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In recent years, the video games industry has begun taking important steps forwards when it comes to inclusivity. God of War: Ragnarok unveiled a comprehensive list of over 60 accessibility features just last week, while the upcoming Saints Row reboot has created a brand new customisation suite unrestricted by gender constraints.
The Sims franchise has always set out to be a champion of inclusivity. Since its inception, the game has championed and welcomed same-sex relationships, but there are still important steps the franchise can take when it comes to inclusivity, and a recent The Sims 4 update is finally introducing customisable pronouns.
Take a look at this incredible underwater home made in The Sims 4. I wish I had that level of talent.
The update will allow players to use the ‘Create A Sim’ menu to edit their pronouns, picking between the options he/him, she/her, and they/them. If you’d like more customisation, you can set subjective, objective, reflexive, possessive dependent, and possessive independent pronouns in the ‘Custom Pronouns’ menu.
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The update was made in partnership with LGBTQ charity GLAAD and non-profit It Gets Better Project. The Sims 4 first partnered with It Gets Better back in 2019 when they added Pride items to the game, in addition to inclusive build items like a gender neutral bathroom door.
EA’s associate producer John Faciane commented on the update, saying “We reached out to the It Gets Better Project and GLAAD and worked with them to learn more about how pronouns are used, particularly by trans and nonbinary people. Through this research and through doing a deep dive into the game, we’ve learned about all of the different complex areas that binary gender was present in The Sims 4. From here we then worked with our team to come up with some wireframe designs to help us work on making this feature a reality.”
There is some bad news. For now, the update is currently only available in the English version of The Sims 4 but Faciane confirmed that the developers are working on adapting the feature for other languages, so there you have it.