A few days ago, EA re-released two of its most legendary games: The Sims and The Sims 2. Dubbed the “The Legacy Collection,” these could not even be called remasters. EA just put the original games on Steam with some minor patches to make them a little more likely to work on some modern machines.
The emphasis of that sentence should be on the word “some.” Forums and Reddit threads were flooded with players saying the game either wouldn’t launch at all, crashed shortly after launch, or had debilitating graphical issues. (Patches have been happening, but there’s work to be done yet.)
Look, it’s fine to re-release a game without remastering it. I’m actually glad to see the game’s original assets as they always were—it’s deeply nostalgic, and there’s always a tinge of sadness when a remaster overwrites the work of the original artists. That’s not a concern here.
But if you’re going to re-release a game on Steam in 2025, there are minimum expectations—especially from a company with the resources of EA, and even more so for a game that is this important and beloved.
The game needs to reliably run on modern machines, and it needs to support basic platform features like cloud saves or achievements. It’s not much to ask, and it’s not what we got.
It’s exactly what I would expect from EA. They haven’t got a cent from me in years.
As long as FC and Ultimate Team keep being reliable money factories, you can expect them to continue half-assing everything else.
Everything else? That’s implying FC and Ultimate Team aren’t being half-assed.
I expected there would be more „pay to win“ now.
The old version of The Sims works just fine for me with the widescreen patcher and doesn’t require any app store or online account.
Archive it before EA finds it. Probably works better than the rerelease.
Looks like EA found it already. Damn.
I hate when companies rerelease games in a worse state than the originals.
I was just thinking about going and finding the originals, but of course, the new rerelease is the only thing available to purchase. Is the “athletic lady” site the still the go to place? I have not gone sailing in quite some time
Archived. Of course they have no legal reason to take it down, but I’m sure that won’t stop them.
basic platform features
like cloud saves or achievements
cloud saves
considered “basic”
on a single-player offline game
Ooooh boy, the antiintellectual effects of tiktok reach deep.
Explain in one sentence what cloud saves are and how they conflict with it being a singleplayer offline game.
Never said they conflict. Said they’re not a “basic feature”. Sigleplayer has lived without cloud saves since around 1960.
Heck, most modern consoles have a USB port, I’d consider “offline save” more “basic” than “cloud save”. After all we all know by now the corporate internet can’t be trusted.
Electricity isn’t a “basic necessity”. Humanity survived for thousands of years without it.
Cloud saves are a basic feature of any modern game. It’s extremely easy to add on Steam without even having to implement it in the game. It’s just configuration, so not having access to the original source code isn’t an issue.
BaCk iN mY DaY wE SaVeD To FlOpPy DiSkS!!
etc
Hey! Someone else remembers floppy disks!
I remember the floppy disks that were actually floppy. I don’t think I ever saved to one though.
Yeah, I was going to say, of all the things one might complain about…a lack of cloud saves and achievements?
I get “needs more testing before re-release”, but come on.
EA should split itself up or sell off some franchises. The current situation makes nobody happy: investors don’t like the profitability of single player games, players don’t like the live serviceification of single player games, and I’m sure devs don’t like that they can’t work on projects that likely inspired them to become game devs in the first place.
The Sims franchise could support a medium sized studio on its own.
I played the Sims 1&2 as a kid, and love the fuck out of them. As an adult with disposable income, I would have gladly dropped even $100 on a proper modernized rerelease of these games I love. Instead, I saved my money and downloaded them for free. Because why the hell wouldn’t I? The pirate versions are literally better. EA is squandering the potential of this and many other IPs
RIP maxis. May you one day be reborn. 😔
Not surprised that it’s as bad as when they first re-released The Sims 2.
Can someone explain me what are the cloud saves for and achievements?
What is the point of gamifying a game?
Cloud saves are for playing on more than one box as well as backup. Achievements, from the developer’s POV, give some insight into player behaviour, you can also drop hints there (I would never have tried to pet the manta in Satisfactory otherwise), make suggestions for tasks people can set themselves, etc. Whether you, as a player, cares honestly nobody but you gives a fuck.
I can tell you, for example, just from the achievement statistics, that a metric fuckton, an absolute majority, of Cities:Skylines players play modded. They do track city building milestones and very very few people are reaching anything even close to mid-game with achievements still enabled.
Thank you for the insight. I respect it but nonetheless those are features completely indiferen to me.
