The Sims 2 Legacy Collection forced me to make my pets unemployed after showbiz dog's return from work triggered crash

This is one of those articles where, for once, the headline says it all. Though, for some context: I was one of many fans who flocked to purchase The Sims 25th Anniversary Bundle this weekend, before quickly sinking over 25 hours into the game in just two days, only to find a good portion of that time was spent handling all manner of bugs and crashes that were disrupting the rather idyllic life of my nuclear family of Sims. These didn’t bother me too much on the whole, until I ran into something that would, ultimately, ruin my family’s life (in-game).

One of these bugs, and arguably the most troublesome, involved my beloved pets. At this point in my Sims’ lives, I was well on my way with meeting their Lifetime Aspirations; one Sim wanted to be successful in the entertainment career which is easy enough, while their husband — who didn’t fancy getting a job for himself — wanted to have five pets in top-level careers bringing home the bacon for him.

Now, if a Sim wants a promotion at work, they need to work on the skills relevant to that job: Logic, Charisma, Creativity etc. Makes sense. Similarly, if a pet wants a promotion at work (yes, they can get jobs), they need to be taught new commands that they can impress their feline and canine peers with. This is where everything begins to go wrong.

Both of my Sims — my stand-up comedian wifey having finally got a day off work — get down to business teaching all of our pets the necessary commands for successful careers in pet showbiz. They don’t sleep. The first pet to go to work, given that all the others skipped work due to being too busy learning these new commands (oops), is Maliketh. He’s a rottweiler who, as far as I’m aware, is not bearing the Rune of Death that his Elden Ring namesake is renowned for, but what happened next had me reconsidering.

Maliketh is promoted at work, and I rejoice. One pet down, just four more to go, except Maliketh had other ideas. As his carpool rolls onto our road and he hops out the passenger seat, my game crashes. I hadn’t saved for hours. I boot things back up to see Maliketh and two of our cats — Malenia and Rennala — still present, but it turns out I’ve lost two kittens (RIP Morgott and Godrick) and two babies (Boy 2 and Boy 3) in the process.

“Oh well,” I think. This is The Sims 2 after all. Crashes are inevitable when it comes to a game that is two decades old, right? I continue where I left off. I immediately get my Sims down to business trying to have children to fill the void of the two that have since been misplaced by Maliketh, and once that’s done, they’re back to teaching our remaining pets new commands. Eventually, Maliketh goes to work again; this time, I save my game.

Sure enough, the puppy is promoted and you’d think he’d be happy about it. Alas, no. He returns home once more and as soon as his paws hit the pavement, my game ceases to function. Now, this crash was funny the first time with the head-canon I had going on surrounding Maliketh, and even a second time, confirming that Maliketh was in-fact the issue, got a good giggle out of me. Though, where was I to go from there? How was my pet-loving, employment-hating husband ever going to fulfill his lifetime wishes if every time Maliketh went to work, got promoted, and came home, it was like a literal death-bearing demigod was upon us?

Now, there is a rather finicky temporary fix for this for players who enable cheats. As your pet returns home from work, players can use the debug menu as their pet exits the carpool — this has to be done as they leave the car but before they enter the lot — and then reset the pet. For full details of the temporary fix while we eagerly anticipate a patch, take a look at this post in The Sims 2 help subreddit.

If you’re instead more interested in exactly why this issue is affecting players, as I was, this thread on EA’s Forums offers an explanation. Simply put, whenever a pet is promoted and returns from work, the game is meant to unlock a random unlockable for them — fur colours and collars — and these unlockables are not part of The Sims 2 Legacy Collection. As a result, the game appears to combust whenever it tries to unlock a collar or fur colour that doesn’t actually exist in the games’ files as a result of a pet’s promotion.

I’ll be honest, I simply couldn’t be bothered doing the above steps every single time one of my pets got home from work. I like to play The Sims at double or triple speed a lot, just to see what chaos ensues when my Sims are left to their own devices; this just wouldn’t be possible with employed pets. I’d need to keep a meticulous eye on things, and well, half my fun in the Sims comes from not keeping as close an eye on things as I should. Though, that did also see multiple of my Sims die in the first few hours of playing. Such is life in Strangetown!

So, this is where I restarted my game altogether almost twenty hours later after persevering with different, less disruptive bugs and crashes prior, hoping my in-game husband would have desires that don’t involve pets rocketing to stardom.

Maliketh, who now remains in The Sims 2’s family bin, I hope we can one day — provided EA deploys a fix for this at some point in future — give you the showbiz career you deserve.