The Sims 4 now supports custom pronouns

In The Sims, players have always been pretty good at customizing their characters and shaping their lives. Same-sex marriages, for example, already existed in the very first installment of the series from the year 2000. Unfortunately, choosing the right pronouns for a specific character was not an option until now.

In 2019, The Sims partnered with the It Gets Better Project. One of the aims of this non-profit organization is to support homosexual young people all over the world. As part of the partnership, some Pride- and It Gets Better-related items have been brought to Sims 4, such as new clothing and a gender-neutral bathroom door, which arguably was a good step in a new direction for the franchise.

Sims players can now set their pronouns

Now The Sims 4 works (buy now €14.99) one step further and finally adds various options for pronouns to the game. Players can select They/Them pronouns using a drop-down menu, or set custom pronouns for their Sims. Here are different options for subjective, objective, reflexive, and all your other favorite pronouns. The system was developed with the help of It Gets Better Project and GLAAD, which probably explains the robustness of the new options.

in one related blog post explains producer John Faciane, better known as SimGuruDuck, how exactly they developed the new system.

“We tried a few different versions, but ultimately we settled on a system that allows the player to define pronouns and then use them in several different text elements. This was accomplished by creating new tokens, or reused pieces of text that support custom input from players.”

The new system is currently only available in English, and since The Sims is available in 18 different languages, it may be some time before the rest of the game gets these new pronoun options. “With this amount of languages, it’s very complex how different languages ​​and cultures use pronouns, so we need extra time to research how to properly integrate grammar rules into other languages ​​where the game is available.”