Sims 4 Announces Outdoor Retreat – The First “Game Pack”
I haven’t blogged much about Sims 4, but I’ve been overall pleased with the game and with the extra free content they’ve offered us since release. To start, the team has given us a number of things that the community felt were removed from the base game – ghosts, pools and some standard careers. They’ve also provided free holiday packs for Halloween and Christmas with outfits, items and clothing.
The devs have just announced the first new “Game Pack,” which is something we haven’t seen before. In terms of content, the Game Pack is larger and more feature-rich than the old Sims 3 stuff packs, but smaller than a full-blown expansion. The cost of this digital DLC runs about $20, which was the price for the old stuff packs.
A bit of history for me. I’ve been a simmer since the very first base game was released. I own every expansion for every game in some form or another. However, when the Sims started spinning off stuff packs, that’s where I drew the line. The was no way I was paying $20 for a handful of clothes, maybe some hair, and some decorations or items. I could get all that (sometimes even better) from the modding community!
I also never ponied up for buying the individual items in the Sims 3 store. I always felt that content was way overpriced when I could get the equivalent (often better looking) for free from the community modders. So, I never got on board with the Sims store – I even have some of the free currency in my account that I never found a reason to use. It was all just way too expensive!
My feeling on the idea of Game Packs, however, is fairly positive. The description of the kind of content in Outdoor Retreat – a new world, new interactable items, new group interactions, etc – seems to be the amount of features that fits the price point. I like that the team can focus on content in smaller chunks, but chunks that feel worthwhile to purchase. As far as I’ve understood, the Game Packs will not take the place of expansions, which is another positive.
I’m still in wait-and-see mode with the whole thing, but I’m looking forward to hearing where this is going.