It’s summer and love is in the air for fans of The Sims 4. In an official blog post earlier today, EA officially announced the latest addition to the long-running life simulator game, called The Sims 4 Lovestruck Expansion Pack. With it comes a feature that players have been wanting for years: the ability to engage in polyamorous relationships.
Arriving on July 25, Lovestruck will mark the 16th expansion pack to be released for the base game, which launched in its vanilla form in 2014. Per the blog post, it will introduce a new locale dubbed “Ciudad Enamorada,” which translates to “City in Love” in English.
Love lives and courtship appear to be the central focus of the update, which also adds a simulation within a simulation as players’ Sims can create their own dating profiles on the imaginary in-game app, Cupid’s Corner, to match with other Sims. Of course, this comes with a new job type that is bound to be just as healthy a career path as it is IRL: Romance Consultant.
But eagle-eyed fans were immediately drawn to the update’s biggest feature, polyamory — or the ability to engage in multiple romantic relationships with consent of every Sim involved — buried within the granular list of new mechanics. In the post, the feature isn’t called out by name, but described as part of a new Romantic Boundaries features as such:
“Free for all players is the new Romantic Boundaries system that will allow you to customize your Sim’s experience with boundaries and jealousy. You can now define how your Sims approach romantic relationships in terms of physical and emotional romantic exclusivity. This allows for Sims to date multiple Sims without impact to other relationships.”
Romance options have long been a part of the core appeal of The Sims franchise, dating back to the original game in 2000. But seemingly bound by the limitations of technology, the dynamics of modern relationships have always remained somewhat narrowly defined. Romance two Sims at the same time? Someone always got jealous, but not anymore. And it’s about time.
Since going free-to-play in October 2022, The Sims 4 has continued to grow in popularity with over 85 million registered players worldwide to date. With the launch of Lovestruck Expansion Pack, the game continues to buck the trend of endless sequelization, instead bolstering its existing offerings as single continuous experience.
Pre-orders are now available for The Sims 4 Lovestruck Expansion Pack across various digital storefronts on PC, Mac, PlayStation 4 & 5, Xbox Series X|S, and Xbox Ones systems.
