The Sims 4 ditches gender restrictions

The Sims 4 used to have more than 700 pieces of content locked based on your gender. That ends today.

Development studio Maxis is releasing a free update today for its PC life simulator today that removes gender restrictions for clothes, animations, voices, and more, as originally reported by the Associated Press. This is a first for the series, which has sold more than 175 million copies even before The Sims 4 released in 2014.

Publisher Electronic Arts and Maxis noted in a statement sent to the AP that it wanted to “make sure players can create characters they can identify with or relate to through powerful tools that give them influence over a Sims’ gender, age, ethnicity, body type and more.”

Players can also now change a character’s gender at any time and customize their ability to reproduce with other Sims.

Our original review of The Sims 4 called the game “beautiful, smooth, and ultimately hollow.” It has since received two expansion packs and two smaller collections of paid content called “game packs.” A third game pack, called Dine Out, enables Sims to visit, build, and run their own restaurants. It releases on June 7.

LGBT characters still often struggle to find proper treatment in gaming. Many became outraged earlier this year when a transgender character appeared in the recent Baldur’s Gate expansion, Siege of Dragonspear.