The Sims 4 embraces 'ecological, less expensive, and infinitely cosier' tiny house trend

If art imitates life, the latest expansion pack for The Sims is a portrait of collective millennial anxiety about affordable housing and climate change.

Electronic Arts (EA) has announced the next Stuff Pack for their cult franchise will be Tiny Living.

A massive community of Sims players has been designing tiny homes for quite some time, so this a reactionary move from the gaming giant.

Hear about Mark’s life in a tiny house on Somewhere Else : 

“Everyone knows tiny living is more than just a trend right now – it’s a movement,” said EA. “It’s ecological, less expensive, and infinitely cosier than living large, and it’s time for your Sims to celebrate this lifestyle in style.”

The joy of playing the Sims, a computer game simulation based on living a real-life fantasy, is that you can do almost whatever you want – including building and decorating the house of your dreams.

Players will be challenged to build tiny houses, “in a greatly reduced footprint of 100 tiles with a Tiny Home Residential Lot to receive special bonuses for [their] Sims”.

Much like the real humans who embrace a tiny lifestyle, Sims in tiny homes will receive “friendlier” bills, build-up relationships faster by sharing a compact space, and have big gardens to play with.

For years, prolific Sims builders have summoned thousands of dollars with cheat codes to create the grandest mansions they could dream up. Now, the in-real-life tiny house trend is bleeding into the game world.

Hundreds of thousands of people watch YouTube tutorials on how simulated tiny homes are built, with gamers foregoing digital marble for shipping containers, caravans and living-green roof decks.

The pack, which comes to PC and Mac on 21 January, and to Xbox One and PlayStation 4 on 4 February, aligns with this. It will provide a host of new compact furniture and decorative items, including chunky hand-knit sweaters, a multi-functional bookshelf/stereo/TV and a flipping murphy bed.

This story originally appeared on stuff.co.nz