The Sims gets a climate-friendly makeover in Eco Lifestyle

Love The Sims, but wish it were more in line with your green sensibilities? The famous life-simulation game has had an eco makeover in its new expansion pack

The Sims is often held up as a shiny, romanticised example of the capitalist ideal: work hard, earn money, acquire stuff, and happiness will follow. The game is stranger and funnier than that in reality - browse Sims YouTube for half an hour and you'll quickly see that the stories players tell within this world are far weirder and more diverse than get money, get happy", often involving ghosts, thwarted dreams and scandalous pregnancies - but it's still very much Conspicuous Consumption: The Game.

Last week, however, The Sims went explicitly eco-conscious with a new expansion pack, Eco Lifestyle, which lets you design Sims and neighbourhoods around sustainability and climate-conscious choices. Or sack all of that off and live in a filthy, smoggy nightmare town covered in trash. The Sims has never judged you.