The Sims 4 devs “investigating changes” needed to add wider pronoun support

The Sims 4 developers, Maxis, are investigating how to add more inclusive pronouns and gender neutral language to the game after the community voiced strong support to begin the initiative.

People have been logging onto The Sims 4 since it released in 2014, building their cities and sims however they see fit. But recently a petition, that called for “Pronoun Options for Trans and Non-Binary Sims in The Sims 4,” has so far gathered over 19,000 signatures since mid March and caught the eye of the devs.

At the tail end of their March 18 ‘Inside Maxis Livestream,’ Sims developer ‘GrimSuruDoi’ addressed one of the biggest talking points in the community: more pronouns in the Sims 4.

While the dev didn’t have anything like a timeline for when Maxis plans to update the Sims with more flexible language around pronouns and the like, plans are underway.

“I think to start off as an entire team I’d say that when it comes to representation – it’s not a destination,” GrimSuruDoi said. “It’s a journey that we’re all continuously working towards across the board. We’ve seen and read your comments regarding pronouns and their availability in the game and we hear you.

At this time we can’t confirm anything in regards to timing… Currently we’ve been investigating changes needed considering not only the size of our game but the possibilities of all 18 supported languages to make sure that we do this work in the best way possible.”

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In EA’s February 2021 financial earning report, The Sims 4 exceeded 33 million players. That was on the heels of breaking daily, weekly, and monthly average players in December 2020.

However, for many still playing the game, they’ve been “unable to truly feel represented in the game by having our sims selves misgendered.”

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Maxis has heard the calls from the community and are now looking into how to bring more pronoun options and gender neutral language to Sims 4.

While nothing has materialized yet, there’s hope this initiative can outlive the game and even be included in future iterations like Sims 5.