The Sims 5 is the next installment in The Sims series and there are many features fans would like included. Check out this ultimate Sims 5 wishlist for The Sims 5 gameplay and features. Hopefully, developers at EA will listen to fans and take on lessons from past Sims games like The Sims 3 and The Sims 4. Many fans are still only playing The Sims 3 and there is huge potential for The Sims 5 to be great.
Make The Sims 5 base game inclusive of features like pools, toddlers, Pets, and Seasons
This one should be a given after the backlash for The Sims 4 not including toddlers or pools initially. The Sims 5 should include at the very least pools and toddlers in the life stages. But in addition, it would be amazing to see pets and seasons included in The Sims 5 base game because they are pretty basic aspects of real life. EA argued that toddlers and pools weren’t initially released as part of The Sims 4 base game due to not being ready. Well, guess what? If it’s not ready don’t release the game rather than release a fractured base game.
Seasons and Pets are two of the most loved expansion packs for The Sims and no doubt money makers for EA. For that reason as well as development, The Sims 5 Pets and Seasons would most likely release in expansion packs. That might not be the worst thing for Sims fans as long as EA makes both expansion packs in-depth, addresses fans wishes for both expansion packs, and don’t split the expacs into stuff packs. However, it would still be nice to see The Sims 5 include dynamic weather and make The Sims 5 Seasons expansion more about the holiday destinations.
More customization for Sims, wardrobe, and decorating – bring back create-a-style
While other areas like emotions got more fine-tuned and realistic in The Sims 4, customization took a nose dive. The Sims 5 should definitely bring back create-a-style allowing players to customize almost any aspect of their games with the click of a few buttons. The create-a-style alternate menu could be used to change hairstyle colors by sections of hair, individual parts of clothing, and furniture!
Perhaps adding more customization options to The Sims 5 in smaller ways could be good too. Such as the way Sims players could put video files into a particular Sims game folder to have custom videos play on their Sim’s TVs. Wouldn’t a similar easy to use option for The Sims 5 that allowed players to put pictures in a folder and create custom paintings, bed covers, wallpapers, or floors be great? Custom content is always an option but making the game more customizable for those who aren’t modders or content creators is important too.
Vehicles – Cars, Motorcycles, Vans, Trucks etc.
Vehicles of course! No need to go turning The Sims 5 into Grand Theft Auto but come on EA, give us some vehicles! Vehicles and any form of transportation were pretty much scrapped completely in The Sims 4. No gamer is a huge fan of loading screens and most of us also don’t want to sit there watching our Sim slowly drive to their location. What would really be the best solution is adding an option for free-driving vehicles in The Sims 5 or using loading screens.
Much like in The Sims 2 Nightlife when The Sims got vehicles for the first time, players would watch their Sim hop in their vehicle and travel a short distance before entering a loading screen and then watching their Sim arrive at their destination. Disabling the loading screen option would allow players to control their Sim and the vehicle they are driving. Locations a Sim and player could drive could be limited by street boundaries.
Free-drive in The Sims 5 could open up room for a slew of events and allow players to travel between neighborhoods via the road. Paired with open world travel on foot, The Sims 5 vehicles could be a really immersive feature. Perhaps vehicles would also be a good feature to enable first-person view in or at least have an option for first-person. Imagine actually driving and rushing your pregnant Sim to the hospital for the birth of your first Sim child! The vehicles pictured below are part of Twisted Mexi‘s Decorative Vehicles Cheat for The Sims 4.
Open World travel and movement without loading screens in The Sims 5
Open world is one of the biggest things still missing from The Sims 4 and a much-loved feature of The Sims 3. The Sims 5 will need to have open world features to get every Sims fan on board. The ability to seamlessly explore neighborhoods and visit friends made immersion so much better in The Sims 3. If The Sims 5 has an open world setting paired with realistic graphics and interactions it’d be the best Sims game yet.
Fully featured The Sims 5 expansion packs rather than segmented stuff packs
Even avid fans of the Sims series such as myself are getting sick of spending hundreds of dollars on expansion packs. Even since the days of the original Sims and The Sims 2, players have been forking out $30 or more per expansion pack. My poor, poor parents dealing with a Sims obsessed teenager. Now that is rough enough when capitalism is kicking everyone’s ass let alone when the expansion packs really don’t offer that much. Cloned content or a complete lack thereof has been an issue in The Sims 4 multiple times. That kind of content release really only pushes people to gain expansions in illegal ways or stop playing the game altogether.
EA is guilty of bad DLCs and paid content in their other games in the past but these days which AAA game developer isn’t. The Sims 5 DLC with a good amount of content and costing a little less would be a blessing to the series. The Sims custom content websites and the prices some of them charge is evidence that Sims players are willing to pay for good content. Sometimes The Sims players buy custom content one piece at a time even. But that won’t ever happen through EA if they don’t step it up a notch via quality and quantity.
Vampires, Aliens, Witches, and Werewolves
For many Sims players or Simmers as they are often known, vampires, witches, werewolves, and aliens are a basic right to simulation! While it’s more likely these species would come out as The Sims 5 expansion pack; it would be awesome for lots of The Sims players to see vampires, werewolves, witches, and aliens included in The Sims 5 base game. For many players, those species are all they are waiting for to play their main characters. It’s not uncommon for new editions in game franchises to add more classes or races to their games. So, why not add more species to The Sims 5 base game?
Careers and jobs you can control and run your own business
The Sims 4 Get to Work expansion pack added a very cool feature where you go to work with your Sim. The events that can happen at your Sim’s place of work are quite fun and serving Sims from your neighborhood is too. Similarly, The Sims 4 Dine Out added restaurants slightly different from those in The Sims Hot Date and The Sims 2 Open for Business.
The Sims 4 Dine Out definitely nailed restaurants and how players would like that kind of business ownership to work. The Sims 4 Get to Work continued to build on that and let players own businesses like Vets. However, players would like to see that feature extended to other business types and have the capability to run our own stores, hairdressers, tattoo parlors etc. Moreover, in The Sims 5 every career should have the option of joining your Sim at work like in The Sims 4 Get to Work expansion pack.
More The Sims 5 online interaction with other accounts and friends
Now don’t get crazy and go all Sim City with The Sims 5 but let’s take things online a little more! In the past, The Sims players have had fun sending gifts through the in-game mailbox to friends in The Sims 3. Surely that kind of online multiplayer feature can be expanded upon in The Sims 5. If done carefully, The Sims 5 online multiplayer feature could be a reality and manage to not destroy the game. Considering players also want The Sims 5 to be open world with seamless travel between most destinations it may be an area Sims fans have to compromise on.
The Sims 5 multiplayer feature could be a special set of towns or cities without homes that players could travel to and then play online with friends. Alternatively, the towns or cities could have small units, apartments, or homes available for purchase. These could act as a second home or vacation home for your Sims allowing you to interact with friends in a home setting in The Sims 5 without interfering with basic neighborhood gameplay. Those homes would probably have to be limited and EA could end up charging real money for them. But honestly, for an online feature, I’d be ok paying real money for a luxury. Moreover, players wouldn’t need to purchase houses to participate in the online feature. It would just be a cool extra.
Improved time accuracy
Time accuracy in The Sims series has always been lacking and surely there’s a way to improve it. Simulation or not it shouldn’t take 3 hours to eat a bowl of cereal, 2 hours to shower, and 16 hours to tend the garden. Actually trying to progress through a Sim’s life without cheating and dealing with the absurd time accuracy that The Sims games currently feature is stressful. How do I get my sim a promotion if I they spent 2 hours in the shower and now they are starving before heading off to work? When The Sims 4 Pets expansion pack released I tried living my dream of an at-home veterinarian and pet addict. But the experience was more stressful than looking after a horde of animals in real life. All due to the time inaccuracy, since it takes 9 hours to walk my dog.
Currently in The Sims 4, 1 real-life second equals 1 in-game minute. Changing the in-game time to a slower pace such as 2-10 real life seconds = 1 in-game minute might solve the problem. Some actions duration should be shortened where the animation won’t suffer so much. For instance time spent in the shower and on dog walks could be a little shorter. Some have suggested making animations faster which EA has already done with certain actions like eating food. It’s important to note that animation changes can have larger effects than realized on gameplay.
Many players have stated while eating is now less time consuming it’s also harder to have family sit-down dinners. Ultimately, EA should know The Sims players are happy to spend hours and hours in the game. Slow things down a bit, make our game time more productive and less stressful. Each Sims game adds more features and things to do so The Sims 5 will surely follow suit. However, players have no hope of ever living fulfilling Sims lives if the pace of time isn’t altered a bit.
More variety in neighborhoods
The Sims 5 neighborhood feature has massive potential especially combined with an open world environment. Neighborhoods in The Sims 4 while decent in number felt very lacking and closed off. The neighborhoods were generally small and without open world, the cool look of some of them can’t be appreciated properly. In The Sims 5 neighborhoods should be more varied across terrain types and locations. Also, more hidden areas with special events!
Bring back a desert landscape so people can live out their Westworld fantasies. Give us a mountainous rocky region with towering redwoods and a stunning lake. Expand into vast farm fields and rolling green hills with a seaside shack to stop at for fishing. Make the city neighborhood larger and feel like a sprawling city instead of a small town with a few skyscrapers. Go tropical, go Antarctic, hell go make an island neighborhood, just change it up in The Sims 5! Variety is the spice of life after all. The Sims 4 got close and the neighborhoods are beautiful but editable terrains and neighborhoods is really where it’s at.
Realistic skins for everything in The Sims 5
In this day and age games can look pretty damn realistic and spectacular. The Sims 4 definitely improved graphics in some areas but overall is still quite dull. Many Simmers will download custom content to enhance the look and feel of Sims games. Original The Sims 4 skins are often very cartoony looking and that is the style of The Sims. This goes for Sim’s skins, hairs, eyes, clothing, wallpaper, and objects. However, gamers want more out of simulation and The Sims games in particular. Which makes the Sims community very lucky to have such a fantastic custom content and modding community.
The Sims 5 would blow everyone away if EA improved the quality of graphics to be more realistic. There is no need to go overboard but bringing the Sims series in-line with the quality of other game’s graphics can only help the franchise. Check out this amazing custom Bella Goth by custom content creator Nemiga for The Sims 3. Nemiga used fantastic custom content made by a variety of creators to achieve this look. Now, imagine for a second that every skin in The Sims 5 was as high quality as this.
Better aging processes such as gradual aging through all stages of life
The aging processes and life stages of The Sims series have changed various times over the years. In The Sims 4 initially, Toddlers were not included so EA and Maxis could further develop the feature. Toddlers turned out to be pretty great though a hand full for sure. While interaction with actual babies is still missing a little something, toddlers are fully featured. Now what would build on that system in The Sims 5 is a gradual aging process. Ideally, Sims heights would adjust slowly as they aged rather than changing drastically on birthdays. Combined with improved time accuracy a gradual aging process in The Sims 5 could also mean more birthday parties! Another nice feature in The Sims 5 would be emotional and event controls based on the gradual aging process.
Keep the family Sim limit 8 but put pets on a separate family limit
Now, it is pretty common for a real-life family to consist of 4 humans and an onslaught of pets. That immediately makes a family limit of 10 seem totally reasonable and needed. However, families come in a wide variety of compositions and separating the family and pet limit in The Sims 5 could be the solution. Keeping The Sims 5 family member limit to 8 and adding an additional pet limit of 8 – 10 would be awesome. Get the family farm going and adopt all the cats, dogs, and foxes you want! In addition, The Sims 5 should add more pet types and keep everything in one expansion if not included in the base game. Release The Sims 5 Pets with
- cats
- dogs
- horses
- foxes
- birds
- small pets like mice and rats
- hamsters and guinea pig
- chickens and a chicken run/pen
- and make the fish system more in-depth
Improve the social system so friends don’t call at 2 am and invite vampires to sunny dates at the beach
In The Sims 4, friends of our Sims are extremely friendly, sometimes too friendly. They call at all hours of the day inviting you to a party at the ruins. If you’re a vampire they don’t consider the time of day and expect you outside literally baking. But don’t even consider calling them at 2 am for your Sim’s social needs!
Part of the issue with this happening regularly is the inaccuracy of time in The Sims series. Sometimes your Sim receives a text invitation and before you can finish your tea and answer it 4 hours have passed in-game. However, a large part of the problem is just how the social system works. Even with multiple expansion packs the invitations to the same old events get boring fast. With more of an open world in The Sims 5, the social system could be advanced in many ways.
Sims could spawn random encounters upon meeting them within the world dependent on your Sim’s level of friendship with them. Invitations to a Sim’s house where they actually try to interact with you would be more fun. Adding more in-game activities that Sims can do would add more variety to social outings. Activites could include bowling, mini-golf, yoga, nature restoration, and martial art classes. The possibilities are endless and given time for development, activities wouldn’t necessarily have to split into 15 expansion packs or DLC. All Sims fans would happily wait longer for a well done social and events system.
Add more events for Sims to react to and further tweak The Sims 5 emotions system
The Sims 4 improved on the emotions system that controls the way Sims interact with each other. However, The Sims 4 is missing the good old events that previous games in the Sims series had. For instance, back in The Sims 3 parents could invite the principal over to schmooze. A successful event would result in their child getting into a good school. Teenagers could go to prom to become prom king or queen. Parents could teach teenagers to drive and they certainly had more interaction with babies too.
To add to that, a new events system for The Sims 5 could include randomized events or social interactions between Sims. What I mean by that is instead of choosing from a set of what feels like 3 social interactions. (“Come to the ruins, come to the festival, come over to my house”. Sims could have 15 or more social events that trigger randomly upon meeting another Sim. These social events could vary depending on different identifiers like gender, career, or location. Expansions for The Sims 5 could add more social event possibilities eventually creating an extremely complex social interaction system. The Sims 4 tried to do this with emotional reactions to other Sims and objects but that combined with a strong events system would be amazing.
