Review: Sims 4: Star Wars: Journey to Batuu

The Sims 4: Star Wars: Journey to Batuu is a game pack which adds Star Wars-themed content.

Sims 4 Star Wars - supplied.

There isn’t anything quite like The Sims 4 around at the moment. It’s a virtual ‘life simulator’, dollhouse, or direct-your-own-reality-tv game, depending how you want to look at it. It lets you control the daily lives of digital characters known as Sims (they were originally the inhabitants of cities built in the SimCity games) and has built up a very involved following over the years.

Developed by Maxis and published by EA for PC, The Sims 4 has had nine expansion packs and sixteen game packs released for it, covering everything from pets to inner city living to becoming a celebrity – and now, thanks to the latest game pack, your Sims can step into the Star Wars universe.

The Sims 4: Star Wars: Journey to Batuu is a game pack which adds Star Wars-themed content to the game, including a new holiday location in the form of the planet Batuu.

The world of Batuu is inspired by the “Galaxy’s Edge” areas at the two US Disney theme parks, which are reportedly quite amazing in person – but here, it makes the expansion feel like something of an ad for an attraction we can’t visit at the moment, or probably for quite some time, even if we could afford the flight to Los Angeles and ticket prices for Disneyland.

Sims 4 Star Wars - supplied.

Batuu is divided into three areas – the Black Spire Outpost hub where the cantina and spaceport are, the First Order District, and the Rebel Alliance encampment.

The setting looks amazing and you can encounter some well-known characters from the newer iterations of the Star Wars universe as you progress through the expansion, although at least one of them appears only in text form.

You have the option to undertake missions for three factions – the Scoundrels (smugglers), the First Order and The Resistance. For obvious reasons you can’t be friends with The Resistance and The First Order at the same time; the Scoundrels really don’t mind.

Unfortunately, much like a theme park, Batuu looks great but there isn’t a lot behind the facade.

Sims 4 Star Wars - supplied.

Disappointingly, you can’t build a home on Batuu. It’s a holiday spot like Selvadorada in the Jungle Adventure pack, which is fine, but it really feels a bit like the Sims version of the theme park in Westworld minus the murderous robots and lacks a lot of substance.

Even the mechanics aren’t great – you can only see inside two buildings on the whole planet and most of the tasks involve clicking on a building or item, waiting for a metre to fill up, then reading what happens next.

I also had some immersion-breaking experiences like text messages from other Sims asking my character to come to a festival in a different Earth-based city, and the fact the super secret Rebel base the First Order can’t find is available as a destination from the moment you set foot on the planet. There’s no option to tell the First Order where it is, either, that I saw.

There’s a fantastic idea here, but rather than making Batuu a holiday destination for your Sims, it should have been a full location with careers and the ability to build a house and have meaningful relationships and all the other stuff that makes The Sims 4 such a great game.

Sims 4 Star Wars - supplied.

The main advantages are that you can get some interesting accessories for your Sim from Batuu – notably a light sabre and a droid companion, as well as some Star Wars outfits.

It’s not without its appeal, especially if your main Sim, like mine, is something of an adventurer character, but it’s not exactly ‘shut up and take my money!’ territory either.

The game looks nice, and it’s fun to be able to have your Sims wander around a galaxy far, far away, but the actual gameplay elements of it aren’t exactly as thick as Hoth’s ice unfortunately.

Batuu is a place Star Wars fans may want to visit once or twice for the novelty, but ultimately it’s not the expansion Sims fans are looking for.