Players who are enjoying the long and short lifespans in The Sims 4 recently noticed that their Sims drastically age up, but the bug has since been fixed.
Players are encouraged to make their own choices, while engaging in an interactive environment in this video game, The Sims 4, which is the fourth major title in The Sims series. This game focuses on improved character-creation and house-building tools.
The focus of the game is on the simulated lives of virtual people that are called Sims. It is your responsibility to control their actions, to help them reach their goals and to attend to their needs.
Similarly to other role-playing titles, you may experience some problems in the game. One of the errors in the game is that Sims rapidly age in a matter of minutes.
Video game glitches
Problems in video games are generally referred to as glitches, or bugs, which are software errors that cause drastic problems in the game’s code. These errors typically go unnoticed, or unsolved in the production of the software.
The bugs can be caused by the game, or otherwise exploited until a developer repairs them with patches. Allegedly, complex software is rarely bug-free or otherwise free from errors upon first release.
There are different bugs that you can experience in a video game, namely physics glitches, texture glitches, and sound glitches.
That being said, graphical glitches are well known in platforming games, where malformed textures can affect gameplay.
The Sims 4: Age up bug
The Sims 4’s publisher, Electronic Arts (EA), sometimes introduces new content and features to the game to keep players interested. It recently released update 4, which introduced many changes to the game. Along with it came an aging glitch that is affecting many players’ saved files.
The bug was reported in July 2022 by a player known as Absadot on EA’s Answer Headquarter website. Since then, numerous players took to social media to report that their Sims are aging way too fast, while their old-aged Sims are passing away.
That being said, the bug allegedly only affected players who were enjoying the short and long lifespans. Players who selected the normal lifespan did not experience the bug. A representative for The Sims 4 addressed the auto-aging bugs in a social media post.
Players were advised to temporarily play in or create new saves with the normal lifespan while they were working towards a solution. A few days after the bug was reported, EA released a new patch update, and the unusual aging up bug has since been fixed.
This means that Sims with a short or long lifespan will no longer become younger or age drastically at random times. If your Sims are still drastically aging, or becoming younger, it is recommended that you report the bug to the EA’s Answer Headquarter website.
Have the lifespans been altered?
After fixing the glitch, SimGuruNick, who works as a quality designer on the Sims team, reported that they have altered the lifespans of Sims. If you play on the normal lifespan, your Sims can live longer lives, as their lifespans have been increased:
| Phase | Previous number of days to age up | Altered number of days to age up |
| Teen | 13 days | 21 days |
| Young adult | 24 | 24 |
| Adult | 24 | 33 |
Keep in mind that the values for short and long lifespans were slightly changed, although not by much. The lifespan change was intentional and is thus not a bug.
How to change the lifespan of your Sims
You can change the lifespan of your Sims at any point in the game. To do so, click on the three dots in the top-right corner when you are playing with one of your households. In the new menu, you can select the “Game Options”, before clicking on “Gameplay”.
In the Gameplay settings, you will find the Sim Lifespan option. Players can then select the short, normal, or long lifespan. Afterward, you can click on “Apply Changes” and return to the game. You can change the lifespan of your Sims at any time, as many times as you want.
How to age up your Sims
If you are one of the few players who actually enjoyed the age up bug, you may want to age up your Sims manually. Although gamers should bear in mind that this is one of the various cheats you can use in the game.
To use the cheat, you first have to open the cheat menu by pressing the ”Control”, “Shift” and “C” keys simultaneously.
Next, you can type “testingcheatsture” and then enter “cas.fuulleditmode”. Players can then select any character they want to age up, and select the modify in CAS option.
