New The Sims wedding pack pulled from Russia over anti-LGBT+ censorship
The The Sims 4 My Wedding Stories expansion pack trailer tells the love story of Camille and Dominique. (EA)
The Sims 4 expansion pack My Wedding Stories will not be released in Russia, with developers saying that censoring queer love would “compromise their values”.
The trailer for the new expansion pack, set to a Simlish version “At Last” by Etta James, sees two female Sims named Dominique and Camille transition from friends to lovers.
The Sims get together on what is supposed to be Camille’s wedding day with a man, and eventually end up getting married to each other.
Luckily Camille’s jilted ex doesn’t harbour any hard feelings, and even walks her down the aisle, before catching the eye of one of the bridesmaids.
Dominique and Camille’s wedding. (EA)
On Wednesday, The Sims team released a blog post, in which they said: “Yesterday we introduced you to The Sims 4 My Wedding Stories game pack and along with it, to Dominique and Camille, a couple whose love knows no boundaries.
“Today we want to explain the decision we’ve made to not release this pack in Russia.”
Russia’s so-called “gay propaganda law” was signed by Vladimir Putin in 2013, to protect children from being exposed to “homonormativity”, and has been slammed by human rights groups around the world for harming and endangering queer youth.
On its original release in 2014, The Sims 4 was slapped with an 18+ mature rating in Russia because its inclusion of same-sex relationships would be “harmful to the health and development” of minors.
“Imagining the stories our players will tell with our packs is at the heart of everything we create,” said The Sims developers.
Dominique and Camille’s honeymoon. (EA)
“For My Wedding Stories we were excited to introduce you to Dom and Cam. Their love story reflects the lived experiences of so many members of our community and team.
“As we moved through our development and brand storytelling process, we became aware that the way we wanted to tell Cam and Dom’s story would not be something we could freely share around the world.
“The ability to tell stories – any story – is at the core of what we do at The Sims.
“Holding back Cam and Dom’s story meant compromising the values we live by. We are committed to the freedom to be who you are, to love who you love and tell the stories you want to tell.”
