Hi everyone,
I'm experiencing the same problem. I've been playing The Sims 2 Legacy for several months, and until now everything was fine; the game ran perfectly. But for a little over a week now, the game has been crashing for no reason, without any error message. It just closes suddenly, and this is happening regularly and with increasing frequency. It happens mostly when my Sims return home after being on a community lot. I haven't had any invisible Sims yet, but I've noticed a sudden problem with the animation: the Sims' movements are much more jerky, and this is even more noticeable when the camera is set to auto-follow them. The animation and movement are clearly not as smooth as they used to be.
At first, I thought it was just my game that had a problem. But after checking the forum, I realized that a whole wave of complaints has emerged for the same reason over the past month. The Sims 2 forum (which is usually very quiet) is suddenly buzzing with people reporting similar problems.
Personally, I think this accumulation of bugs and the choppy movement started after my Windows 11 update. My computer had been suggesting an update for a while. I delayed installing it, and that might be why I'm only noticing these problems now. Have you updated your Windows system too?
I hope EA will work on this and release fixes and a proper update. Especially since the situation is so obvious: everyone is suddenly complaining about similar issues.
For me, these bugs and crashes hit like a ton of bricks: I was starting to get seriously hooked on The Sims 2, creating custom worlds, huge cities, entire universes, thinking that all this construction, all the time spent building these cities (and city networks) would be for playing them long-term. But this event brings me back to a harsher reality of our time: video games are fragile and unstable entities. A simple operating system update is all it takes to make the game system falter.
I don't quite understand what's going on. But I'll keep an eye on the forum to follow the news. For now, EA's silence worries me a bit. But I remain hopeful. I dare to hope that technical teams are already working on the problem. In this kind of situation, from a publisher's point of view, it's best to remain silent initially, to analyze the problem and determine where to place the fixes, before making an official update announcement later. At least, that's the scenario I'm hoping for...
In my eyes (and in the eyes of many other players) The Sims 2 is EA's masterpiece. This game has a level of creativity, graphics, animation, and system quality that has never been matched since. Even The Sims 4, with over 10 years of content, packs, and kits, has never reached the level of The Sims 2. The reason for this lies in their different production contexts: The Sims 2 was created to be a self-contained game (players can customize the content to create their own worlds, their own towns, and renew the gameplay possibilities as much as they want); while The Sims 4 has adopted a logic of profitability (the player can no longer create their own cities, the system is locked, the number of playable lots has become very limited, because it is now necessary to pay to obtain the slightest new content, and everything is put in place to create a rapid exhaustion, a drying up, to make the player want to quickly buy more and more content, all equally dry and limited).
And this strikes me all the more because The Sims 2 was excluded from EA's (Origin) catalog for many years, while EA stubbornly promoted The Sims 4. (They did create The Sims 2 Ultimate, which had very limited access, available only under very specific and restricted conditions.) Thus, an entire generation grew up playing The Sims 4, unaware of the richness of The Sims 2.
For years, The Sims 2 gave the impression of being "the game causing trouble," the game that EA deliberately excluded because it seemed to overshadow The Sims 4. A year ago, EA finally re-released it in an updated version (The Sims 2 Legacy)... before announcing the gradual end of The Sims 4 in favor of a new installment (Sims 4.5 ?). Things may not have happened for exactly those same reasons (perhaps there were other technical reasons), but that's the very strong feeling I've had about the treatment of The Sims 2 for years.
The reason I'm bringing all this up is that The Sims 2 (despite being a masterpiece) has given the impression of being a deliberately neglected game, sidelined by EA over the years. So, when such bugs appear now in The Sims 2 Legacy on a massive scale, I think the community's concern is all the greater. Sims 2 fans like myself are so happy to have this game back on our computers for a year now. Considering the history of this game, the slightest problem or sign of obsolescence generates even more anxiety. I sincerely hope that EA will provide technical support, a new update that will fix these problems. I'm optimistic, so I dare to believe, and I'm keeping my fingers crossed 🙂
In the meantime, I'm taking a short break from The Sims 2, because these repeated crashes and bugs increase the risk of corrupting our saves and towns. It's better to wait for EA to fix the problem and then resume the game later on a healthier, more stable system, when saves are more secure. But one thing is for sure: I won't buy anything from EA until these sudden Sims 2 bugs and crashes are fixed. The Sims 2 is by far my favorite video game of all time. So let's keep hoping! Let's hope EA breaks its silence soon!
I stay tuned on the forum. I hope we can find a solution.
Thank you so much! Have a nice day everyone! ☀️
