Why have many The Sims fans turned against EA, and what's Legacy Collection got to do with it?

On January 31, new versions of the first The Sims and its sequel were released. Even if we put nostalgia aside, both games are extremely important to fans of the franchise: for example, the very first installment is still considered one of the most challenging in the series, so some players return to it for the sake of a real challenge. The chance to play the updated classics should have been a reason for the community to celebrate, but unfortunately, the re-releases were met with a rather cold reception, to put it mildly. Here’s what gamers were hoping for — and what they ended up getting.

When the first The Sims was released in 2000, it caused a sensation with the very concept of a life simulator. It wasn’t a game about fighting monsters or saving the world, but about the daily lives of ordinary people — though far more chaotic and funny than what we usually see in reality.

The first The Sims became famous for being quite unforgiving. Forgot to water the plants a couple of times? That’s it, you can throw them out. Didn’t feed the fish in the aquarium? Time to head to the pet store for new ones. Forgot to clean up after eating? Say hello to the cockroach infestation. Decided to buy some new furniture? Get ready for financial debt and dealing with collectors.

The original game constantly threw all sorts of amusing problems at you: from regular fires to burglars breaking into your home, or worse — frequent visits from neighbors. And the Sims in the classic version were much pickier than modern ones: if you slightly ignored one of their needs, your now-depressed Sim would refuse to go to work. And who’s going to pay for that new TV, hmm?

Although the sequel wasn’t as difficult, The Sims 2 still largely retained the predecessor’s chaos while adding more depth that the first game lacked. In the second game, Sims could grow up and grow old, they had long-term goals and subconscious fears, and they finally truly differed from one another in terms of character.

The Sims community had long been asking to update these cult classics for modern systems. Fans hoped for remasters with new graphics, all expansions, as well as gameplay improvements and bug fixes. But if you read reviews on Reddit or Steam, it quickly becomes clear that the new Legacy Collection didn’t live up to what seemed like fairly modest expectations.

Graphics and gameplay remained completely untouched — just like many of the bugs. For instance, the famous “pink soup” from The Sims 2 hasn’t gone anywhere: a graphical glitch in which Sim clothing textures aren’t displayed correctly and instead glow bright pink. This bug, caused by the old game’s incompatibility with modern video cards, has long since turned into a local meme. It’s very telling that Legacy Collection buyers ran into it again in the re-relase.

However, the biggest disappointment for gamers is the fact that Legacy Collection launches unstably on modern PCs and often crashes. This is despite the fact that optimizing these classic games for Windows 10 and 11 should logically have been the key task for the developers. And EA itself advertised compatibility with modern operating systems as the main feature of the re-relase. In practice, though, you can find hundreds of reviews describing problems. For example, Steam user Galacticat wrote the following in their review:

Another user, Commando2059, got a refund and complained that they couldn’t get the game to run properly:

At this moment, the new version of The Sims has only 58% positive reviews on Steam, and the second game has even less — just 50%. Fans are unhappy that the publisher made minimal effort to update the projects and is asking $19.99 for the first installment and $29.99 for the second, even though it once gave away The Sims 2 with all updates for free on Origin. However, it’s worth noting that not all gamers share this view. For instance, Reddit user kaptingavrin wrote a post in defense of EA, which gained over a thousand likes:

It’s not certain yet whether EA will patch the new Legacy Collection. But even if they do, it will most likely just address the most annoying bugs and compatibility issues. There’s no point expecting more beautiful graphics: if it wasn’t added upon release, they’re not planning to add it in the future. And if you’re one of those who were waiting for full-fledged remasters, your disappointment is understandable. On the other hand, players who are simply interested in the old The Sims can now at least purchase them conveniently and legally, which is already something of a plus — even with all the problems.

What do you think? Will you buy Legacy Collection? Or have you already bought it? Let us know in the comments.