The Sims 4 patch notes have arrived alongside its new romantic expansion pack. Whether you're picking up The Sims 4 Lovestruck DLC or not, there are a lot of reasons to jump back into the free PC game right now. Among those are an update to romantic boundaries that's included for all players, more customization options for Create-A-Sim, and the ability to round out your pools in all-new ways.
New expansion pack Sims 4 DLC, however, you will get access to the new 'romantic boundaries' setting, which allows you to determine when your Sims will become jealous. You can adjust whether they'll be upset by their partner engaging in non-physical romantic actions, physical romantic actions, or WooHoo with other Sims. You can even set if they are able to reconsider these feelings later.
To help you spot what's included in this, there's a new 'Relationship' interactions category. You can also now assign Sims as partners (that is, in a relationship but not engaged or married) in Create-A-Sim. Conversely, if your in-game Relationship is packed with Sims that you met once and never hang out with, you can now click on them and hide them from the menu.
That's just the start of the additions to Create-A-Sim, however. Perhaps the biggest change is that you can now apply items to all outfits (or a selection of your choosing) with a simple menu option. That means if you create the perfect makeup look, hairstyle, accessory, or clothing item you can now apply it to whichever other categories you want to.
Speaking of hairstyles, there are two brand-new styles, along with two more color variants for the loc braids from the Dark and Lovely collaboration. There are a selection of new nail styles and color options, too. These include a range of french tips and coffin nails, along with a range of new, more natural 'nude' styles.
Those of you who were around back when The Sims 4 first launched will that one of the most controversial absences was a lack of pools. Long considered one of the most iconic parts of build mode (I'm sure this is for their aspirational value, rather than the ability to use them as a way to torment your poor virtual humans).
This was eventually rectified, but now they've been given another big upgrade, as you can add rounded corners to them. These work in much the same way as curved walls, allowing you to easily place down rounded corners and adjust them. You can mix and match with the other wall types, and a new Oblong Wall Light is specially designed to work on the new curved pool walls.
Elsewhere, the patch notes mark an update to the 'Neighborhood Stories' menu showing changes to both friendships and romances, an overhaul to the conversation that shows up when Sims are chatting to each other, and a music toggle to ensure you won't run into any potential copyright issues while streaming the game. The patch is live now, so make sure you've ed it before you get back to playing.
If Lovestruck isn't enough to freshen up your lifestyle simulator, here are the best free Steam games for plenty more to play.
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