The Sims 4 Star Wars: Journey To Batuu Is Perfect For The Sims Obessed Star Wars Fan

September 29, 2020

I have something of a love-hate relationship with The Sims. I love to create a narrative and life for my created characters and families and then eventually come to hate myself a bit after I become a little too obsessed with my creation. There’s a certain level of addiction that comes from crafting a persona and life within a fictional world that just pulls me right in. On top of a slight Sims obsession, I’m also very obsessed with Star Wars. I grew up watching the Original Trilogy, remember seeing Phantom Menace in the cinema, and have long clung to the many different types of media the series has expanded to. So when I found out that Star Wars was coming to The Sims in the form of The Sims 4 Star Wars: Journey to Batuu I was instantly intrigued.

For those that don’t have much experience with The Sims, the series additional content releases come in a few different forms. There are Stuff Packs, which just add stuff to the game, Game Packs, which add stuff, some new game modes and missions or other small expansions, and there’s Expansion Packs, which add large amounts of content to the game, like brand new towns and overarching changes. The Sims 4 Star Wars: Journey to Batuu is a Game Pack, meaning it adds a new area to explore, some new stuff to clothe your Sim in or place around your house, and a new storyline to follow.

After creating a new Sim, dressing her up in a Twi’lek costume and heading on a vacation to Batuu, it was time to let the Star Wars wash over me. Arriving in the central area of Batuu, a hub of stores and sights run by the Scoundrels faction, the nostalgia immediately started kicking in. Stormtroopers were wandering the streets, the Millennium Falcon was sitting in a corner of the area and the Cantina had some fantastic music absolutely reminiscent (but not the same) as the famous cantina music from A New Hope. Shifting over to the area aligned to The First Order, things were fairly similar. A few stores, a Tie Fighter in the corner and droids scattered about the place. The Rebel-aligned area follow a similar theme as well, with some rest areas, an X-Wing just sitting there and the occasional rebel looking character. While the visual theme shifted slightly in each area, and there were a few differences in the amenities available in each one, it was clear that they were largely cut from the same cloth.

Jumping into the missions in Journey to Batuu, I was surprised to find how RNG heavy they were. Searching boxes repeatedly until X-Wing parts magically appeared from them, all while having to jump out of the area and back again to make them respawn, repeatedly scanning a hard-to-find control panel until I got the option I needed and talking to X number of people to complete Y task were just a few of the missions I had to complete. They weren’t exactly the most engaging of mission designs I’ve found, especially as the game pushed me to begin grinding out more of them in an effort to increase my rank, but the promise of more Star Wars kept me going.

Mechanically, Journey to Batuu should be instantly familiar to any Sims fan. Click on an object to interact with it, manage your Sim’s bodily functions and earn currency to buy yourself some new trinkets. There’s nothing here that changes the formula to any large degree, instead focussing in on the mechanics and aspects of The Sims you’re likely already highly familiar with.

I kept playing, expecting something new and different to occur, before I came to a realisation: I had the wrong expectations of Journey to Batuu. I was expecting an interesting and new Star Wars experience, but in reality, Journey to Batuu is simply more Sims with a slight facelift. There is some nostalgia bait in the design of the area and the small snippets of music that play as you enter areas, but even here the Star Wars bent is somewhat light. You’ll eventually meet characters such as Rey or Kylo Ren as you progress towards the ends of the respective Rebel/Scoundrel/First Order mission chains, but even this doesn’t amount to much. The lightsabers and droid companions are interesting, but again they don’t add much to the game, which is in line with Journey to Batuu’s billing as a Game Pack. As a Star Wars obsessed Sims fan, the pack simply didn’t quite hit the mark for me.

At the end of the day, Journey to Batuu is perfect for the Sims obsessed Star Wars fan, but not for those whose only attraction to this pack is an interest in Star Wars. It gives you more Sims content to enjoy and hits a few of the Star Wars nostalgia pleasure centres at the same time. If you’re expecting new mechanics or a big departure from regular Sims content you’ll be disappointed, but otherwise you’ll enjoy Journey to Batuu.

Rocket Chainsaw reviewed The Sims 4 Star Wars: Journey to Batuu on PC from review code provided by the publisher. For more information, check out the official website.