Over Two Years Later, The Sims 4 Gets Toddlers

The Sims 4 is getting Toddlers in a free update today. After two years of waiting, get your sims ready for sleepless nights and emptying potty chairs.

“I’m not exaggerating when I say we’ve been talking about this particular update for years,” The Sims 4 team said in a blog post. “We just had to find the right time, resources and design to allow us to start the heavy process of actually building and bringing Toddlers to life. And believe me when I say it has been really REALLY difficult to not talk about this as we worked to get it right.”

Toddlers are the life stage for sims between being a baby and childhood. Sims players will have to teach toddlers to walk, talk and use the toilet, as in previous Sims games. While Toddlers have been part of the series since The Sims 2, The Sims 4 launched without this life stage, which did not make fans of the game very happy.

While The Sims 4 team never confirmed or denied that Toddlers were never coming to the game, the team had previously come under fire from fans for a lack of communication about the status of Toddlers. Many took the absence of Toddlers as proof that The Sims 4 wasn’t worth playing, arguing that removing an entire life stage for sims made the game shallow.

“The Toddler stage represents so much change in a Sims’ life. You start to see a Sims’ personality, you start to build family connections, and you can tell more meaningful family stories,” Sims Senior Producer Lyndsay Pearson told me over email. “Because of this, we focused on the progress and development you can experience as a Toddler or as a parent of a Toddler. The new Toddlers traits and new Toddler skills really highlight that nurturing and growth.”

Jury’s out on whether this new life stage will salvage the game for unhappy players. As for me, I gotta go impregnate Rihanna.