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The Sims has always been near and dear to my heart, ever since playing The Sims 2 with my friend on the PS2 when I was younger, but I never got into it as much as I did until I met my wife. We found ourselves playing The Sims together, primarily Sims 4, but I always wanted to show her the past titles that got me into it as a whole. Now, I can finally show them to her because the rumors were proven true: EA has re-released The Sims 1 and 2 on Steam.

TheSims2LegacyStock1

The Sims Legacy Collection and The Sims 2 Legacy Collection are re-releases of the originals with all of the DLC. From what I can tell, there wasn't anything special done to these apart from releasing them with compatibility for Windows 10/11, but I believe they were already working if you had them prior. Regardless, it is a way to play and enjoy the classics now with all of the DLC, even if it is a little bit pricey for games that were originally released in 2000 and 2004 respectively.

I decided to purchase the games myself and test them out on the Steam Deck as well, and they both work as expected. They run flawlessly, but with no controller support, you will need to use the touchpad to move the mouse around. In the coming days, there will most likely be optimized community controller configurations, so I will look out for those. The Sims 1 is a bit harder to control than The Sims 2, but it's still doable.

TheSims1LegacySteamDeck

Both games started at the correct resolution, which supports 16:10 aspect ratios, but I noticed some settings were turned down. The Sims 1 had Shadows off, while The Sims 2 had everything turned off, so I turned them back on. This didn't affect the battery drain much, keeping it under 10W at 60 FPS, so it's weird that it was defaulted this way.

I also tested to make sure both games are playable offline, which they are. On an earlier version of the store pages, it did note that you needing to be online for activations and that Denuvo is there. However, this was removed from the store page about an hour ago, so it looks like they backtracked on that.

The games are a little bit pricey for over 20-year-old titles with small enhancements, but it's still awesome being able to play them again. It was nostalgic coming back to Sims 2, and I can't wait to play it with my wife so she can see what the golden age of The Sims was, at least for me.

TheSims2LegacySteamDeck

The Sims 1 and The Sims 2 can be purchased for $19.99 and $29.99, respectively, or you can get the 25th Birthday Bundle for $39.99, which includes both games and some extra Sims 4 kits. The Sims 1 is rated Steam Deck Playable due to showing incorrect controller icons, small in-game text, and the need to manually bring up the virtual keyboard, while Sims 2 is Unknown.

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Noah Kupetsky
A lover of gaming since 4, Noah has grown up with a love and passion for the industry. From there, he started to travel a lot and develop a joy for handheld and PC gaming. When the Steam Deck released, it just all clicked.
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