Developers offer free weekends with their games all the time, but it feels more like a trap when the game is The Sims 4. Become immersed in EA’s dollhouse creation kit and what awaits you is a world of costly DLC.
But then heck, I like the game and I’ve only bought a handful of content packs because I liked the look of the kitchen cupboards. So play The Sims 4 for free on Steam this weekend, and buy it at 88% off if you like it.
This is all to celebrate The Sims series’ 22nd birthday. The Sims is not only old enough to drink, it’s old enough to have lots of regrets about drinking.
From February 3rd until February 7th, it’s free to play on Steam. If you want to keep it beyond that, from now until February 11th it’ll cost you £4.19/€4.79 for the basic game or £5.39/€6 for the Digital Deluxe Edition which has a handful of minor extras.
There are also discounts on a lot of the DLC, including 30% off Game Packs and Stuff Packs and 50% off Expansion Packs. Of the three, it’s the Stuff Packs – which focus solely on adding new items to the game’s building mode – that I’ve bought in the past.
The reason that The Sims 4’s DLC prices don’t bother me are two-fold. One, I’ve seen the prices of actual dollhouse pieces. Two, it’s easily modded, and the community has created custom content on a par with anything official. You don’t need any DLC to have a good time with The Sims.