The Sims 4 gives its world more autonomy in surprise new Neighbourhood Stories update

eurogamer.net:

One favourite (and sometimes infuriating) feature of The Sims 3 that never made the leap to The Sims 4 was story progression — giving non-active Sims households the ability to make significant, autonomous life decisions in the background — but now, as part of a surprise addition in The Sims 4's latest patch, that feature has returned in a big way.

EA first revealed it had started dabbling with story progression for The Sims 4 (a feature it's now referring to as Neighbourhood Stories) last November, explaining there was «a lot we want to do» to bring more life to the world outside of active households. Its first Neighbourhood Stories release played it cautiously, only permitting a Neighbour Sim to make a life change — such as having a baby or changing jobs — if directly influenced by the player or once a player had given explicit permission in response to a request.

For its second Neighbourhood Stories update, however, it sounds like the training wheels are fully off, with Sims now able to control their lives with full autonomy and with no direct influence from the player. Starting in today's patch, Sims households not being actively played can now experience a wide range of autonomous life events, meaning they could die in an accident, adopt or have a baby, change careers or retire, move house, get a cat a dog, and more.

The Sims 4's recently released My Wedding Stories expansion.

Players eager to keep abreast of the various goings-on in their newly autonomous world can easily check in on recent Neighbourhood Stories interactions via any mailbox if they don't want to make the journey to another household and see the results for themselves.

Obviously, all this has major ramifications for The Sims 4, and means players'