Babies are no longer objects in The Sims 4—and that’s apparently a huge deal

The Sims 4 has been around for eight years now, but the Sims community is abuzz following the reveal of a future update that might be one of the game’s most highly-anticipated features yet.

A longstanding criticism within the Sims community has been that babies in The Sims 4 are simply objects and the community has consistently asked EA for better babies. In past Sims games, babies could be carried, placed in strollers, and otherwise moved around and treated as functional human beings. But in The Sims 4, they are entirely tied to bassinets and thus function like an object.

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Players can interact with babies in The Sims 4, but the interactions are very limited and players cannot carry them elsewhere, travel with them, or even sit down in a chair while holding them. Babies cannot be controlled by players and have no agency or ability to do anything on their own other than sleep or cry. They function just like appliances such as a refrigerator or electronics like a computer, although even laptops can be taken to different lots and thus arguably have more mobility and freedom than babies currently do.

Now, after being strictly tied to bassinets since The Sims 4 launched, babies will finally be freed with a game update arriving in 2023. The 2022 installment of The Sims Summit was packed with a plethora of Sims teases, including a look at what appears to be The Sims 5 before ending with a grand reveal that showcased a baby free from a bassinet and fully crawling around on its own.

Throughout the short teaser that aired during the Sims event, the baby crawls around, eventually stops crawling, and then sits up. They then let out what appears to be a sneeze before falling over and being picked up by an adult.

In addition to the baby in the teaser freely moving around, there is also what appears to be a crib featured in the background. Players have only ever had babies tied to bassinets in The Sims 4, so this could either mean that cribs and bassinets will become interchangeable or that an entirely new life state will be added to go in between babies and toddlers.

Considering how prop-like babies are, it certainly seems most likely that the update will be focused on fixing them rather than introducing a new life state. The section of The Sims Summit event that unveiled this teaser is titled “Infants tease” rather than something like “Baby update tease” and EA did also share in a blog post that “infants will be arriving in early 2023,” so they are likely either an entirely new life state or a complete redesign of babies.

No official release date was unveiled for the baby update, but EA did reveal that it will be arriving sometime in early 2023, as will two new expansion packs.