A reality check from a lifelong fan on the downgrade from Sims 3 to Sims 4

I am a lifelong Sims player who has been playing since I was a kid, and the current state of the franchise is incredibly disappointing. After growing up playing The Sims 3—where we had a seamless open world, fully functional cars, and deeply immersive gameplay that ran perfectly fine on standard, everyday hardware-The Sims 4 feels like a massive, lazy step backward.

It is completely ridiculous that we are playing on powerful, modern hardware like the PlayStation 5, yet we are forced to look at loading screens just to visit a next-door neighbor. Watching decorative "skybox" cars drive around the background of our lots while our actual Sims are denied real transportation is a slap in the face.

It is blindingly obvious that EA's corporate leadership cares purely about squeezing profits out of the player base rather than listening to what players actually want. You deliberately avoid polling the community on major features like cars because you already know the answer would force you to fix your broken, outdated engine. Breaking up content that used to be standard in a single expansion pack into three separate paid DLCs is greedy. Stop designing games for spreadsheets and start listening to the loyal players who actually know the game loop and keep your studio afloat.