User blog comment:Knc1w2h3n4c5t/The Sims 4 is NOT Open World - Thoughts?/@comment-108.2.15.89-20140804051533/@comment-4568327-20140804122926

Loading screens aren't that bad. There is a map in the neighborhood view, and if you had Nightlife or later, you could still view the map by clicking on the Neighborhood name in the menu on the left and click "OK", without selecting any lots.

And if you think lots in The Sims 3 don't need to load - well, notice the "empty lots" when your Sim runs to another lot? Yeah, that's your loading screen. An empty, seemingly abandoned lot. How fun.

Disliking The Sims 2 because each lot had to load makes zero sense because lots in The Sims 3 need to load too. Everything in all games need to load as well. No shortage of loading in The Sims series. So I think it's very biased to only judge The Sims 2 for having to wait to load when every game is guilty of it.