Where Sims 4: Royalty & Legacy Likely Got Its Inspiration

2 hours ago 1

Published Jan 28, 2026, 9:00 AM EST

Melissa Sarnowski has been a game writer for over two years. While she's willing to dig into any game for an article, she heavily focuses on The Legend of Zelda, Resident Evil, Final Fantasy, and The Sims content, having played games from each franchise since she was a child.

The Sims 4 is starting 2026 with Royalty & Legacy as its first expansion of the year. Like with most of the full expansion packs, Royalty & Legacy includes a new world, but this one lets you make your Sims royalty as the king and queen of the land. In addition to this feature, you'll get to experience other new features that are related to the themes of nobility and legacy, such as lineage and scandals.

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However, if you've been a long-time fan of The Sims franchise and branched out to play the various spinoff games that have been released over the years, then you might get the feeling that Royalty & Legacy is inspired by a specific spinoff. But if you haven't played a lot of spinoffs and this upcoming expansion looks fun to you, then you'll definitely want to try out this mostly forgotten Sims game.

The Sims Medieval

The Original Royal Legacy

The Sims Medieval was originally released in 2011, and it has one expansion pack, which is Pirates & Nobles. This game felt similar to The Sims 2, but it also felt entirely unique in its own ways. You would name a kingdom instead of pick a neighborhood to start in, and then you would choose one of the open positions in that kingdom, which included options such as the king, a spy, and a physician.

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From there, you would create a character to fit that role, and each character had a Fatal Flaw, which is a trait that can make your character's job difficult. However, you can also use Fatal Flaws strategically, such as giving a physician the Bloodthirsty flaw, since you often need to use bloodletting in the game, and other Sims don't bat an eye if a character dies receiving treatment. It lets you get creative in ways that the main games usually don't include.

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It's Time for Another Remake Treatment

For the franchise's anniversary, The Sims 1 and The Sims 2 were released and fixed so they can run on modern hardware. If the Royalty & Legacy expansion does well, then The Sims Medieval should be next for a re-release.

It could even stand to be revived, as it only had one expansion and the medieval world, along with the way the game worked, could've been built upon more to create a fully immersive world with quests that you can choose how you want to complete.

Of course, this is highly unlikely to actually happen, but The Sims Medieval has the perfect amount of RPG elements added to the usual life simulation of The Sims. While MySims Kingdom tries to be similar, it's not anywhere close to the experience that The Sims Medieval offers.

Plus, it's uncertain if The Sims 4 will remain the primary mainline game forever or if The Sims 5 will eventually be created and released to replace it in the future. In the meantime, taking a step back and returning to some of the enjoyable spinoff games to bring them back into the spotlight wouldn't be the worst idea for the franchise, especially if they start with The Sims Medieval.