Cooking is one of the most used skills in The Sims 4, which means players spend a lot of time looking at all the different dishes their Sims can whip up. Unfortunately, the aesthetics of the food in The Sims 4 has always been unsatisfying, which is especially disappointing considering how good dishes looked in previous titles in the series. If The Sims 4 is going to continue without a new mainline title on the horizon, then small details like food in the base game need to be upgraded.

Players have been stuck with low-quality base game food since 2014 and seemingly will continue to be for the foreseeable future, which is especially disappointing when comparing foods from other cozy games on the market. While the option of finding a mod with better-looking food is there, the fact that even basic details in The Sims 4 need mods to look decent is indicative of an overall problem with the game that doesn't have a solution.

Food In The Sims 4 Is A Step Down From Previous Games

Earlier Entries Made Dishes Detailed, Despite Limited Technology

The food in The Sims 4 is, in short, downright ugly. Most dishes are simple bowls with round textures applied to the top alongside minimal detailing. Pizza is a perfect example of The Sims 4's downgrade, as both The Sims 2 and 3 had highly detailed pizzas with depth and details like a greasy box. The Sims 4 is a simple flat yellow circle with some red circles on top to indicate pepperoni. Since food and cooking are a constant element of a Sims life, having more appetizing dishes would subtly upgrade the day-to-day quality of playing The Sims 4.

Previous entries in The Sims, though more limited by the technology of their development, managed to create very high-quality textures. There could be an argument that the evolving art style of The Sims, which led to less realistic depictions of Sims and pets, also impacted how realistic food looks. This argument doesn't quite work for the small details like food on a plate, since an art style change would presumably create something more defined than just pixelated versions of normal dishes.

Cozy Games Need Appealing Food

Tasty Dishes Are Important For Cozy Vibes

Cozy games, a genre that attracts people who want something cute and relaxing to play, generally have good-looking food. Recent titles like Animal Crossing: New Horizons and Hello Kitty: Island Adventure have adorable, stylized food for players to make and display. Cozy game staples like Stardew Valley also have cute food, and though you can't set it down to enjoy looking at, the recipes still look tasty despite only being made of very small pixel art. Even The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild, though not a game that fits into the standard cozy game mold, has delicious-looking food.

The Sims 4, despite being a titan in the cozy game genre, has disappointing food for players to enjoy. While most of the games referenced are certainly much newer than Sims 4, the game still has no excuse, since older entries in the series managed to make good-looking meals and because the developers intend to keep The Sims 4 going for the foreseeable future.

Details Need A Refresh If No New Sims Game Is Coming

The Sims 4 Needs A Base Game Refresh

The developer and publisher behind The Sims, Maxis and EA, have confirmed that The Sims 5 isn't happening for the time being. Instead, EA intends on keeping The Sims 4, which came out in 2014, going with even more expansions and content packs. While this does allow the game, which is now free-to-play, to continue ing its huge fanbase and robust modding community, there are major drawbacks to keeping a game alive that was not built with that goal in mind.

One particular example is the low-quality appearance of food in the game, with no update on the horizon. While small details like food may not seem important, The Sims is a series built on the small details of life, which come together to create a full experience. Having low-texture food may have been okay at the time of release in 2014, but over ten years past and with no new game coming, The Sims 4 needs to upgrade these core details.

The Sims still has an title called Project Rene in the works, but it's being positioned as a multiplayer experience rather than The Sims 5.

The problem with modifying The Sims 4 rather than creating a new game with an extremely long lifespan in mind is that the game will only focus on expansion rather than on fixing less-than-ideal details of the base game. If The Sims 2 and 3 were able to create appetizing food in 2004 and 2009 respectively, then there's no excuse for The Sims 4.