The Sims 4 'Order Up!' update overhauls food and fixes over 150 bugs

Maxis released the October quality of life update for The Sims 4 on October 27, 2026. The official post, "Order Up! The Next Quality of Life Update is here!", centres the patch on food, dining and drinks and lists more than 150 bug fixes, including over 25 for Dine Out, plus 14 new crash and stability improvements. The update is out on PC, Mac and consoles.

What the update changes

One new system gives players control over body changes. New game options and Sim self-interactions switch muscle and weight changes on or off, globally or per Sim. On ea.com, EA says the two settings are "completely independent of each other", so weight can change while muscle stays fixed, and that the option came from feedback in its Discord Dev Q&As.

The kitchen gets the broadest rework. "Open" moves to the front of the fridge menu, food and drink prices and calories are rebalanced, Family Recipes expand to more than 375 dishes, Sims handle leftovers better on their own, and baked goods get a "Quickly Decorate" option. EA notes that a small handful of dishes did not make the Family Recipes list for technical reasons or because they did not fit the "family dish" criteria.

Elder Sims receive a free content drop: new Create a Sim hairstyles and outfits, vintage Build Mode furniture, four Styled Looks, a Styled Room, and the four modelled Sims as a ready household on the Gallery. Smaller changes let players lock televisions to certain Sims, as with computers, gather various interactions in a new "Sim Options..." pie menu and track save backups more closely.

One warning from EA concerns builders: because a table footprint was readjusted, "some tables could be deleted from old builds".

Reaction and background

The patch continues a repair run. PC Gamer earlier described an "increasingly buggy base game", with a July patch that "triggered a rampant pregnancy epidemic" and a less-than enthusiastic reception for the Enchanted by Nature DLC. EA later announced a move from large, infrequent patches to "a steady regular cadence of updates", and its Quality of Life Roadmap 2026 set September through December for themes including dining and family trees and relationships.

The developer's October 20 "Laundry List" post previewed the fixes and says the roughly 10 crash fixes in September led to "a notable decrease in crash rates across all platforms". With the September update EA also said its top automated crash report came from outdated mod files. In the EA forum thread on that patch, one player wrote that the game "is running smoother now".

The first day of the October update is not spotless. In EA's Sims 4 forum, a Mac player reports an initialization error at launch, and a bug report on the new version says Family Recipes now offer foods that cannot be cooked.

On Steam, The Sims 4 had 13,409 players on the morning of October 28, with a daily peak of 25,589, placing it 72nd by current players. Its 201,911 user reviews are 86 percent positive, rated Very Positive.

The base game is free to play on Steam, and the new elder content is free as well. Players returning to older saves should check builds with tables, and mod users should keep EA's note on outdated mod files in mind. The roadmap also lists family trees and relationships for the September to December period.