This time around, Maxis has dished out the Gallery Profanity Filter Update, which means rinsing its gallery of any “unacceptable content,” according to the short blog post on the update. “We are aware of and have seen some select instances of wholly unacceptable content that has been uploaded to The Sims 4 Gallery,” the statement reads. “Our team has reviewed, and made critical updates to, the profanity filter to help prevent this from happening again in the future.” Maxis continues, “We are grateful for the community’s vigilance in helping us identify these inappropriate uploads, so we can maintain a safe, creative environment for our players. We will continue to do our part by quickly taking down objectionable content that surfaces, identifying and removing repeat offenders, and regularly reviewing the profanity filter in case any updates need to be made.” While Maxis did not share any examples of the content it has been removing from the gallery, nor any details as to how exactly the profanity filter has been update, you can imagine what type of content it has made the extra effort to get rid of. Considering The Sims 4 Gallery is a space in which players can upload their own builds, families of Sims, and entire lots, there are plenty of ways for players to get creative, and simultaneously, offensive. Maxis encourages any players that come across profane content to report it by using the ‘Flag This’ option in-game. Players finding ways to create and share offensive content in-game isn’t anything new, but it is pleasant to see Maxis combatting the content with a sense of urgency. We’ve been witness to some wacky updates in the past, too, that somewhat introduced inappropriate content to The Sims 4 unnecessarily. Back in August, sexual orientation for Sims was added to the game. However, alongside it came a couple of issues. There was a superfast ageing bug that saw toddlers transform into elders in a matter of minutes, and whims that wished for inappropriate relationships with siblings and teenagers. This was also fixed pretty quickly, as you can imagine, but was an amusing accident nonetheless. It’s also worth noting that Project Rene, said to be The Sims 5, was announced just recently. In light of this, The Sims 4 has been made completely free to play. You might’ve already picked it up for free in one of Origin’s many free weekends, but the game can now be played for free in its entirety on both PC and consoles.
