Earlier this year, I discussed my thoughts about how it seems even the most stubborn of large publishers are slowly realizing that they can’t afford to continue ignoring Steam’s prevalence in the digital game distribution space. As an example, I pointed to the fact that EA released complete versions of The Sims 1 & 2 on Steam. I’ve decided to take a closer look at both of those so-called “legacy collections,” each in its own Retro Rewind entry. I’ll start with The Sims 1 today and give its sequel the Retro Rewind treatment in good time.

Both legacy collections of The Sims contain all of their DLCs and have been updated to run on modern hardware. The latter of those claims is something I’ll be evaluating in these Retro Rewinds. I’ve heard that both games run well enough on current versions of Windows, but I’ve also heard that they seem to run comparatively better on Linux (and the Steam Deck specifically). I recently switched to Linux on my main gaming PC, so I’ll be able to test both games’ Linux performance as well. Now then, let’s begin the first “Sim-ulation!”

Before I launched The Sims Legacy Collection for the first time, I changed its Steam settings to force it to use the Proton Experimental compatibility layer. I initially wasn’t sure if that was strictly necessary, but I soon learned that it was. I was able to launch the game normally with that being the only change I’d made to its settings, but I then discovered that the game was forcing itself into a window so tiny that I could hardly see what I was doing. I changed the in-game graphics options to my ultrawide monitor’s resolution, but that didn’t change anything.

I did some searching around the Internet and was reminded of an invaluable resource for cases like mine. The website ProtonDB is full of helpful people who are much smarter than I am when it comes to getting games to run properly through Proton and/or on Linux in general. I looked up The Sims Legacy Collection on ProtonDB and found that the most effective solution was to both force the game to use Proton Experimental and to add a specific command to the game’s launch options within Steam. I followed those instructions exactly, but almost despaired when I next launched the game.

The main menu was still in that incredibly tiny window, so I feared that my tweaks hadn’t worked. However, when I clicked on one of the houses in the default neighborhood, created my own Sim to live there, and actually got into the game proper, the resolution issues were fixed. Now I’ve at least got The Sims Legacy Collection running perfectly well at a 2560×1080 resolution on maximum graphics settings, so long as I manage to progress past the microscopic main menu. That’s all rather strange, but I’m still glad I ultimately got everything working properly for the most part.

Because of all that stuff, The Sims Legacy Collection didn’t exactly make a stellar first impression on me. Based on what I read while searching for potential solutions, it seems complications like mine are common among people trying to play The Sims Legacy Collection with a 1080p monitor specifically; these scaling issues reportedly don’t occur at any screen resolutions higher than that (or lower, interestingly). EA claims to have fixed this oddity in a patch back in February, but that’s apparently not true. This problem appears to persist on both Windows and Linux as far as I can tell.

These roadblocks are the main reason why I’m still skeptical that both Legacy Collections of The Sims 1 & 2 have been fully updated to modern hardware. In fairness, though, it certainly seems like adding a launch option or two to the Steam versions of both games is much less of a headache than all the unofficial patches and fixes. Which is what you used to have to download and apply if you wanted a chance of playing the twenty-year-old original releases on modern systems.

I mentioned earlier that the Legacy Collections of The Sims 1 & 2 contain all of their DLCs and expansion packs. When I first played The Sims 1 on the PlayStation 2 as a kid, I never had any of its expansions. My understanding is that expansion packs for games in The Sims franchise were usually pretty good until EA finally dropped that facade of decency and started regularly charging $40 for lackluster The Sims 4 DLCs. My interest was definitely piqued now that I had the chance to see what I had missed out on all those years ago.

In my experience, it seems most people play The Sims in one of two ways: Inventing more elaborate and creative ways of torturing and/or eliminating Sims, or living the most lavish lifestyle possible. So far, I’ve opted for the latter. I created a Sim specifically for this article, used cheat codes to give that Sim an obscenely large amount of money, and set about living vicariously through him. My Sim bought a massive house for what seemed like a laughably small amount of money. I began to fill my Sim’s new abode with the latest and greatest versions of pretty much everything.

Speaking of cheat codes, I’ve found that at least some of the cheat codes that worked in the original release of The Sims still work in the Legacy Collection. If you’ve written them down somewhere (or perhaps even memorized them) from the original release of The Sims, it might be worth trying them in the Legacy Collection. Keep in mind that you might, however, imprint “motherload” into your brain, especially if you’re trying to give Sims tons of money as I did.

I’ve encountered a few technical issues with The Sims Legacy Collection on top of the resolution problem I mentioned earlier. For some reason, it seems the game refuses to let me alt-tab out of it much of the time. That’s rather inconvenient, especially since I don’t know what’s causing it. There have also been several occasions where I could hear my Sim’s work carpool honking its horn even though the car itself was nowhere to be seen. Since the carpool’s horn sounds like a klaxon, that tends to get annoying pretty quickly. I really wish I knew what caused these quirks.

Technical issues aside, though, I’m just glad to have the first two Sims games available on Steam and playable on modern hardware. You might have to jump through a few hoops to get either of these Legacy Collections running properly, but I’m sure there are plenty of dedicated Sims fans out there for whom that won’t be a deal breaker. As of the time of writing, you can get both Legacy Collections in a Steam bundle for a discount, but I’m not sure if that bundle will be permanently available or if it’ll be removed at the start of 2026.

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