The Sims 3 gets another patch, 10 years since its last update

The Sims 3 community was confused on Tuesday when they saw an unfamiliar pop-up when launching the 2009 release: Update required. Electronic Arts pushed an update to The Sims 3, updating a patch that was originally issued in 2015, per a Sims wiki. (The last patch listed on The Sims 3’s official website is 1.67, which was updated in 2014. The latest patch is 1.69. There is also a 1.70 patch, which is only available for MacOS users; that was issued in 2020.) The new update doesn’t fundamentally change The Sims 3. In fact, it doesn’t change The Sims 3 at all. Instead, the update fixes an issue that prevented players using computers with 12th generation Intel processors from playing the game. Players with these CPUs would see the game crash on launch. In 2022, a prominent The Sims 3 modder, LazyDuchess, fixed the issue with her own modded patch. Electronic Arts’ update on Tuesday is the official fix for people using the EA App launcher. Steam players don’t appear to have received the update. Naturally, The Sims 3 community is somewhat hesitant about the patch; they’ve spent more than a decade amassing modded and scripted content, and they’re worried about an official, forced patch messing it all up. One community member has set up a thorough guide to the update, including how not to update your game, if that’s something you’d like to prevent. Mods appear to be safe, Reddit user CowardlyCandy said. Polygon has reached out to Electronic Arts for comment. You might be wondering: Why would Electronic Arts update The Sims 3 nearly 16 years after it was released. Though The Sims 4 — itself more than 10 years old — is still popular, with roughly 30,000 concurrent players on Steam alone, The Sims 3 still has a sizeable community, despite the roadblocks to get it to run on new systems. Numbers aren’t available on the EA App, but on Steam, The Sims 3 has 1,000 to more than 2,000 concurrent players at any given time. It’s pretty impressive for a game to have that sort of staying power. Notably, The Sims is coming up on its 25th anniversary in early February. The developer announced in a community showcase on Wednesday that it’s adding a bunch of new stuff to The Sims 4 to celebrate — including overhauled lighting and updated Sims properties. Electronic Arts is all-in on The Sims 4, The Sims franchise vice president Kate Gorman Revelli told Polygon in September, despite the developer also working on the mysterious Project Rene alongside the long-running game.