The Sims 4: My Wedding Stories will release in Russia after backlash
After community outcry, EA and Maxis are reversing course and will release The Sims 4's My Wedding Stories Game Pack unaltered in Russia.
The teams at EA and Maxis have been excited to bring the blessed ritual of matrimony to The Sims 4, recently announcing My Wedding Stories. However, people soon noticed that while this latest game pack opens up the possibilities to weddings for everyone, it wouldn't be released in Russia at all. This was more than likely due to Russia's crackdown on LGBT content and the decision left a large portion of the Sims fanbase unsettled. After the community fervently expressed its outrage over the past week, EA and Maxis have reversed course and will now release My Wedding Stories unaltered in Russia.
The following statement was released on The Sims 4 website:
To our Simmers,
Last week, we shared the below update about our upcoming game pack "My Wedding Stories." At the time, we believed that our team could not freely share the storytelling of same-sex couple Cam and Dom in Russia and decided the best way to uphold our commitment to sharing their story was to not release this pack there.
Since then, we've been listening to the outpouring of feelings from our community including both support for our decision and concern for their fellow community members. It's equally important for us to stand by our values, including standing against homophobia, and to share stories like this with those who want and need it most.
With this in mind, we've reassessed our options and realized we can do more than we initially believed and we will now release The Sims 4 "My Wedding Stories" Game Pack to our community in Russia, unaltered and unchanged, featuring Dom and Cam.
We want the entire Sims community to be able to celebrate together, so we're pushing the global release of "My Wedding Stories" to February 23 - including in Russia.
Love is love, and The Sims community will continue to be a safe space for those who want to see a world where that is true for everyone. We are thankful for the support of our team and our values even when it is hard. Thank you for being a part of The Sims.
The Sims Team
Speaking purely from an editorial standpoint, this is the right thing to do. The Sims community expressed its concern about the broader picture of what it meant to keep this pack out of Russia, namely that while Maxis wants to do right by LGBT people, it was not willing to do so by LGBT everywhere. There are parts of the world where it is simply not safe to be a queer person and the answer to that is not erasure of any kind. Standing by LGBT folk anywhere means standing by them everywhere, including in regions where it may be considered taboo. While it took a while to get there, good on EA and Maxis for eventually doing the right thing.
Alright, let's go back to our news voice. The Sims 4's My Wedding Stories pack will present the game's take on the time-honored tradition of weddings, which features bombastic ceremonies, bachelor/bachelorette parties, giant cakes, and a lot more. It all takes place along a never-before-seen section of the world called Tartosa and features new ways to play with your Sims.
You can learn more about The Sims 4's My Wedding Stories from the recent introduction on the game's website. We're actually trying out My Wedding Stories ourselves here at Shacknews, so expect to learn more about it in the days ahead. Look for the new Game Pack to release on Thursday, February 17 on PC, PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X|S, PlayStation 4, and Xbox One.
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