In the base game files (pre-2016), there were exclusive strings referencing "Lot streaming distance" and "Neighbor walkby frequency." The strings read: "ERROR: Sim is too far from active lot to render." This is a smoking gun proving that early builds of Sims 4 (before the infamous reboot) had an open world like Sims 3 . Those exclusive strings remain in the code to this day.
These orphaned lines of text form a shadow history of the game, revealing features that were cut, mechanics that were simplified, and a development process that often leaves its rough drafts exposed. sims 4 language strings exclusive