EA and Maxis dropped a full list of 137 fixes scheduled for the October 27 Sims 4 update, and they did it a day early. The advance release is a new approach designed to give modders and CC creators time to identify what will break before the patch goes live. For players, the list reads like a greatest-hits compilation of long-standing frustrations, with restaurant behavior, save corruption, crashes, and CAS sorting getting the most attention.
If you haven't already, prepare your save file and mods folder before the patch lands tomorrow.
Restaurants get a complete behavior overhaul
Easily the largest category in this patch, the Dine Out fixes address a staggering number of ways Sims could abandon their meals. The list of things that will no longer pull restaurant customers out of their seats includes:
- Viewing wall art and decor
- Watching TV while waiting for food
- Going jogging when Energized
- Doing university homework
- Playing horseshoes or throwing paper airplanes
- Giving themselves a mirror pep talk
- Challenging another Sim to a sword duel
- Hugging other Sims
- Rummaging through the trash (the developers note they're "kind of bummed" they had to fix this one)
- Fawning over celebrities
- Getting distracted by Neighborhood Action Plan activities
Beyond seat discipline, restaurants also get fixes for waiters not showing up to shifts (caused by employee Sims holding special NPC roles from other packs), Snowy Escape menu items not being orderable, Boba Tea missing its liquid and straw, customers socializing too long before sitting down, square tables with center lights breaking seat footprints, and a full rebalancing pass on chef progression recipes that were incorrectly set to require only Cooking Level 1.
There's also a new option to set hot and cold weather dress codes for restaurant guests, and toilet pranks are now blocked at restaurants and small businesses.
Save corruption and crash fixes
Several fixes target problems that made save files unloadable:
- An infinite loading screen caused by corrupted zone data will now load properly instead of hanging.
- A separate infinite white screen on certain save files has been resolved. Some lot details may need rebuilding, but affected saves will be accessible again.
- A save failure tied to deleting a Sim with an active scandal (from the Dynasties system) has been patched.
- The save backup system now calculates daily, weekly, and monthly intervals more consistently, especially for players who take long breaks between sessions.
On the crash side, the patch addresses a PC/Mac crash related to cursor and UI processing on lot load, a Windows crash caused by unsigned.pyd files (now signed to match current Windows security requirements), a crash when romance story arcs advanced from "romantic interest" to "lovers," Origin launch crashes, a PS4 main menu crash, and a Gallery freeze on consoles that could last over 20 seconds.
Quality of life changes worth knowing about
A handful of non-fix updates stand out in this patch:
The "Open" interaction on fridges has been moved to the front of the pie menu, a change the developers credit to feedback from a Discord Dev Q&A. Self-interactions like Disable Attraction, Set Rock Paper Scissors Preferences, Utensil Preference, and Sim Physique have been consolidated into a new "Sim Options..." pie menu category when clicking your active Sim.
Televisions can now be locked to specific Sims, similar to how computers work. The example given: if you built a play room for your child Sim but the adults keep using the TV, you can now restrict it.
The Family Recipes feature from Business and Hobbies has been expanded with over 375 dishes added to the valid recipe pool across the base game and all packs, including many cultural dishes. A few items were excluded for technical reasons or because they didn't fit the "family dish" criteria (graham crackers, for example).
Sims will now prefer eating leftovers from the fridge or counter when hungry instead of cooking a new meal from scratch. And food pricing across all packs has been rebalanced alongside a calorie tuning pass on over 350 food items.
Gameplay and CAS fixes
Werewolf visual corruption that occurred during transformation after being bitten, or after aging from child to teen, has been addressed. The developers note that previously created distorted werewolf forms in existing saves may not be repaired by this fix, since the bad data persists in the save file. Fairy Sims transformed into werewolves will also no longer have black textures.
Adjacent apartments will no longer lose their furniture when loaded into. Infants will return from daycare properly after traveling to a gym lot. The Base Layer category is back for Merfolk and Fairies in CAS. Sims will no longer jog while holding food, obsessively use the pressure cooker, or gain extreme muscle from free weights and sword fighting.
A large portion of the patch is dedicated to CAS outfit sorting: dozens of clothing items across multiple packs have been tagged with the correct hot weather, cold weather, or hair texture categories. Several hairstyles have been recategorized as Afro texture, and raincoats from Seasons now properly sort as cold weather.
What modders should know
The full patch includes a technical notes column pairing each fix with the specific tuning files, Python changes, and engine-level adjustments involved. Notable changes for mod creators include modifications to restaurant role buffs, navmesh algorithm updates for Move Objects compatibility, new autonomous interaction tests across dozens of tuning files, and changes to how outfit setting and editing are separated in the CAS pipeline.
The early release format gives modders roughly 24 hours to cross-reference their work before players start reporting broken mods. If you maintain Sims 4 mods, the full technical breakdown on Sims Community includes the complete patch-to-technical-note table.
This is one of the larger fix-focused patches The Sims 4 has received recently, and the decision to preview it early for modders is a welcome shift. If you've been dealing with persistent annoyances like unwanted phone calls or restaurants that felt unplayable, October 27 should bring some relief.
Source: Sims Community