The Sims 4 Renames Character Trait Following Criticism

After receiving criticisms about the name of a trait in The Sims 4, EA had someone from the development team change the name in order to sate the complaints of the critics. Everything else about the character trait has stayed the same, save for the name.

According to Kotaku, the trait was originally called "Insane", and the Sim suffering from the trait couldn't receive medicine or medical treatment to cure themselves. The trait would also make it impossible to directly take control of them and make them act properly. The trait was signified by a straitjacket icon where gamers basically had a heads-up that the character is highly unstable.

Some activists complained that calling the trait "Insane" was disrespectful toward those with mental illness. So instead of calling it "Insane", in the latest update, EA had the developers change the trait to "Erratic".

The behavior attached to the trait are exactly the same and the way the characters behave is still the same, only the name has changed.

The change in the trait wasn't made clear in the recent patch notes that went live recently. If you check the changelog on the official EA website, there's a whole litany of issues that have been fixed, including that you can satisfy engagement whims by having a Sim propose to another Sim, along with a loop queue where Sim parents kept checking in on toddlers. Most gamers commented that parents stuck in a loop having to constantly check on toddlers in The Sims 4 mirrored a lot of their real-life experiences with dealing with kids.

In an odd note, they also removed the female preference for holding toddlers during family portraits, and now any Sim related to the toddler now have an equal likelihood to hold a toddler during family portraits.

And on the subject of removing things, the design team removed the "Debug" style from the build and create catalogs, noting that it was "derivative" of the Mugatu and Derelicte motifs.

Some minor tweaks to the way Sims reacted to citations have been resolved in The Sims 4, along with allowing certain clubs that have a play cards rule to see Sim club members playing cards.

A few more changes have also been made to the Cats & Dogs content, specifically with some error codes that were popping up, along with fixing a few animations and making the hygiene and reliability the DIY sink and galvanized sink have proper ratings.

Outside of the official changelog, the only major change that Kotaku noticed was that the "Insane" trait is now known as the "Erratic" trait. The outlet attempted to reach out to Electronic Arts to find out why the name change took place but nothing else was modified about the trait, but EA didn't respond at the time of publication.

Of course, now if you come across an uncontrollable Sim in The Sims 4 that just can't be reasoned with or calmed down properly, they're no longer insane... just erratic. The game is currently available for PC, PS4, and Xbox One along with a number of expansion packs.