Alongside the release of the new High School Years expansion pack for The Sims 4, the game has added a slew of new features, available to all players, for free. It includes the addition of some long-requested features, including the ability to select a sexual preference for each Sim, and grow body hair.
Also new is the addition of ‘Wants & Fears’ which will affect the long-term growth and personality of your Sims, as well as improvements to the in-game phone. All of these elements are key when it comes to the upcoming high school-themed content.
Read: The best Sims 4 expansion packs for beginners
The new sexual preference mechanic will be multi-faceted, allowing you to choose who a Sim is attracted to, both physically and romantically. It’ll also allow Sims to choose who they’d like to ‘Mess Around’ with, or decide whether they’re still exploring their options.
However, the sexual preference feature is binary as it exists right now, meaning you can only select attraction to men or women. The Sims 4 development team has publically acknowledged this limitation – it’s present due to the age of the game, and the inflexibility of its decade-old code structure. Hopefully, this means an alteration to the feature will be investigated in the future.
The Sims 4 July 2022 update patch notes:
Consoles
- On some PlayStation®4 systems, Eco Lifestyle’s Evergreen Harbor had a lot of objects flickering in the environment. We think we have squelched the problem. If you see it, please let us know and provide information about the model of PlayStation and OS version.
- On Xbox, interacting with Cottage Living’s Chicken Coop no longer causes the cursor to vanish.
- Closing the Notebook interface now hides its controller legend as well.
The Sims 4
- Sims can, once again, scoot over to an open side of the bed that is pushed up against the wall.
- Sims deliver food reliably to toddlers via the “Grab Serving for <toddler>” interaction.
- Throwing a birthday party for a toddler? Sims now can “Compliment the Birthday Sim” to complete the party if that goal appears.
- Did you know that your Sims can take care of a Need on their own if you click on the Need in the Needs panel? Give it a whirl! Sims with the Neat Trait now clean themselves when you click on “Hygiene” instead of cleaning their home.
- Vault Modular Counter maintains its color underneath the dirt when it gets dirty.
- Sims jog once again when using The MotionMonitor Gaming Mat and PrioPerfection Motion Sensor Game Mat.
- The “Save” and “Delete” buttons now both appear when mousing over a save slot on the “Save Game” screen.
- Sims can ask about these Likes and Dislikes without having their own preferences for them: Décor, Color, Hobbies & Skills, and Music.
- Since Sims in the same household know each other already, they no longer have the option to ask about various Likes and Dislikes. “Ask about Career” is the one exception.
- When socializing with another Sim, questions related to “Likes and Dislikes” now are grouped together under a category with that name.
- Your Sims went on a vacation with another household. You just heard through a Neighborhood Story notification that they adopted! That notification now has the name of that household’s home world rather than the vacation world.
- Placing a Lot from the Gallery defaults to its Lot type instead of asking to change to the location’s Lot type.
- When you have a window that aligns to the dotted half-tile mark and the window is as wide as its footprint, you now can place another window like that right next to it.
- Placing a rounded platform within another room now fills in the floor tiling around the curve.
- Placing Dragonfly Swarm and Mosquitos on ponds now results in dragonflies and mosquitoes, respectively. Bzzzzzzz bzzz….
- Cars viewed from a distance on low-end computers now look more like cars and less like a newbie woodworking project.
- That screen that appears when you can choose which Sim to do something with the active Sim… we adjusted the header so longer text does not overlap with the portrait of your Sim.
- That screen also consistently shows the “Everyone” category now when it pops up.
- Behind-the-scenes pregnancy tracking has some improvements for better performance and stability.
- We fixed three types of crashes:
- [PS4-only] One sometimes happened on PS4 when saving a Lot to My Library.
- One was related to graphics.
- And the peskiest one sometimes happened when placing a Retail Lot that had mannequins. Take that, crashes!
- Promotion Requirements in the Career panel now has a helpful hover-tip.
- The Lot Challenges icon now has a helpful hover-tip.
Cats and Dogs
- These curtains now can be placed around windows: Casual Country Curtains, Cozy Country Curtains, and Charming Country Curtains.
Seasons
- Gnomes placed from the Inventory no longer continue generating seed packets after the Harvestfest ends.
Island Living
- Children make progress for their Outdoor Adventurer badge when they catch fish or frogs.
Discover University
- After switching specialization branches in a career, your Sim now earns their well-deserved rewards from that new career.
- The button to “Go to Class Early” now appears one hour before University classes start.
- Sims go to University classes early when directed to if they are at their campus.
Eco Lifestyle
- What, you don’t want to see books among available ingredients for the Juice Fizzing station? Well, okay. Loading ingredients now shows only proper, edible ingredients.
- Idle animations for enjoying a fizzy drink while seated at a table now play appropriately.
- Sims can wash off the “Dyed In An Explosion!” moodlet with a good shower or bath.
Snowy Escape
- Sims in the Salaryperson career can complete the “Host Phone Conference” task consistently.
- Drinking the Lifestyle-Go-Poof Potion now actually removes Lifestyles. Go forth and discover your new you!
- Sims now correctly gain up to three active Lifestyles.
- Mountain Climb Excursions now start instead of automatically canceling. Let’s go conquer those climbs together!
Cottage Living
- Specific Chicken Coop variants remain the same color when becoming dirty.
- Chickens no longer prevent the Egg Hunt Holiday tradition from completing . Rumor is they were collecting all the decorative eggs for themselves.
- Verdant Mushroom Soup now shows up properly when choosing it from the list of recipes to cook with other Sims and grabbing servings.
- The color swatches for the long hair with bandana(ymHair_EP11LongBandana) now match the hair color.
Parenthood
- Taking anger out on stuffed animal toys now decreases the teen Sim’s Empathy. Meanness has consequences!
Strangerville
- Error Code 106:7f97032:aa761f01 no longer happens sometimes when traveling to StrangerVille’s Secret Lab.
Journey to Batuu
- The “Hot Tip” mission for Scoundrels now appropriately asks for five information fragments to be collected.
Dream Home Decorator
- The capri pants yfBottom_GP10Capri_Solid now appropriately appear as brown when selecting the brown color swatch.
Werewolves
- Werewolf and Vampire Sims now exit the appropriate tunnel entrances after choosing to ”Explore Underground Tunnels”.
Tiny Living
- The remote control for Murphy Beds now has the appropriate texture.
Bust the Dust
- Don’t want to deal with repairing your broken vacuum cleaner yourself? It now has interactions to replace it with a new one or hire a Sim to fix it.
- Dusty Chaperone Upright Vacuum now sparks when broken.
You can view the official Sims 4 update notes on the Sims 4 website.
