Our Sims 4 main menu experience is already crowded enough, but now we're getting more packs. Just before this week's official announcement, players were able to dig up evidence of a new "events" system that gives out free rewards for regularly logging in. The first event will be called "Happy At Home" and will run for the next 35 days with a total of 8 in-game rewards unlocked.

It certainly looks and feels like a battle path. It is located on the main menu screen with a horizontal track of rewards that you can claim to log in for a certain number of days during a given event period. Rewards are like new hair and jewels for Create-A-Sim, new furniture and objects for build mode, and new Sim characteristics. You don't seem to be asked to log in every day, with a set of three rewards possible during one week, two during two weeks, and so on. And it feels like it's damned with a faint praise to say it, but well, at least it's free.

Content creator SatchOnSims slightly compares all the items in the Event Rewards track to items that have previously appeared in different paid DLC kits and extensions, such as Cats & Dogs changing the hairstyle color of the extended version, or the mini fridge version of the Discover University extended version.

"This first event will be rewarded for returning to the game while the event is active," EA said in an announcement article. "In the future, there may be events that will take you on quests that will achieve your goals to get rewards."Also, the event system is not a replacement for the current Sims Delivery Express ("SDX Drops") and adds new free items to all players regardless of the next time they log in

Login rewards are very common in online games as an incentive to keep the number of concurrent players strong." But in a single-player game it is strange. It was a strange first half of the year overall for the Sims 4. 

Back in May, it added a nagging store button that reminds you to think about buying dlc all the time. Just last week, EA announced that it had "brought the team together" to do better work to fix gameplay bugs that have plagued the game for years. And yeah, while the major bug-fixing campaigns just seem to be getting off the ground, another nasty kind of system could roll right out.

It was a real mix of what nobody wanted and what everyone wanted for years. The Sims 4 feels like it's being pulled in 4 different directions, like it's being stretched on a torture rack. While that craze already feels on its way out of favour in the wider gaming community, slapping in the path of a fight is just another shackle.

And while these "events" now appear to be free, one can feel nervous that if it wasn't for "The Sims 4," perhaps the upcoming "The Sims 5" might not always stay that way. 

For now, getting a free variant with something like a mini fridge that was previously only included in the Dlc is something I generally agree with, and aside from that it would be great if I could request a single tile shower head like the university I found for use in my base game small house build. From