The Sims 4’s latest expansion pack, Enchanted By Nature, launched earlier this month, adding fairy-Sims, magical ailments, and charming new clothing and furniture items to the game. As a lifelong fan of The Sims franchise, I decided to dive back into the game after a few months of not touching it, fully prepared to be disappointed.

Most veteran players of The Sims 4 can probably understand my trepidation. The Sims franchise recently celebrated its 25-year anniversary, and the last 10 years have been focused on The Sims 4, which was released in 2014 with barely any content at all. The game launched without franchise staples like pools or color customization options, and even toddlers were missing — your little bundle of Sim-joy would simply morph into a school-aged child upon aging up. EA remedied this by adding content to the game over the next decade via free base game updates and new DLC in the form of expansion packs, game packs, stuff packs, and kits. As cool as many of these additions were in theory, many of them were disappointing in practice, usually due to bugs and underwhelming content.

For a good chunk of its existence, The Sims 4’s gameplay loop has looked something like this:

So when I fired up Enchanted By Nature, I wasn’t........

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