"And the other complexity about life sims is, how do you make all of those pushes and pulls on the simulation make some amount of sense? And there's this very fine balance between being too smart—and your characters don't need you at all—and not being smart enough where they don't do anything unpredictable. Even The Sims has swung back and forth over the years, right? Like, you go back and play an old Sims game, it is hard to keep your Sims alive."

Pearson is right. I've lost count of how many Sims YouTube videos I've watched that largely boil down to creators desperately trying to keep everyone alive in the original game, a surprisingly gargantuan task. "So there's a balance to find there," Pearson says.

It's interesting to look at those pushes and pulls even within the series. As Lauren Morton points out, The Sims 3 and The Sims 4 feel fundamentally different in just how you play them. The idea of you driving the story versus the game doing it is the most visible when comparing these two games, and that balance is something Pearson says is "a tension that we've tried to walk over the years."

While finding that fine line has been key for The Sims 4's ongoing development—something that Pearson admits the team has been increasingly experimenting with over the years, and trying to find a way that satisfies both playstyles—she also appreciates the difference each core game can bring. "I actually like the idea that they can all coexist for that reason, because I think they do scratch different itches. I think they do offer you a different way to engage and push back, but trying to solve it all in one game is, I would say, the ongoing mission."

How The Sims plans to stay unique in the face of competition

Like I said, other developers have been trying to come and stake their claim in the life sim genre. It hasn't been wildly successful thus far, sure, but upcoming 2025 games like Inzoi and Paralives are finally looking to turn the tide.

Pearson isn't worried though, telling me she wants to be challenged by more cooks in the kitchen. After all, the series has its legacy and its unique Simsness by its side. "I think our humour is a very particular flavour," she says. "I think there's a lot of puns, there's a lot of parody, there's a very specific flavour of The Sims world, because it is just enough character of our own that I think it's hard to replicate, because it feels very uniquely Sims to us.

"I think the relationship that the players have to their sims, the sims have to each other, is also just really unique in what I've been seeing in a lot of these other things. Now, I haven't played them all, obviously, but I watch them too, and I see what's coming. And I just think that The Sims offers this affinity to these little people because they are just human enough, but just quirky enough.

Pearson talked about The Sims' juxtaposition between crafting realistic people and stories with its more outlandish aspects, like a world filled with vampires and werewolves. "It's a really broad spectrum, and I think what's still very uniquely Sims-y, is that we've created a world where those things feel like they make sense together somehow, which is a very particular flavour. So I think that'll still stay unique to us," she says. "It's still our voice, our vibe."

How the commitment to transparency is going

The Sims as a franchise feels like it's firing on all cylinders at the moment. The Sims 4 isn't going away any time soon, continuing to be peppered with all manner of paid add-ons. There's also the recently-announced Sims Hub, encompassing everything from its core series to mobile game The Sims Freeplay and the slightly confusing Project Rene.

The team committed to better communication around these projects, something which has had mixed results. Confusion around what some upcoming projects are actually supposed to be, along with leaks, has sometimes muddied the message Pearson and the team are trying to send. "It definitely happens in any of these franchises like The Sims, where you have a lot of things happening, you're going to end up with crossed wires occasionally," she said. "I think we are always evolving our communication strategy to try and figure out what is the right way to share the right information at the right time that isn't confusing or misleading."

Pearson added: "You can have the best intentions one year that totally go out the window the next year for completely reasonable reasons, but sharing that path and that journey can be even more complicated sometimes, so it's really trying to find a balance."

Looking to the future

Despite some small snags in communication, it's still full steam ahead for the series. When asked if The Sims 4 would be getting some kind of major overhaul a la World of Warcraft or Runescape anytime soon, Pearson doesn't appear to be super jazzed about such a large-scale undertaking just yet. "We certainly entertain everything," she tells me. "I mean, we talk about all the different paths forward and what makes sense and what to do with The Sims 4 or any of our games."

Pearson said there are "so many different ways" to go about potentially giving The Sims 4 some sort of technical or graphical overhaul, and pointed towards the current ongoing effort to tidy up a decade of lingering bugs through the game's regular laundry lists fixes. "I think it's a question of looking at all those pieces and parts and saying 'Which pieces really need the biggest overhaul? Can we do them in parallel? Do we need to do that fundamental scaffolding?'"

For now, Pearson says the priority is "a continuing audit of what does the game need right now? What is the game going to need in a year or two years? And what is the best way to get to that thing?"

So it doesn't seem like anything major is coming our way yet, but honestly I don't particularly mind. A focus on patching some of the more lingering issues up feels like the best direction to take right now, especially as we could be sticking with The Sims 4 for several more years at this point.

When asked if Pearson had anything else to say, she called working on The Sims series an honour, adding: "I think that The Sims continues to be this kind of funhouse mirror to the world, and that's why it keeps growing and evolving and shifting and changing, and it's certainly one of the reasons that I've been part of it for so long.

"And I think that people, whether you're new to The Sims, or you've been with us all along or for many of these years, there's always something new and different and interesting. Join the community, connect with all of those creatives out there, and you'll learn a bunch of stuff you had no idea was even in the game."

Oddball Finnish life-sim My Summer Car has officially launched out of early access, after nine years spent tinkering with its engine and getting drunk on the sofa.

As noticed by RPS, My Summer Car surprise launched its 1.0 version earlier this week.  Originally lurching onto Steam early access in 2016, My Summer Car defined itself with two key features, namely its preposterous difficulty, and its unrelenting weirdness. It challenged players with building not just a car from scratch, but the engine as well, all while being so dirt poor you’re likely to starve to death before you figure out how to put one of the car’s doors on.

It’s also one of those games that includes a button for having a wee, in part because it dedicates a large portion of its systems to replicating the Finnish drinking culture of pantsdrunk, which, just in case you don’t speak Finnish, refers to the act of drinking in your pants. Other quintessentially Finnish activates you can embark upon include going to the Sauna, going lake fishing with a big crate of beer and, if you can actually get your car up and running, participating in a local rally.

My Summer Car is by no means a game for everyone. In fact, it probably isn’t a game for most people. The new launch trailer openly states "This game is not fun" before proceeding to explain why for over two minutes. Nonetheless, there are clearly enough people out there who jive with its rejection of many video game norms, having garnered a 'Very Positive' Steam rating out of over 77,000 reviews.

Curiously, while My Summer Car has been in development for a long time, it’s also been more or less feature-complete for much of that period. Developer Amistech Games stated My Summer Car was “gearing toward final stages of the development” as far back as 2020, with only small and sporadic updates since. The most recent update’s changelog includes notes such as "Added a splat effect to helmet when getting hit by a Bee" and "Wasp can now come in if House doors are being kept open." Side note, I hate it when Wasp come in House. Hopefully there is a splat effect for Wasp when hit with rolled-up copy of PC Gamer magazine.

That same announcement also tells players to "stay tuned" for updates on My Summer Car’s scarcely referenced sequel My Winter Car, which Amistech says remains "under active development". And while My Summer Car will no longer receive any "major feature changes" players can expect "important patches and changes whenever necessary" in the future.

Maxis told players back in September that we could expect an event in January to kick off the anniversary and said at the time that "there’s so much to look forward to in the coming months, and we just can’t help but share some with you now."

Typically during a Behind The Sims episode we get news about the next DLC kits coming to The Sims 4, updates from The Sims Mobile, and some mention of the upcoming Project Rene. Here's what we know The Sims team has in the works right now that it might talk about during the anniversary celebration:

• A Sims movie from Margot Robbie's production company
• Sims 4 creator kits: DLCs designed in partnership with Sims content creators
• The Sims Labs playtests for new game features
• Project Rene, the multiplayer game that isn't going to be The Sims 5

The announcement itself really doesn't give us much clue as to what to expect. The artwork for the event is all green and navy featuring lots of game characters, and there is a sort of nostalgic 2000s pixel and cartoon vibe to it all. But the accompanying text just says "A very special Behind The Sims is coming! 🥳 🎁"

Here's hoping Maxis has something neat up its sleeve.

The Sims pretty notorious celebrated its 20th anniversary in 2020 with an in-game hot tub that fans were rather let down by. At the risk of being disappointed in the same way all over again, hopefully we can expect some grander plans for this milestone birthday given that Maxis has been prepping us to expect this Behind The Sims event since September.

The past two Behind The Sims videos have been about 15 minutes of updates and announcements, though the inaugural Sims Summit a while back was 30. For the 25th series anniversary, maybe we can expect something towards that longer end.

Because of its exclusivity in the Storybook Vale DLC, Pegasus can be an elusive animal companion to track down. They aren't like rabbits or squirrels which will frequently run around the Plaza or Peaceful Meadow all day every day. Instead, you'll need to head to four specific locations within the Storybook Vale depending on which variation you want to befriend. When you have tracked them down though, here's what you need to do to start your friendship.

How to feed Pegasus in Disney Dreamlight Valley

You need to feed pegasus +4 Star vegetable-based meals if you want to befriend them. Unlike a lot of animals that you can feed crops or forageables to, you need to put in some extra work for the winged horses. These dishes can be any +4 star meals including vegetables, like tasty salad, gazpacho, or greek pizza. We've tested these three, so we know for certain they can be used. You can always try cheffing something up with whatever is in your storage and seeing if that works too.

This unlock isn't instant either. You'll need to consistently feed your chosen pegasus for a number of days before you'll gain a new companion. Blue, yellow, and pink ponies need to be fed for three days, whereas the peach pegasus needs to be fed for four days. Make sure that you've got plenty of ingredients or meals cooked so you don't have to keep running back to Remy's restaurant or your house, and you'll gain a new friend in no time.

Where to find Pegasus in Disney Dreamlight Valley

Pegasus can only be found in the Storybook Vale DLC. Once you're in the Vale, you'll also need access to Mythopia. Four variations of pegasus spawn across Mythopia, so if you're not picky on which colour you'd like as your companion then you're free to wander around, but if you want to unlock a specific one then you'll need to know where to head. All information on the pegasus' whereabouts can be found under the critter tab in your collections menu just in case you ever forget where you're heading, but our table below also breaks it down.

Nvidia's demo video on the Smart Zoi system walks through the day of a character with a "considerate" personality showing how they might independently decide to help someone lost with directions or give food to a hungry stranger. Then at the end of the day the Zoi adjusts their own daily schedule of activities based on the experiences they had that day.

I admit there is a real allure as a life sim player. Over years with The Sims series players have sussed out so much under-the-hood logic that the idea of a sandbox with simulated characters who could actually do something we don't expect is pretty exciting.

Inzoi's game director Hyungjun "Kjun" Kim shared some of his own thoughts on the tech in the game's official Discord server yesterday.

"Traditionally, NPCs in games operate using a rule-based system, where their behaviors are entirely scripted and predictable," Kjun says. "However, as we continued to evolve this system, we were able to partner with NVIDIA to incorporate an on-device AI solution known as Small Language Model (SLM).

"With SLM, these new 'Smart Zois' gain an extraordinary depth. They can develop inner thoughts about interactions and situations they’ve experienced, creating additional layers of insight about themselves and other Zois. By embedding this AI into their behaviors, we’ve created Zois that act with individuality, which not only makes their actions feel more natural but also adds a deeply immersive element to the inZOI experience."

Presumably this means that your Inzoi save could surround your played Zoi with other characters constantly changing and adapting in a way that feels more lived in—something that The Sims has tried to achieve with its Neighborhood Stories feature.

Kjun says that the end of day adjustment feature already works "remarkably well," adding that "it’s a joy to see a Zoi grow and develop its own personality, becoming more distinct with each passing day." He does otherwise note that the AI will sometimes produce wonky results and that optimization of GPU use is still needed.

Also worth spotting is that Inzoi will detail the reasons that a Smart Zoi made a particular choice, like: "Calmly offering directions to a lost person with clarity and empathy is well-suited to this considerate Zoi."

The explanations for actions shown do all still have that immediately clockable AI cadence that sounds like a student thesaurus BS-ing through an essay for a book they didn't read. That does make me wonder if Smart Zois will be reactive in a way that's actually interesting, or if it's just a more computationally intensive way to achieve the exact same weirdness that sandbox life sim NPCs have always had.

It is generally an interesting mashup of what we'd have traditionally called "AI" for NPCs with a generative text model. Of any place to try it out, a life sim seems like a good candidate—though Krafton is also experimenting with AI PUBG teammates. It's not the only way that Inzoi is experimenting with AI either. The dev team demoed generative art features for creating clothing patterns and a way to turn photos of objects into 3D game models to decorate with.

As for what the feature will look like at launch, Kjun says it may not be fully implemented yet and that Krafton is considering giving players the option to test it as an experimental feature.

You can catch up on more tech announcements and other news from our team on the ground at CES 2025.

He's hardly the only one who's struggled to move on from a hit game. His story echoes that of Terraria developers Andrew "Redigit" Spinks and ReLogic, who keep making that game's "last" update only to make yet another huge one every time. I'm also reminded of George Lucas' famous inability to quit messing with Star Wars, although the controversial film re-releases aren't quite the same thing as well-received Stardew Valley additions and bug fixes—I don't think anyone's really complaining in this case.

I imagine it was especially satisfying for Barone to squash the harvesting bug back in March: If you missed that one, it turns out left-to-right harvesting had been 100ms faster than right-to-left harvesting for the past eight years. It was a tiny error that most people never noticed, but I bet someone out there was being driven mad by it this whole time.

I've never spent years updating a hit game, but it's easy to relate to the cycle of fixing, tweaking, building, and rebuilding that can turn any project into a forever project. Every time you fix one thing, you notice something else that could use improvement, and each addition generates ideas for more possible additions. Legend has it that turn-of-the-century eccentric Sarah Winchester had workers continuously add rooms to her bizarre California mansion for decades to confuse vengeful spirits, but I think she just kept noticing walls that would look better with doors on them, and it all got out of control.

And, of course, Barone has Stardew Valley's immense popularity to contend with.

"Stardew Valley is a big and popular game, and I have a lot of attachment to it," Barone said earlier this month. "I also feel a strong sense of duty and obligation to all the people who have bought Stardew Valley over the years, granting me this rare opportunity to be an indie game developer. So it's hard to 'let go' of Stardew, even temporarily, to work on something that isn't already established and meaningful to people."

Despite his choice not to let go of Stardew just yet, it doesn't sound like Haunted Chocolatier is in danger of being put on the back-burner for eternity. Barone said he's got "essentially a skeleton of the game with most (not all) of its bones in place" and has reassured fans that the game is "still going to be a thing." How soon it'll become a thing is another question, but we can always play more Stardew in the meantime. The big 1.6 update went out in March—patch notes here if you missed 'em—and by November we were at version 1.6.9, which made even more additions. 

If Moore's Law predicts that the number of transistors on an integrated circuit will double every two years then we should go ahead and coin Barone's law saying that the number of games like Stardew Valley launching doubles every year. As the farm sim contender count continues to rise, it gets harder and harder for me to separate wheat from chaff but each year there's always one really standout farmlife sim and in 2024 it was the early access for Fields of Mistria. 

Even in early access, Mistria has been incredibly in touch with its roots. I already had high hopes for Fields of Mistria when I found out about its dual inspirations of '90s farm sims and magical girl anime. The townie-focused stories of romance and revitalization in farm sims are a perfect pairing with the trope-y character archetypes of pre-millenium anime. 

It begins as genre convention demands: Your customized farmer arrives in town to take over an old property that needs some serious TLC. You'll meet all the local townies like the grocery owner (Holt and Nora), carpenter (Ryis), blacksmith (March and Olric), and rancher (Hayden) all ready to help you upgrade your gear and property so you can dump all your profits right back into the local economy. 

After playing more of them than I care to count, I've found that so many farm sims start with a cool concept but fumble their fundamentals like overly long chopping animations or clunky menus. Mistria fires on all cylinders immediately. Tool interactions are snappy fast, the interface is visually appealing, and the story introduction doesn't drag on with too much dialogue. 

Moments into playing I realized just how much Mistria is a farm simmer's farm sim, incorporating all sorts of features that Stardew Valley players have long considered must-have mods like seeing NPC locations on their map or being able to jump over fences instead of walking around them.

But more than just quality-of-life improvements to genre staples, Mistria brings some genuine little moments of glee. I remember nearly kicking my feet squealing when I first noticed that the mysterious dragon statue on my property has a relationship meter that's a heart instead of a normal relationship gem? We still don't know what's up with that but the fervor to find out is second only to everyone chanting and begging to romance March's brother Olric.

Another favorite feature of mine is animal breeding. Not many farm sims go in on playing with genetics with your livestock and I love how simple but rewarding Mistria makes it. There aren't lengthy stats for farm animals, just colors, but there are so many colors that I've been obsessed with figuring out the combinations that will unlock all the different variants like red chickens, or blue-spotted cows. I can't wait to start breeding rare rabbits. It's another example of just how finely-tuned Mistria is in finding features that are obvious catnip to farm sim players and giving just enough depth to them without turning any one aspect of the game into a slog.

All that clarity of design would have been wasted if Mistra weren't also completely confident in its personality. Fields of Mistria is so intimately in touch with its roots, both the classic farm sims it's emulating and the magical girl anime of the '90s. It's so rare for a game that wears its inspirations on its sleeve like this not to get mired in reproduction but Mistria deftly hops over that pitfall too.

Mistria's characters could have come off as flat callbacks to anime of yore but its characters are all so much more than sale rack Sailor Moon. Standoffish blacksmith March has an archetypal aversion to your player character but he isn't just one note: letting loose with a few drinks at the Friday night gathering at the inn. Mistria's other characters are equally easy to pigeonhole at first glance but all open up a lot more as the seasons progress. One of the ruling family twins Eiland seems shallow and foppish initially but has a genuine interest in archaeology and a stubborn streak when it comes to pursuing Mistria's historical secrets.

Those personalities come out even more in my favorite weekly tradition: Friday night Dungeons and Drama sessions. The whole town gathers at the inn each week, separating out into different social activities of which the most amusing is the weekly tabletop RPG session. Eiland begins as a beleaguered DM ("drama manager") initially as the group contends with stat dumpers, new players, and murderous rampages. But as the seasons progress the campaign ends, giving Eiland his turn on the player side of the table while Balor the merchant relishes the opportunity to surprise everyone with twist character reveals.

Mistria isn't some masterclass in dialogue writing, nor is it even something that reminded me of why I love a great fantasy novel the way Roadwarden did in 2022, but the way its characters speak and interact feels right at every moment. It toes the line between sincerity and hokey the way that the great anime of the '90s it's emulating also can.

Fields of Mistria recently got its first major update with new relationship cutscenes for its characters and other additions but it does have a ways to go yet to go before it arrives at a 1.0 launch. That's expected to be sometime next year, according to its developer. Until then though, Mistria has already been the best farm sim of my year by a country mile.

As shared by Stardew developer Eric "ConcernedApe" Barone on social media, Stardew's latest update has rolled out on PC, Android, and iOS—console players, sadly, must wait a bit longer for a fix on their nastiest bug: The one where you can't get divorced without crashing the game. Sorry about that one. Suffer on, I guess.

The patch contains just one balance change: Legendary fish ponds now produce roe much more often. Which seems right. They're ponds with legendary fish. Less roe doesn't seem very legendary, does it?

March of 2024 had a superb delivery for Stardew fans: The surprising and surprisingly huge Stardew Valley 1.6 update that added all manner of stuff, from drinking mayonnaise to a new kind of farm and three new festivals and eight-person multiplayer and new late-game content and, and, and. A lot, really.

Which of course meant that even though Barone figured he was done, well, he added a bunch of new stuff last month anyway in the 1.6.9 patch. Which fits with how he said he "could work on it for the rest of my life" shortly afterward.

Anyway, I'm sure that after perusing all that you'll not be very surprised to learn that this week PC Gamer gave Stardew Valley its Best Ongoing Game award for 2024.

"Our favourite game to return to was one that has never asked for more money: No FOMO, no DLC, not even a microtransaction in sight. It's just a wildly popular game that keeps getting bigger and better," said global editor-in-chief Phil Savage.

Last month, Maxis founder, The Sims creator, and one of the Great Elders of PC gaming, released a teaser trailer for his new game Proxi. The game could be described as a memory-focused life sim, as you flesh out the inner lives of your avatars (Proxies) by typing up their memories, which you can then play out in animated scenes within your "mind world."

Wright revealed more about the game in a stream on BreakthroughT1D's Twitch channel, which we partly covered yesterday, and expanded on the kind of things you'll get up to in Proxi. He gave some examples of the interesting scenarios that Proxis memory creation system could throw up, and, in a soundbite for the ages, said: "I could have an amazing dinner party between Cleopatra, Napoleon, and Da Vinci, or I could have a cage match between Cleopatra and my grandmother."

The way this will work, in theory, is that players create vast community-built entries for their Proxies, 'almost like Wikipedia pages,' that expand a character's well of memories, which in turn informs how they behave in the game world. "There might be 100 people building the Wikipedia entries for Cleopatra… and have Cleopatra as a character in the game," said Wright. The description on one of the slides for the game read 'Trained with your memories, expanded with AI,' so it looks like some degree of AI learning will be applied to the memory banks to help realise a given Proxi's personality in-game.

The Proxies you'll be able to create can be entirely fictional, or based on historical figures, or even on family members. One of the co-hosts talked about how they were researching the life of their late grandmother with their family, and how interesting it would've been had they been able to gather this person's memories and stories, then apply them to this Proxi in the game. "That, to me, becomes almost like a software heirloom, something that you treasure like an old box of photos," said Wright.

What you actually do in a gaming sense in Proxi still remains a bit of a mystery. It looks like Proxies interact with each other in a hex-based world, and you'll apparently be able to create mini-games and export your Proxis to other games, but how does it all fit together? Still not sure. But hey, this is coming from a guy who made a pretty convincing ant simulator, as well as Spore, a game where you evolve a species from a single-cell amoeba to space-faring super race. High-concept 'how will he make this work?' sims are Wright's whole wheelhouse, and he hasn't let us down yet. 

One topic that came up is an element of The Sims that is still a bit perplexing, even for those who have been playing for years: how is it that everyday activities like washing dishes and using the bathroom—typically boring affairs in real life—are somehow fun when you do them inside The Sims?

"I've always believed you can take almost anything, I could just take a rock off the ground, and make a game about that rock," Wright said. "It might be little microbes growing across the surface, going through the seasons, all sorts of things. If you zoom into the right scale of space and time, I'm sure I could make a pretty cool game about a rock."

That could explain why doing chores like paying bills and mopping floors is enjoyable in The Sims, but Wright pointed out that the unexciting routine of The Sims busywork can also be appealing for people whose lives are genuinely chaotic.

"A very famous pop star in Germany, kinda like Britney Spears-level, we heard she was a big Sims fan," Wright said. "She was a workaholic, she would go from concert to concert to concert."

This pop star's only downtime was while she was being transported between shows, and that was when she'd play The Sims. "I asked her, 'tell me what your life is like in The Sims' and she said 'Oh, it is so boring, it's wonderful.'" Wright said. "A mundane life, getting up, having a routine, that was her fantasy."

Unfortunately, Wright didn't spill the beans on who the actual pop star is, saying "I forget her name." But we can always speculate, right? I don't think Nena (99 Luft Balloons) was still a big deal in 2000 when the first Sims game launched—in fact I think the band broke up around 1990. And unfortunately, Nena is about where my knowledge of German pop music begins and ends. If you have any other (better) guesses, I'd love to hear them.

In Proxi, you type in a memory (for example, a trip you took with a college buddy) and the game turns that memory into an animated scene. As you create more memory scenes they're added to your "mind world," a 3D environment you can explore and play games in. The people who are part of your memories (like that college buddy you told Proxi about) will populate the world as "proxies" that you can interact and play games with.

"I don't remember when I first thought of [Proxi]," Wright said on the stream. "I think it's more like an idea that was percolating for a long time. Obviously it has a lot of relationship to The Sims."

Case in point: as Twitch hosts Arielehm and Emily Morganti played The Sims 2 on the stream, the character of Mortimer Goth got frightened by the ghost of Victor Goth (Mortimer's dead relative) after visiting the graveyard. Using the memories panel, the hosts could see that Mortimer retained that memory, along with other important events and milestones from his life.

Wright explained why he wanted Proxi to be a more personal experience by using the real memories of its players. "I found myself getting continuously closer and closer to the player," Wright said."Kind of a saying I've lived by, which is that no game designer has ever gone wrong by overestimating the narcissism of their players."

As the hosts laughed, Wright explained further: "It goes to figure that the more I can make a game about you, the more you'll like it," he said, chuckling.

Wright said all this rather playfully, but look, he's not wrong: I've created versions of myself in just about any game that will let me, including every one of Wright's The Sims games. Hell, I've bought games, created myself in the character creator, and then never even bothered to play the actual game.

Thing is, I usually create myself in games so that I can have an adventure I wouldn't have in real life, so I'm not entirely sold on the idea of creating myself and then immediately saddling this digital version of me with the same memories I'm already carrying around in my big dumb head. But who knows? Maybe I'm just self-absorbed enough to recreate not just myself in Proxi, but my memories too.

The only thing you'll have to spend money on to make Mushroom Pizza is cheese. Generally, any artisanal ingredients you need to buy from Remy's pantry in Disney Dreamlight Valley are on the more expensive end of the scale. But that's the only thing you'll need to fork out for. Here's everything you need to make a Mushroom Pizza of your own:

How to make Mushroom Pizza in Disney Dreamlight Valley

Mushroom Pizza is a four-star recipe in Disney Dreamlight Valley, so it only requires 4 ingredients. Here's what you'll need:

• 1 x Wheat
• 1 x Tomato
• 1 x Mushroom
• 1 x Cheese

You can sell Mushroom Pizza for 351 Star Coins, or consume it for a boost of +831 energy. Given most of its ingredients are cheap and easy to come by, minus the cheese, it can be a good way to make some money quickly or use up some of the crops you've got lying around taking up precious storage space.

Where to find ingredients for Mushroom Pizza

Wheat and tomatoes are the ingredients that will actually require a little work for this recipe, but even those are straightforward to grow. Wheat seeds take one minute to grow and can be purchased from Goofy's Stall in the Peaceful Meadow for 1 Star Coin, and tomato seeds can be bought from Goofy's Stall in Dazzle Beach for 8 Star Coins. If you don't want to wait 25 minutes for your tomatoes to grow, you can also buy the crop from the stall in Dazzle Beach for 33 Star Coins.

Mushrooms grow in the Glade of Trust, where ten mushrooms spawn at a time so you'll never be in short supply. The only place you can buy cheese is from Remy's pantry in his restaurant. It'll cost you 180 Star Coins, which is pretty pricey in comparison to the other ingredients needed for the recipe but it'll be worth it if Mushroom Pizza is one of your villager's favourite gifts for the day.

Given you have the Sew Delightful update already installed, you'll receive a letter in your mailbox giving you some vague clues as to how you can invite Sally to your valley. Before you can unlock Sally you need:

• Level 10 friendship with Scar, Elsa, Moana, and Mickey
• Merlin's Odds & Ends quest completed
• Level 10 friendship with Jack Skellington
• Mirabel's first friendship quest completed

Getting to level 10 friendship with Scar, Elsa, Moana, and Mickey is the prerequisite for the Merlin's Odds and Ends quest you need to have completed.. It's very late-game stuff, so if you're a new player it will be a while before you'll stumble across Sally. You'll also need a level 10 friendship with Jack Skellington, like how you needed level 10 friendship with Simba to unlock Timone and Pumba. You'll also need to have Mirabel's first friendship quest completed. Once you've done this, it's time to start the process of unlocking Sally.

How to unlock Sally in Disney Dreamlight Valley

When you hit level 10 friendship with Jack Skellington, you'll get a second letter initiating the start of the unlock quest, "A Delightful Surprise." This letter explains that Kristoff and Anna have an infestation of spiders in their house which Jack wants you to capture and bring to him. Before you enter the house, you'll be prompted to speak to Kristoff, who explains that the same thing is happening in Vanellope, Remy, and Mirabel's houses.

When you enter Kristoff and Anna's castle, you'll see three spiderwebs scattered around. You'll collect them by interacting with them. When you take the spiderwebs back to Jack, he'll explain that the spiders are spelling a message but he needs more. So, head to Vanellope, Remy, and Mirabel's houses to collect the rest. There are three spiderwebs in each house, and due to their size, they are very easy to see from the moment you walk into the house. When you've collected them all, take them back to Jack.

He'll explain that Sally has sent the spiders and is trying to communicate with Jack from a different dimension, similar to unlocking Minnie Mouse which you do pretty early on in Dreamlight Valley's main story. As you can imagine, the next part of the quest is creating the portal to welcome Sally back into the valley. But, Jack asks you to create a potion to help the tired spiders before you can do that.

How to craft the Arachnid Rejuvenation potion

The Arachnid Rejuvenation potion is your final step toward unlocking Sally. To craft it, you'll need the following items:

• 1 x Empty Vial
• 1 x Blueberry Pie
• 4 x Red Bell Flower
• 4 x Night Shard
• 6 x Cotton
• 8 x Mushroom

An empty vial can be crafted with three glass, and a blueberry pie requires a blueberry, one wheat, and one butter. These are the hardest parts to collect of this potion since they need a little more than items found around the valley. Once they are out of the way, you can focus on growing cotton or foraging mushrooms from the Glade of Trust and Bell Flowers from the Forest of Valor.

Once you've crafted your potion, take it to Jack Skellington and he'll add some other bits to it just to make sure it works. He'll then ask you to drop it in the cauldron in his house, which will immediately trigger the 'Welcome Sally' cutscene. If you meet her by the well in the Plaza, she'll call for Jack and you can watch them both reunite. Then, you'll finally invite Sally to your valley.

Instead of inheriting a dumpy old farm from a relative, as is so often the case in life sims, in Lou's Lagoon you're given a seaplane delivery service. Instead of chopping down trees you'll be soaring above them as you explore the islands of a colorful archipelago. I'm in! Here's a look at the trailer:

Having your own seaplane sounds cool enough already, but that's just one of your toys in Lou's Lagoon. You'll also have a glider for exploring, a fishing rod for, well, fishing, and something much cooler than a pickaxe to gather materials:

"With your trusty vacuum (aka The Swirler 2000) by your side, explore the diverse islands of the Limbo Archipelago, collecting and harvesting resources, and crafting valuable goods to deliver to your customers in your faithful seaplane," says developer Tiny Roar.

"Your seaplane is your key to the islands of Limbo, and can be upgraded and expanded as the success of your delivery venture grows. There are also minigames designed to test your mettle—from races to obstacle courses, and more!"

It sounds great and looks great, though I should mention that you've inherited this seaplane because your uncle, um... well, he disappeared. But I'm sure he's fine! Probably. And with your plane, glider, and trusty Swirler 2000, you've got lots of tools at your disposal to track him down. Lou's Lagoon doesn't have a release date yet, but you can't check out its page on Steam.

That's not all either, there's one pretty significant selling point for me—you're a cute little animal you get to create at the start of the game and you're helping other cute little animals throughout the journey. From what we've seen, rather than picking a premade animal and colouring, you'll get to customise everything down to the ears. I'll immediately be trying to recreate something as close to an opossum as I can, but I'm excited to find out what cutesy combinations I can pull together.

Even though Locomoto has been on my radar for a little while, and I've spent a completely normal amount of time looking at the screenshots available on the Steam page, it's nice to see the world spring to life In the world premiere trailer shown at the Wholesome Snack showcase. This trailer gives us our first look at the world in motion, including an insight into interactions between you and the passengers of your train, and the decorating aspects, which is very Animal Crossing-esque by the looks of things.

In true cozy game fashion, you'll get to customise your experience by redecorating your entire train. Whether it's making everything pink and pastel, or filling each carriage with houseplants and greenery, you'll get to create the sort of train you wouldn't mind paying extortionate ticket prices to ride. I'm sure we haven't seen the full extent of this aspect since all we're going off is screenshots and a premiere trailer, but this is definitely the part I'm most excited to get stuck into.

In addition, gone are the days of needing a weighty handbook to help you know what to do when driving a train. This game is by no means the next train conductor simulator, but I think its simple premise and design is what makes it so appealing. Because of this simplicity, more attention can be put on the more relaxing, decorative, and relationship-building aspects of Locomoto.

Unfortunately, we don't know when exactly we'll be able to sink ourselves into Locomoto, other than that it's coming next year. Hopefully as 2025 rolls in we'll steam closer to a more specific release date, but I think I'd be satisfied getting a deeper look at character and carriage customisations for now.

Little Rocket Lab, from developer Teenage Astronauts and published by No More Robots, looks like the best of both worlds: a factory builder constructed inside a cozy life sim. Revealed today at Wholesome Snack, in Little Rocket Lab you'll step into the work boots of Morgan, an engineer who likes tinkering, helping out the locals, and has dreams of constructing her very own rocket ship. Take a look at the trailer:

There's a lot to like here: small projects to enhance the town like fixing up a lighthouse, huge assembly lines to sort materials and build products, a robot that looks like a giant toaster on legs you can ride around, and a faithful dog that follows you everywhere.

I'm especially curious about the claw that seems to be transporting a citizen across a river by picking them up… by the head. As public transportation goes, it looks uncomfortable. But efficient!

"Outside of smashing together crazy contraptions, you'll need to mine out resources, explore coasts, railyards, quarries and underground areas—and get some help from a few mechanical friends along the way," says publisher No More Robots. "And each area of the town provides different challenges, incorporating electrical elements, water, cranes, furnaces, crafting, automation through robotics, and loads more."

It all looks pretty delightful, not just from a builder's perspective but from a life sim standpoint, because you're helping the town out with your little inventions while also constructing a huge dang rocketship in a massive hangar. Little Rocket Lab is coming to Steam in 2025, and you can sign up to playtest on the official site.

Stardew Valley's 1.6 update was originally meant to be mainly a technical update, but Barone said it "kind of snowballed" once he started adding new content. He's stuck with it since the release of the update on PC in March, saying he's "been heavily involved with bug fixing, porting, and more," all of which have kept him from Haunted Chocolatier.

"It’s been a little sad to see Haunted Chocolatier getting dusty on the shelf," Barone wrote, "but this is the reality of my situation. Stardew Valley is a big and popular game, and I have a lot of attachment to it. I also feel a strong sense of duty and obligation to all the people who have bought Stardew Valley over the years, granting me this rare opportunity to be an indie game developer. So it’s hard to 'let go' of Stardew, even temporarily, to work on something that isn’t already established and meaningful to people."

Still, Barone said he has "a strong desire to make more games," and even though little of it has been seen publicly, he's grown very attached to Haunted Chocolatier's "characters, themes, and ideas." And significant work on the game has already been completed, culminating in a vertical slice he described as "essentially a skeleton of the game with most (not all) of its bones in place."

A lot of work remains to build it out from there, but Barone said he doesn't mind—"I'm addicted to the grind"—and he's not going to change the processes that worked so well for him on Stardew Valley. Along with the actual development of the game, that also means there will be no early access period, crowdfunding, or preorders, "so I don’t feel a ton of external pressure to finish the game on a timeline." That doesn't mean he won't share insights into Haunted Chocolatier's development, but only when the urge strikes, or if he's got something particularly cool to show off.

Barone acknowledged that the update repeats a lot of points he's made previously—Barone said back in August that he had "not touched Haunted Chocolatier in a long time" because he was focused on Stardew's 1.6 update—but said he "wanted to check in with all of you, let you know that Haunted Chocolatier is still going to be a thing, and re-affirm some of the stuff I’ve said before."

"I look forward to sharing this new world with you," Barone wrote. "When it's ready."

The brain behind both The Stanley Parable and The Beginner's Guide admitted the creation of those games left him "unbelievably burned out," which led to his desire to make a cosy game his next venture: "Something simple and peaceful that could heal me and restore balance to my life."

Turns out that wasn't quite so simple, as these things rarely are, and Wreden admits he found himself in that all-too-familiar stress zone. "So very slowly, piece by piece, I began taking elements of my burnout and my feelings of hopelessness and I just put them right into the game's narrative."

As a result, Wanderstop is less the all-encompassing fuzzy feelings you usually find in similar games, and instead the tale of a broken woman enveloped in an environment that just may well heal her. Protagonist Alta is a former tournament fighter turned tea master, running a shop and brewing some comforting cups for the customers who visit. Wreden explains that Alta is a little unlike your usual cosy protagonists in that she doesn't really want to be there initially, though I suspect that may change as the teahouse's patrons and surrounding townsfolk are bound to soften her up as time goes on.

Wanderstop seems to be just as much about Wreden's healing journey as it is about Alta's: "Healing is messy, and it is bitter, and I want to know how to do it," he said during the trailer. "I want to believe it's possible to leave your old self behind and become someone new. Someone better than I am. Someone more capable of rest and calm and inner peace. But god, it's so, so hard to do."

It's all a rather emotional message, and I can sense just how much of Wreden's personal anxieties have been poured into creating Wanderstop from the two-minute trailer alone. What was originally intended to be an escape from burnout has become an entire narrative about it, one I'm sure anyone in any vaguely creative sector will feel to their core.

It feels like a game coming straight from the heart, and I can't wait to dive in. I already didn't need much convincing as a cosy game sicko who loves a good teahouse or cafe backdrop, but throwing in Wreden's exploration of creative burnout on top of all that has sealed this game as something I think will be truly special.

Wanderstop is set to release in March 2025, and you can wishlist the game on Steam right now.

The first thing you'll need is access to Eternity Isle, and the Ancient Lands. Otherwise, you'll be running around the Valley looking for a material that doesn't exist. You shouldn't need any plastic scrap until you already have access to Eternity Isle, so don't worry. But if you do, head straight to the Ancient Lands biome so we can guide you to where you'll find some. 

Where to find Plastic Scrap 

Fishing in the Ancient Lands biome is the best place to start looking for plastic scrap. Similar to finding seaweed in the Valley, you'll want to target areas of the water that don't have bubbles or ripples since plastic scrap doesn't spawn in the same way fish do. The only downside to fishing where there are no bubbles is there's no guarantee you'll get plastic scrap. Fishing in these open spaces could result in seaweed, carp, or scrap, so you could be waiting a while before you reap the reward you want. 

However, if you want a guaranteed way to get plastic scrap, you'll need to unlock Merlin's Village Project: Timeless Trash quest. Within this mission, you'll be required to make a potion for your shove which allows you to dig up piles of rubble around the biome. As you dig these piles of rubble up, you'll get a mixture of soil and plastic scrap as a reward. 

The potion can be crafted with 500 mist and 10 pearls, but this will be added to your quest list when you unlock it so you won't have to memorise it until then. Much like the method of fishing up plastic scrap, this can only be done in the Ancient Lands biome, so don't spend time trekking around the valley or the vale looking for rubble. 

Gingerbread Houses can also be used as part of the seasonal challenge "Cookie Taste Test" found under the Dreamlight duties tab. This challenge tasks you with eating three types of cookie, and Gingerbread House definitely falls under that category. Plus, it's a perfect recipe to place around your valley during the holiday season as a decoration. 

Gingerbread house recipe in Dreamlight Valley 

This is what you need to make a Gingerbread House: 

• 1x Wheat
• 1 x Sugarcane
• 1 x Ginger
• 1 x Vanilla
• 1 x Egg

A Gingerbread House sells for 545 Star Coins at Goofy's Stall, or restores 1,460+ energy when eaten. You'll more than likely need one for the Cookie Taste Test Dreamlight Duty if you haven't already completed it for the year. So if you're not using it as a decoration around the valley then it's best to keep one in storage just in case.  

Where to find gingerbread house ingredients 

Ginger and vanilla are the easiest ingredients to find as these can be foraged around the valley. Ginger is slightly more elusive since it can be found in the Forgotten Lands, which is probably the last realm you'll unlock in the base game. Vanilla, on the other hand, spawn in the Sunlit Plateau so it's pretty easy to come across. 

Sugarcane can be purchased from Goofy's Stall on Dazzle Beach as a harvested crop for 29 Star Coins, or you can buy the seeds for 5 Star Coins. Wheat is similar, but you'll need to head to the Peaceful Meadow to either buy the crop for 3 Star Coins or the seeds for 1 Star Coins. 

Finally, the only place you'll be able to buy eggs are from Remy's pantry at the back of his restaurant. These are the most expensive ingredient of the recipe, since they'll cost you 220 Star Coins. But, it'll be worth it for the 293 Star Coin profit from selling a Gingerbread House, or 319 Star Coins if you decide to grow your own crops.

The valley is home to critters like raccoons and rabbits, but when you venture further the world of animal companions grows. In The Storybook Vale, there are three new animal companions: baby dragons, baby winged horses, and owls. Owls are the first of these three animal companions you'll meet, and their dietary preferences are a little more exclusive to their location, which makes them a bit more difficult to befriend. Here's what you need to know.

How to feed owls in Disney Dreamlight Valley 

Owls'  favourite food is barley, though they'll also settle for any other grain like wheat or rice. You can buy barley seeds from Goofy's stall in The Bind in Storybook Vale for 15 Star Coins, which will take 15 minutes to grow. If you're getting ready to tame an owl companion as quickly as possible, I'd advise growing a crop of several barley plants since you'll need to feed an owl for multiple days in a row before it becomes your friend. 

Having barley on hand will also stop you from having to run between Goofy's stall and your farm each day and risk losing sight of the owl you want to befriend. The brown and purple owls will need 2 days of feeding before you unlock them as animal companions, whereas the dark and light owls take 4 days before they fully trust you. Luckily, they're easy creatures to track down so you won't have to run around looking for them each day. 

Where to find owls in Disney Dreamlight Valley 

You'll be able to find the purple owl and the light owl anywhere in The Bind, but if you'd rather go for the brown owl or dark owl, your best bet is loitering around the Library of Lore and the walkway leading up to it from where your boat docks. Both the brown owl and the purple owl will spawn around the Library of Lore and The Bind at any time of day all week, but the dark and light owl are a little bit more elusive. 

The light owl still spawns every day, but only between 3 pm and 8 pm, and the dark owl will spawn in the Library of Lore at any time of the day but only on Saturdays and Sundays. Both owls also need to be fed barley for four days before you will unlock them as a companion, so you really need to put the work in. It's a lot to remember, but the whereabouts and timings of each owl can also be found under the critter tab in your collections menu. 

Story Magic works similarly to how Dreamlight does in the base game. As you make your way around the Vale, you need to collect a certain amount depending on what you're trying to unlock. You'll need 500 Story Magic to remove the first wall of ink, for instance. Basically, if you know the grind of farming Dreamlight, getting ahold of Story Magic throughout The Storybook Vale will not be a new experience for you. 

How to get Story Magic in Disney Dreamlight Valley 

Story Magic is rewarded for completing Storybook Duties, which are available under the Dreamlight menu. Usually, this is where you'll find your Dreamlight Duties. But, when in the Vale, your Dreamlight Duties will automatically change into Storybook Duties, so you won't have to worry about toggling between different menus to get the correct rewards. For the most part these duties are the same as Dreamlight Duties, like catching a number of fish or feeding the local wildlife, but have a twist to make them exclusive to the Vale. Gone are the days of chasing down raccoons, it's time to feed owls and baby dragons. 

The quickest way to get the most Story Magic is completing duties like catching fish, mining rock spots, and feeding the wildlife. These duties usually offer around 100-200 Story Magic a pop, so it's best to hit them as soon as you can. Of course, the more duties you do the more likely you are to get big hitters like these rolling back around, so it's best to keep an eye on what chores you have available each time you complete one. 

In addition to this, a Storybook Vale tab has been added to the left panel of the Dreamlight tab. These duties take a little more effort than your quickfire Storybook duties, but you'll no doubt breeze through a few of the first pillars like catching snippets and removing inkies as you start the game. The further you go, the higher the requirements for completing these challenges will be. But, most of the time I forget about checking them until I've accidentally completed one and can reap the rewards anyway.