Set free your creativity by creating Sims that look and act just like you! Choose their goals and watch how their lives play out across vibrant neighborhoods.
The Sims series encompasses four installments, five spin-offs and two mobile versions. Offering an open sandbox experience, gameplay may feature violence, nudity or drugs.
New to The Sims 4 are several gameplay storytelling systems and features, such as toddler life stage development and gender customization options. Furthermore, updates add features such as pools, genealogy research tools and terrain manipulation options.
Create-a-Sim
Your family awaits in The Sims 4! Design and manage it like never before as every story is different. Choose the look, build their houses, explore neighborhoods with unique personalities and manage relationships as they live out their daily lives.
Step one in creating your Sim is setting their basic appearance, including Gender, Skin Tone (with color slider), Age, Weight/Height and Name.
Next is the head and ears area, where players can customize a Sim’s face by clicking and dragging certain areas of their face around. There are preset shapes which players can click to modify without going through all of the extra work of using sliders; there are two buttons for changing nose shape and mouth size adjustments as well as one to generate random faces.
Once that step has been completed, players can move onto the body. Here, players can make immediate and noticeable differences to a Sim’s appearance, as well as begin to understand some major distinctions between The Sims 3 and 4. Here we see significant variations between The Sims 3 and 4, such as providing more options when it comes to body types and outfits compared with hairstyles (though you still can alter their skin tone here).
Once a basic outfit has been selected, players can add shoes using the “add shoes” icon at the bottom to spice up their wardrobe and further personalize their Sim’s appearance with various hair styles (though variations in this regard might be limited). Finally, players may access the hat panel for further options and accessorizing.
After this is accomplished, the last step in The Sims 4 is selecting an aspiration and traits. Aims play an integral part in The Sims 4, as they determine daily tasks and help Sims reach their goals in life. Switching an aspiration may alter its associated special trait – either positively or negatively! Furthermore, players can customize several other settings here such as career progression, skill building relationships inventory management.
Build Mode
Create the Sims you envision by building their ideal homes, selecting furnishings, altering landscape and terrain features, building pools or basements and more – you have total control of everything they experience from birth until retirement!
While each Sims game brings new features to the series, The Sims 4 may offer the most comprehensive improvement yet. Alongside familiar tools for creating and manipulating Sims and their environments, The Sims 4 provides players with entirely new tools that enable them to manipulate objects like never before.
Sims can be resized simply by clicking and using their corner sizing handles, but there are also more detailed tools for altering body and facial shapes more precisely. There are even tools designed for resizing entire buildings or rooms – creating bedrooms with ensuite bathrooms is one such possibility!
Hand Tool (Hotkey H): the primary build mode tool allows players to select and move objects within build mode, though certain items must touch another object or be in certain locations to be placed – some walls cannot be constructed outside their lot boundaries, for instance; generally speaking, the front sidewalk marks the limit of building footprints. When placing walls with Hold | Shift held down while building them can allow users to paint or cover them more easily than usual, while flooring will duplicate automatically upon placement.
Other tools of note are the Esc key, used to cancel an action, as well as Ctrl+Z and Ctrl+Y for undo/redo actions in real-time; however, this only applies within one session; once live mode has started or the lot has been exited from, changes cannot be undone anymore. Furthermore, certain events such as fires and burglaries temporarily disable both Buy and Build modes in order to protect players from making modifications that would cause such events to unfold; once this event has ended these tools are restored as normal once its duration has concluded.
Explore Neighborhoods
The worlds of SimCity feature neighborhoods where Sims can live. Each neighborhood looks and feels different and provides its own set of play options; some feature story mode content while others serve as large empty lots that players can customize as desired. Neighborhoods feature both public and private lots along with effects like trees, ponds and landmarks for additional visual and gameplay variety.
Willow Creek was the inaugural neighborhood included with the base game and features New Orleans-inspired shotgun houses and paddleboats, providing plenty of attractions such as a library, museum, nightclub and park. Willow Creek also plays host to some of the most engaging community events available within the game.
Rootin’ Tootin’ introduced Glimmerbrook, an enchanting neighborhood designed for witchy Sims, as part of its Rootin’ Tootin’ expansion in 2022. Glimmerbrook features a portal leading to Magic Realm – an exclusive lot where Sims can learn magic, cast spells and purchase magical items such as familiars. Glimmerbrook also offers beautiful pool views with breathtaking scenery all around it.
Hermit’s Secret Neighborhood has recently been added to Granite Falls Forest, offering waterfalls and the home of a hermit for Sims to interact with and explore. Interacting with Bramble Bushes on lots allows Sims to access rewards and perks; choosing to explore them prompts a series of questions which reward players. Players may also form friendships with Hermits to reduce exploration time through herbal potions that offer extra boosts when exploring.
The Sims 4 features empty worlds where players can create custom homes. Recent expansions and game packs have added more neighborhoods with distinct looks, feels, and gameplay options. One major addition is community groups allowing Sims to join together toward common goals while meeting people and forging relationships with one another. Another change from previous Sims games was that Sims can now move into any household in their neighborhood regardless of knowing or not knowing the family residing there – something only one Sim could do until that family completed its storyline in one neighborhood at a time.
Explore the Gallery
As with the previous titles in the series, The Sims 4 allows players to create and dress “Sims”, controlling their lives in a virtual world. You can customize appearances, personalities and aspirations of Sims as well as design homes and communities for them in The Sims 4. Furthermore, The Sims 4 boasts an advanced custom gameplay engine for deeper emotional and behavioral simulation.
The Sims 4 stands apart from its predecessors by including an innovative feature called the Gallery that allows players to easily share and download additional content created by members of its community without leaving the game itself. Here, a wide variety of creations including Sims, households, lots (houses or buildings), rooms, etc are on offer; users can quickly find what they’re searching for by using its search bar or clicking on its appropriate tab at the top.
While the Gallery provides plenty of character customization options, there are a few key things to remember before downloading anything from it. For instance, its “Sims” tab houses thousands of premade Sims uploaded by other users that are typically safe to download – although some contain “CC,” or third-party content which should be avoided by looking out for ones labeled as CC-free – some creators even list this information within their description and others may use #nocc tags so gamers can find these creations more quickly.
The Gallery’s Household tab provides another great resource for adding Sims to a world. Choose from various household types ranging from single Sims to complete families; search the Gallery using key terms like ‘triplets’ to easily select one and add them into a household or place them on an empty lot in the world to give them their new homes.
