The Sims 4 update adds over 100 new skin tones

Earlier this year, players asked Maxis to improve the skin tones available in The Sims 4. Many pointed out that the darker skin tones lacked vibrancy and looked ashy - while makeup often appeared patchy on some of these tones. In response, executive producer Lyndsay Pearson acknowledged the team needed to do more to include a variety of skin tones and hairstyles in the game: and an update to help with that has now arrived.

Today's free update adds over 100 new skin tones to the character creator, along with a customisation slider to change the light to dark value of a skin tone. Skin tones are now filterable to warm, cool, and neutral tones - along with miscellaneous to cover occult skin tones like blue and green.

Sliders are now also available when applying a sim's makeup, which means players can alter hue, saturation, brightness and opacity. Maxis has currently locked the sliders "where it did not provide an optimal experience or make sense for the makeup," but is working to improve these issues in future. You can also save custom swatches as you tweak your sliders, which can be saved for later should you want to reuse a look.

There's a number of other changes included in the update - such as some tweaks to base hairstyles, further main menu updates and a raft of fixes - which you can find in the patch notes over here.

It's encouraging to see Maxis listen and respond to player feedback calling for better representation in the game, and The Sims Twitter account gave a shout-out to the community members who called for changes to be made. "As we welcome this update, we are committed to making meaningful progress for all players and we are continuing the work for better in-game representation long-term," Maxis added.