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The Sims 4 will now allow players to choose their sexual orientation

18 July 2022, 17:56

The Sims 4 allows players to add custom pronouns to their Sims

By Jazmin Duribe

The update will be coming with The Sims 4 High School Years expansion pack later this month.

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The Sims 4 players will soon be able to choose their Sims' sexual orientation and romantic or sexual attraction.

If you're anything like us, The Sims practically raised you. The Sims 4 launched back in 2014 and has allowed us to build homes, have families, and even learn a new language (Simlish is 100% a real language, ok?) Come on, who wouldn't want to have the chance to play God in a completely virtual world?!

Now following the introduction of customisable pronouns for all Sims, The Sims has taken another step in becoming more inclusive, SimGuruJessica, the design lead on The Sims™ 4 High School Years Expansion Pack, announced in a statement.

The statement read: "We’re delighted to bring the Sexual Orientation feature to all Simmers. Between this update and the recent pronouns update, we’re taking several strides forward into being a game that respects and celebrates the nuance and color of everyday life."

The Sims 4 will now allow players to choose their sexual orientation. Picture: EA

Although it's always been possible to have same-sex or heterosexual relationships within the game, you'll now be able to choose if your Sim is romantically attracted to men or women in Create a Sim. That means that a Sim whose gender doesn’t match your what your Sim is attracted to then they will be rejected from having a romantic relationship.

You can also choose if they'e interested in "exploring romantically" or if they're attracted to both genders and would like to experiment with both. If your Sim isn't interested in exploring any romantic connections then they will reject any advances from both genders.

The Sims 4 creators have acknowledged that there are more than two genders and hope to "expand this to include additional gender identities that we don't have at this time".

The statement added: "Mechanically, non binary Sims don’t yet exist in TS4. While we made great progress in representing non binary Sims with the pronouns update, we acknowledge that pronouns are not the same thing as gender identities. We recognize that we still have a ways to go in this regard."

Now, what does that mean for WooHoo? The setting determines who your Sim has sex with. The statement continued: "If you’re trying to tell the story of an Asexual Sim, you could leave all options unchecked. On the flipside, you could tell the story of an Aromantic Sim by selecting WooHoo interests, but leaving all romantic attraction boxes unchecked."

Sexual Orientation Settings. Picture: EA

Much like in the real world, you won't be able to turn the new feature off because "LGBTQIA+ identities are a fact of life and not a toggle to be switched on and off". However, if you just don't change any of the Sexual Orientation settings, your Sim will romantically behave as they currently do prior to the release of this feature.

Sexual Orientation will be available to all players from July 26 and the new High School Years expansion pack will launch on July 28.