A popular Sims 4 NPC family is at the center of a minor fan debate after getting an unexpected makeover, raising questions about The Simsâ complicated history of Eurocentric character design.
The NPC Goth family has haunted The Sims for as long as the simulation game has lived. Over the years, slowly accumulated lore established the Goths as old money, their air of mysticism only matched by their public influence. Players loved the visibly mixed-race family from their very first appearance, and became particularly attached to mother Bella Gothâa G-rated Morticia Addamsâfor her red dress and outsized bazongas in The Sims 4
The Sims 4, if you wanna get technical, takes place in an alternate universe to other Sims games, has no allegiance to established character history or timelines, and will not be swayed by even one million Simoleons. But the May 25 update giving the Goth fam a remodel still came as a surprise, especially because no other NPC family saw updates and, well, Bellaâs cup no longer runneth quite so over. Some players are displeased with the changes, which also made tweaks to the Goth familyâs faces and significantly altered their outfits, but I donât know. Personally, I like the makeover.
Grab the fruitcake & welcome wagon đ â the new & improved Goth family is available now in every new game start in The Sims 4 đ€ pic.twitter.com/J1a03yG4Rj
â The Sims (@TheSims) May 25, 2022
Like, itâs fine. Bella lost her impressive boobage, a developer decision some players are rebuking as âde-yassification,â but Iâll be okay. The entire family is now more tan, and has been graced with luscious curls of dark hair, which is nice. They kind of look like my cousins. My cousins are perfectly fine people, but none of them have a fantastically slim mustache like father Mortimer Goth, so that is another great thing the improved Goth family has going for them. It canât be easy to cultivate a mustache that is so fine and wispy, like a willow sapling growing on your face.
Any alleged de-yassification will cause a stir in the Sims community, however, and some players are calling the change âugly,â while others reply that thinking the redesign is âuglyâ means you reject non-white features. This latter opinion comes from an old frustration with The Sims 4, which people think intentionally made its racially ambiguous or darker-skinned NPCs look more white. This idea is objectively true when you compare the skin tones of old Sims characters with their newer versions, and in 2020, The Sims Vice President of Franchise Creative, Lyndsay Pearson, recognized the communityâs frustration in a Twitter video
âWe realize there isnât one single fix for representation,â she said, âand we are dedicating people to ongoing commitments to continue improvement over the long term.â
The new, darker-skinned Goths seem like one of those improvements, though if we are all honest with ourselves, their features are generally the same. Bellaâs jaw isnât as snatched and, of course, there is the issue of the bazongas, but other than that, they all still have tiny button noses, straight hair, and light eyes, which doesnât make their redesign as much of a representation win as some players are positioning it as.
The May 25 update also included two new story quests or scenarios, a song by hyperpop star Alice Longyu Gaoâif no one else, at least The Sims proved it cares about gay teenagers on Instagram (me four years ago)âand some new furniture, like a mood lamp perfect for gay teenagers on Instagram.
But the Gothsâ new look suggests The Sims still isnât sure what positive, accurate representation looks like, and I feel the community is too easily pleased. In the meantime, maybe maybe we can meet in the middle and make everyone biracial and bisexual.
