Earlier this week, The Sims 4 received a big, free update that added curved walls, body hair, and new wants and fears. It also seems to have accidentally added incestual relationships. Oh, and people are aging much faster, too. It’s a weird time to be a Sim, that’s for sure.
As spotted by PC Gamer, Reddit, and elsewhere, Sims 4 players are reporting that after the game’s July 26 update, some in-game characters are looking to date family members. One player shared a screenshot of an older woman who suddenly wanted to start a romantic relationship with her own son. Another player shared a bug report with EA stating that one of their male sims wanted to ask his twin sister to be his girlfriend. In that same support thread, a player on Xbox shared an offputting example of a daughter wanting to date her father. Yikes!
What’s going on here? Well, according to some Sims 4 players and modders, the likely issue is the newly added “Wants” system, which was seen in older Sims games. The system gives Sims things they want to do and accomplish, giving players more goals to chase. However, it seems that a bug with the system is creating “Wants” that involve romantic relationships with anybody, including other family members. Once again, yikes!
Thankfully, EA is aware of the bug. Yesterday, a dev on Twitter confirmed that the team knows about the incest issue and is “looking to get it fixed ASAP.” EA also re-confirmed that it’s working on a fix in a support thread about the bug on the publisher’s official site.
Update, 8/4/22, 5:40 p.m. ET: The latest Sims 4 patch released on August 2 has fixed the incest bug that was accidentally added to the game via a free July 26 update. According to new patch notes, Sims will now only want to date appropriate people, instead of their dad or sister. It also fixed the issue of characters rapidly aging after being created.
The update is now available on consoles and PC. And with it, things are back to normal in the land of The Sims 4, or well…as normal as things get around there.
Original story continues below.
On top of this less-than-ideal bug, another problem some players are encountering in the Sims 4 after the last update is less gross and more existentially devastating.
Players are reporting that characters are rapidly aging. Some folks have experienced Sims aging from young babies to elderly adults in a matter of minutes. As with the “family members wanting to date each other” situation, EA is also aware of the issue and working on a fix. In the meantime, the company suggests players stick to the “Normal” lifespan option to avoid this aging bug.