Early reports create worries about The Sims 4

The Sims 4 is under a month away and early reports from journalists have created some worries after discovering missing features from past games in addition to the scaling down of certain gameplay aspects. It doesn't seem that long ago that the release of the latest SimCity stirred a great deal of controversy from lack of common features and other odd development choices.

While the lack of swimming pools and toddlers has been well published across the web, here is a list of other features that have been discovered to be missing as well as odd design choices:

• The Create-a-style feature from The Sims 3 has been completely removed; this feature allowed users to apply custom textures to any surface ranging from clothing to furniture.
• The game doesn't include a 64-bit executable which means a maximum use of 4GB of memory; this is the most worrisome reveal in that the game doesn't seem to be designed around modern hardware.
• The game is no longer an open world like in The Sims 3, but instead has been separated into various districts. The maximum number of Sims living in one neighborhood or now called district has been reduced from 100+ to 20.
• Story progression of non-active Sims has also been downgraded to simply aging and dying, no longer will they maintain jobs, get married, or have kids.
• School, work, and grocery store community lots have been removed.

Note: Any of these could certainly change before the final release and we'll be sure to report during our review of The Sims 4 on what has ultimately changed in the end product.

(Source: NeoGAF)