The Sims has been a cornerstone of cozy gaming and the life sim genre for years. 26 years, in fact, as the original The Sims is celebrating its anniversary this February. And since 2014, The Sims 4 has been the main tentpole of the franchise. In that time, EA has also delivered 20 major expansions, including some truly excellent additions to the game. Now, The Sims 4 is gearing up to release one of its most ambitious new expansions in years, Royalty & Legacy. And I got a chance to check it out early.
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The Sims 4: Royalty & Legacy is set to release on February 12th. It will be the 21st major expansion for The Sims 4. It also happens to be one of the most ambitious new packs we’ve seen in years in terms of fresh gameplay content. Royalty & Legacy will add Nobles to the game, including a brand-new world full of pre-existing dramas that players can step into. But even families that aren’t of Noble ambition can now craft their own multi-generational legacies. I had a lot of fun seeing what the new pack has to offer while playing the preview build, though I did run across a few potential pitfalls, as well.
Royalty & Legacy Adds a Ton of Potential Drama and Mischief
If you like crafting intricate stories while playing The Sims 4, this new pack is going to give you some fun new options for doing it. The Royalty & Legacy pack introduces scandals fit for Bridgerton‘s Lady Whistledown herself to the game. Your Sims can uncover secrets in a variety of ways, from digging through the trash to buying secrets online. And once you have those juicy tidbits? You can leak them to the public to trash someone’s reputation or use that info to extort your fellow Sims. My Dynasty head may or may not have accidentally kind of extorted her future husband when she discovered that he’s a Kleptomaniac. Not exactly what you want for the father of your future heir, but she can change him… right?
These juicy secrets and scandals are just part of the potential drama you can craft with this new pack. If you join or create a Dynasty, which you can do for any Sim family, you’ll have a reputation to uphold. When you make your new Dynasty, you’ll choose ideals they must uphold. Things like appreciating the arts or spending time outdoors will raise the esteem of your family. But counteracting those ideals by, say, swiping things from work when your Dynasty values kindness, and your Dynasty can lose points. The more Dynasty Points you unlock, the more you’ll be able to purchase perks… but if you lose the points, the perks will vanish, too.
As you build your family’s legacy, you will be able to make alliances or rivalries with other Dynasties, as well. The groundwork for a ton of interesting dynamics is already laid within the pack, with families like the Montys and Capps bringing Shakespearean rivalries to life. Your Sims can become allies or enemies with any Dynasty, simply through interactions. Shortly after founding my Sim Dynasty, I was approached by the Goths themselves to forge a partnership that’s gone quite well so far. The potential for crafting a world rich in lore, the very thing many recent Sims 4 packs have been missing, is on full display here.
The New Sims 4 Noble Career Lets You Rule From Home
While a Dynasty doesn’t need to rule, I’d be remiss in previewing a pack called Royalty & Legacy if I didn’t also make my Sim a noble. You can enter the new Noble Career in a few ways: marry into a noble family, learn about nobility from reading a specific text, buy a throne, or be knighted by a noble. So, not just any Sim can join this new career path, but it’s not too difficult to jump into, either. Once you’re a noble, you’ll have plenty of work-from-home tasks to keep your kingdom happy. These mostly take place at your royal throne, which you’ll need to install somewhere at home before you can attend to your duties. There are a couple of different designs, which all fit in with the pack’s overall opulent decor. I crammed mine into the yard because I’m forever playing rags to riches in my mind.
The Noble Career is decent, especially if you enjoy having a set of work-from-home tasks. But it does require active participation, as your Sim never “goes to work” in a traditional sense. Tasks range from responding to letters from fans to making royal decrees and beyond. There’s some good variety here in my experience, so it doesn’t get old as quickly as some work-from-home careers do. More options to exercise greater control over your Kingdom open up as you reach higher ranks.
However, you’ll want to keep an eye on your decisions, as they’ll impact your royal reputation. Other nobles will be annoyed if you’re too friendly to commoners, and the populace won’t like you showing too much favor to royals. In my opinion, the game seems to favor Noble Ventures that support commoners early on. I found it tricky to keep balance here, and was forever getting concerned letters from my fellow nobles. They even brought me a few pointed, angry “gifts” to show how they feel about my treatment of the unwashed masses. I am hoping we’ll get a bit more balance to this element of the Noble career by the time the pack fully launches.
I was also surprised to see that, at least at the time of the preview build, there doesn’t seem to be a new Aspiration to go along with the Noble Career. Some existing Aspirations, like family lineage ones, fit well with crafting a Dynasty. But I would’ve liked to be able to set my noble sim up with something that aligned more with her career path. Instead, she’s in a sort of permanent midlife crisis about her role as a royal, which makes it a bit tricky to keep her mood fit to rule.
Royalty & Legacy Has a Few Potential Snags to Iron Out Before Its Debut
Of course, with any new pack, Sims 4 fans worry about potential pitfalls and glitches that might be introduced. Overall, the preview build for Royalty & Legacy ran without any major issues for me. That said, I did notice a few potential drawbacks from the new pack. And one of them is an ongoing problem, where my Sims had little to no interest in actually taking care of their son. This is a big issue when he is the potential Heir to the Kaye Dynasty! Longstanding issues like Sims refusing to complete actions like feeding their toddler or giving him a bath definitely continued to show up for me while playing the preview build. The young heir was often left with low hygiene, even though there was no clear reason why the action to give him a bath kept vanishing from the queue.
My Sims did, eventually, take care of their son. But another issue that seems more directly tied to Royalty & Legacy grabbed my attention. The Dynasty Perks feature seems a bit convoluted and potentially buggy. I had a lot of trouble getting my Sim Dynasty past Level 2. In fact, at one point, I was getting pop-ups about reaching and then getting demoted from Level 2 every other minute. If my Sim cooked a meal (in alignment with her Dynasty values), we’d hit Level 2. But a few in-game minutes later, a demotion for no clear reason. If this problem continues into the pack’s full release, I can definitely see it getting old fast. Hopefully, the Dynasty system will get ironed out so it’s a bit easier/clearer how to rank up and why you’re being demoted when you are. I assume it was somehow linked to the aforementioned Kleptomaniac husband, but the notifications could’ve been clearer on that point.
Overall, the new pack is poised to introduce a lot of new gameplay elements for Simmers to explore. In particular, I think Royalty & Legacy is well-suited to those who enjoy telling complex stories. The number of opulent new Build Mode items will also lend themselves well to designing beautiful palaces in The Sims 4, as well. There are a few snags that need to be ironed out, but I still came away feeling like this is the most ambitious new expansion we’ve seen for The Sims 4 in years.
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