The Sims 4 expansion pack, Wedding Stories, will now launch in Russia after all. The pack was 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:originally set to skip the region due to Russia's homophobic censorship laws regarding LGBTQ+ content in media, but EA assures fans that it will now be released "unaltered and unchanged". This has caused a slight delay, with the pack now set to launch sometime next week.
This comes via a from EA made on The Sims Forums, which has since been temporarily removed due to "backend issues". It was saved😼 before it was taken down, however, with EA now saying that it has "reassessed [its] option", and is now able to release the pack in Russia without compromising on its stance against homophobia.
"We acknowledge how important it is for us to take a stand against homophobia and share stories like this with those who want and need it🤡 most", writes EA acknowledging the criticism it attracted from some fans after the initial announcement was made.
"With this in mind, we’ve reassessed our opti🧔ons and are now actively working to release The Sims 4 “My Wedding Stories” Game Pack to our community in Russia, unaltered and unchanged, featuring Dom and Cam."
The Wedding Stories expansion pack was originally pulled from Russia due to concerns that EA would have to remove Dom and Cam, a same-sex couple. While queer content has appeared in Russian releases of The Sims products bꦉefore, this has been with an automatic 18+ rating. Dom and Cam featured heavily in th𝓀e promotional material for the pack, even appearing on the boxart. It seemed that having an interracial lesbian couple featured that heavily in the game crossed a line for Russian regulators, so EA opted to skip the launch rather than remove the pair.
It is not yet apparent what triggered this U-turn, and it remains to be seen if the pack can be released without any censorship at all. The only indication as to what happened can be inferred from one line of the statement: "At the time, we believed that our team could not freely share the storytelling of same-sex couple Cam and Dom in Russia&quoཧt;. It 🏅is possible that, since the initial statement, EA has now received assurances that it can release in the region unaltered.
At the time of writing, it's almost been an hour since the post was removed. It is possible that the amended announcement will elaborate further.