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While many indie games have explored healthy relationship boundaries, AAA titles mostly haven’t. Even in social games and RPGs where such boundaries make sense, developers rarely choose to implement any related mechanics. Of course, The Sims has deeper social AI than most games this side of Rimworld or Dwarf Fortress, so it’s no surprise that if a AAA dev were to dive in it would be Maxis. What’s cheating? When should your Sims get jealous? Thanks to a free base game update, The Sims 4 now features a complex boundary system that allows you to better define your Sims’ relationships.
The Romantic Boundaries System
While most Sims have a better grasp of respect, empathy, and bodily autonomy than, say, The Doom Slayer, they have their limits. Until now, Sims were surprisingly rigid in their understanding of relationships. That didn’t stop clever players from engineering every romantic setup you could imagine, but it often took a ton of work. If my Sim is going to kick Vlad out of Forgotten Hollow, I’d like it to be because Vlad’s a vampire, not because he failed to take a hint and blew up my marriage. The new boundary system lets you customize your Sims with a far richer understanding of what is and isn’t okay.
In the Identity Panel, you can now choose which acts will make your Sim jealous. Will holding hands and kissing summon the Green-Eyed Monster? What about flirtation? Create a Sim who isn’t troubled by WooHoo, and you have an in-game path to polyamory. You can also decide whether your Sim can change their mind over time or whether they’re set in their ways. There’s no right or wrong answer if it lets you tell the story how you want to. It’s a mechanic that tries to accommodate everyone and respect individual needs while championing safety and diversity. This is inclusion at its best.
The Sims 4 As a Model for Digital Decency
Seeing how well The Sims 4 handles romantic boundaries makes you realize how abysmal most AAA games are on the subject. Even games like Fable, Dragon’s Dogma 2, and Skyrim do little if anything to communicate the spectrum of boundaries that exists in real relationships. Learning more about setting and respecting healthy boundaries is only beneficial, even if it’s in Henford-on-Bagley. Pair this feature with the move toward more inclusive relationship titles (such as “Spouse” rather than “Husband / Wife”), and The Sims 4 is trending in a good direction.
I don’t want to oversell Sims as paragons of virtue. They’re often no better than Rimworld pawns, living brutal and inexplicable lives, regardless of their neatly packaged careers. Plus, they’re ruled by the all-seeing god-hand of the player, so they’re never more than a few clicks from setting their stoves on fire or causing a preventable death in the pool. Boundaries don’t turn Sims into saints, but they do give players the freedom to imagine new forms of intimacy and love. Crank up the jealousy, and they’re also great for soap opera theatrics. Cupid’s arrows can still take an eye out.
