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EA is cracking down on NSFW content in The Sims 4

The Sims 4 now has improved profanity filters to reduce NSFW content in the creation gallery.
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The Sims 4 has a thriving community of creators working to unleash their creativity through custom characters, rooms, and homes in the Sims 4 gallery. But while EA and Maxis continue to welcome these endeavours, it does appear they’re now cracking down on creations with stronger filters introduced to weed out ‘unacceptable’ content.

As spotted by VG247, the latest update for The Sims 4 is a Gallery Profanity Filter Update designed to strengthen current controls on gallery uploads.

‘We are aware of and have seen some select instances of wholly unacceptable content that has been uploaded to The Sims 4 Gallery,’ EA said in its latest patch notes. ‘Our team has reviewed, and made critical updates to, the profanity filter to help prevent this from happening again in the future.’

‘We are grateful for the community’s vigilance in helping us identify these inappropriate uploads so we can maintain a safe, creative environment for our players. We will continue to do our part by quickly taking down objectionable content that surfaces, identifying and removing repeat offenders and regularly reviewing the profanity filter in case any updates need to be made.’

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At this stage, it’s unclear if the tightened filter was in relation to a particular incident, or a series of incidents – but it does appear some players have been exploiting existing bounds to upload content that shouldn’t be seen by younger players.

According to Kotaku, the incidents that led to the stricter filter likely involved players using custom textures and colour tools to create NSFW images on blankets and clothing that were freely available to download for everyone. While creators still need to work within the bounds of the Sims 4 engine for their creations, this still leaves plenty of scope for ‘imagination.’

Going forward, EA is hoping to take down this content before it can reach wider audiences – although notably, the company does not specify how exactly the profanity filter has been tightened. Whatever the case, it’s likely uploading NSFW content and images will be far more difficult going forward. EA has encouraged any player who spots these creations to flag them with the game’s moderation team.

Leah J. Williams is a gaming and entertainment journalist who's spent years writing about the games industry, her love for The Sims 2 on Nintendo DS and every piece of weird history she knows. You can find her tweeting @legenette most days.