The Sims 4: Why Bunk Beds Could’ve Waited

The Sims 4 has been out for nearly 7 years, yet players have only just gotten bunk beds with the release of the March 2021 update. Some good things came out of this Sims 4 update, such as new hair textures and more inclusive options for several of the base game posters. However, the most anticipated main feature within the update shows yet more recycled and broken content that honestly could’ve waited.

Bunk and loft beds are nothing new to The Sims franchise. Before bunk beds came to The Sims 4 in the March update, the last time simmers saw bunk beds was in The Sims 3: Generations, which released nearly 10 years ago in 2011. Ever since The Sims 4 launched in 2014, fans had been clamoring for bunk beds to be added back to the game, with their hopes being crushed by EA when bunk beds were not added with the somewhat family-themed Game Pack The Sims 4: Parenthood.

While simmers did finally receive bunk and lofted beds, what made the Sims 4 update a disappointment was the blatant release of an unfinished product. In The Sims 4 March 2021 update patch notes written by Sims 4 producers SimGuruJill and SimGuruRusskii, the last paragraph of the bunk beds section says, “For this first iteration of Bunk Beds, placement of other objects beyond single beds will not be supported. But for those of you who want to experiment, we’re excited to see what kind of creative things you come up with from leveraging the MOO cheat!” The five paragraphs leading up to the last paragraph hyped up the bunk beds, only for the final paragraph to reveal the bad news with what is called the “first iteration” of bunk beds.

Sims 4 Bunk Beds Shouldn’t Release So Early

It is possible that The Sims 4 developers were pressed for time by EA when releasing bunk beds, but they shouldn’t have released them in this state. The issue with bunk beds is that players cannot use the lofted bed added to The Sims 4 properly unless they use the Move Objects On cheat. Even with this cheat, Sims will only be able to use objects underneath and not the bed itself if the ladder is obstructed, which entirely defeats the purpose of a lofted bed. What players can do using the Sims 4 cheat is place objects only on the furthest side of the ladder. So long as nothing is intersecting the tile that the ladder is on, both the loft bed and the object is useable, which does create unique opportunities for simmers who enjoy building – but isn’t very intuitive.

The other bunk bed matter that disappointed fans was the use of recycled Sims 4 content. One of the two newly-added bunk beds is the Metal Frame bunk bed, which is a Parenthood single bed that’s been converted into base game content. This is significant because it’s taking content from a paid Game Pack and adding it to the base game. Instead of converting the Parenthood bed, The Sims team could’ve created a bunk bed for at least one of, if not all of, the seven base game single beds that were not included with the two single beds that the Mod Pod bunk bed is modeled off of. This is yet another thing The Sims 4 should fix soon, alongside babies and toddlers.

With the March update only being the supposed first iteration of bunk beds, fans can be optimistic that The Sims team will work hard to finish bunk beds and have them function properly. Whether or not the rest of the base game single beds will be converted into bunk and lofted beds is yet to be known, but it would allow for more variety and versatility. The Sims 4 may have many years of life left according to the SimGurus, but if what’s to come is anything like the initial release of bunk beds, fans might be better off waiting on The Sims 5 or Paralives.

Source: EA

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