Sims 4: Snowy Escape is The Sims in Japan with onsen, kotatsu tables and cherry blossoms

October 20, 2020

If you have been excitedly waiting for the Sims 4: Snowy Escape expansion pack, it will finally be out in the next couple of weeks.

What’s even more exciting, however, is Sims 4: Snowy Escape turns out to be pretty much The Sims in Japan — with our favorite game characters heading off to the hot springs, warming themselves under a kotatsu table and even wandering through the Japanese cherry blossoms or sakura.



At least, that is definitely what it looks like from the Maxis Sims 4: Snowy Escape teaser trailer released this week. An escape they say is all about mountain getaways in a ‘Japan-inspired world’.

Watch the trailer, however, and you will quickly see this hardly seems to be ‘Japan-inspired’, but more like a direct rip-off of Japan itself.

Especially as the world features everything from Japanese-style ski lifts and trains to Japanese homes featuring kotatsu tables, and to cherry blossom packed parks complete with people wearing Japanese yukatas, tabi socks and kimono sandals.

The Sims can’t even go out for some fun without coming across Japanese-style restaurants, or without walking out of a tatami-matted, paper-screened home and right into a steaming onsen.

Nope, Sims 4: Snowy Escape is not remotely ‘Japanese-inspired’, it really is The Sims in Japan. (Not that, as a huge everything Japanese fan I am complaining in the least, you understand).

 

Sims in Japan comes complete with houses with tatami mats, kotatsu tables and paper-screened doors.

According to EA and Maxis, the Sims 4: Snowy Escape expansion pack offers both residential and vacation lots, so you can head off on a short vacation or build a home and stay there permanently.

The pack also comes with what they are calling ‘lifestyles and sentiments’ — meaning your sims will begin to develop specific character traits based on how they behave.

Sentiments are connected to lifestyles as well, but are more about shared experiences and how each sim feels about other sims because of them.

The Sims 4: Snowy Escape aka The Sims in Japan will release on November 13th., and will be available for PC, Steam, Xbox One and PlayStation 4.
The pack’s official website has more information on it, but the Sims 4: Snowy Escape trailer will also give you a good look-see.

Michelle Topham
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