With the latest expansion The Sims 4: Growing Together out, many Sims aficionados are finding themselves spending endless hours again creating their characters from scratch, or just exploring the cool new features with their already created little humans. With more than 200 million copies sold worldwide, The Sims are one of the best-selling video games of all time, and it is for many good reasons.
With the first release back in the 2000s and the latest release just this month, The Sims have managed to shape a whole generation of gamers and create a fanbase that is unique to the gaming world. Even people who have never played any other video game in their life can get lost in the world of The Sims, where they have endless opportunities to live not one, but many lifetimes, just like they want to.
7 Online Community
There are players that never really use the online features of TheSims, but there are others the only reason that they keep playing Sims is the online community. There are so many players who create things for others, and sometimes, they are even better than the original the developers have created.
Whether it is a famous person that they recreate, or houses, or mods, the Sims community has always something new to share, creating an undying interest to explore, improve, and enjoy.
6 DLC
With the last expansion The Sims 4 Growing Together, released on March 2023, The Sims 4 have currently twelve expansion packs, twelve game packs, and numerous stuff packs. With that much content, there is no way that a player can get bored easily, or run out of things to do and create.
They can choose through many jobs, get a pet, become famous, explore the seasons, explore islands, go to university, go to the mountains, be eco-friendly, become old, live in a cottage, and so, so much more. They can fix their Sim to become a vampire or another supernatural creature, and even wear real-life brands.
5 The Ability To Play God
Of course, one thing that keeps luring new players to the Sims is that they have the ability to play God. Firstly, they get to create a human exactly like they want to, and then they get to completely control that human’s life, making them work long hours, marry, divorce, be lazy, fail at work, become a workaholic, cheat, be careless, be perfect – whatever they want.
This strange feeling is something that someone who hasn’t played Sims cannot understand easily. Having the ability to make someone who looks like the player write 10 books (when they can’t even start 1), or go to numerous parties (when they're an introvert), or be an A student (when they do not even know where they're books are at), or whatever else, is something that people can get inspired from.
4 Relaxing Atmosphere
While Sims can become a pretty stressful game at times – who hasn’t brutally woken up their seriously upset Sim to go to work just so they don’t get fired? – it is considered a generally relaxing game. This is achieved by the gameplay itself but also by little bits and pieces that the developers have added to make this feeling even more pronounced.
The music and the colors are helping the atmosphere to remain light and even the fact of their own nonsense language is a way to bring a smile to the players’ faces. Also, the fact that even deaths, divorces, and other bleak stuff can be dealt with in a relatively short time and by following some specific actions, makes this game an experience that can keep someone light-hearted and with a positive outlook on things.
3 Small Doses Of Endorphins
With each little task that a Sim manages to finish, they get a boost in their mood. The exact same thing happens to the player as well. There are many researchers who link the successful pay-to-win games to the feeling of temporary bliss that the gamer gets from finishing a task, and Sims is a game that continuously makes the player do exactly that if they don’t want their Sim to be in such a bad mood that they become unplayable.
It is easy to bring back to mind the little dose of happiness when a Sim has eaten a tasty meal, then had a nice chat, then use the restroom and shower, and then get uninterrupted sleep. When the green lines are full, so is the player’s feeling of peace, and they can focus on more important goals for the Sim. The bigger the goal they achieve, the bigger the feeling of bliss for both.
2 The Building Of The Dream House
No matter who the player is, it is almost certain that at some point they have dreamed of their own dream house, where everything looks just like they want. For most people, it remains a type of “if I ever won the lottery” dream, but for gamers who love Sims, it is a way to check if they could actually build it.
Lots of players find out that their dream house is not that easy to build after all, and that yes, architects, engineers, and interior designers are needed after all. But before learning all that, they can spend hours upon hours trying to get that window to align with the front door, or move this and that wall, so their house doesn’t look like a giant box. But for those with a bit more inspiration, the building of a house can be a fascinating and endlessly rewarding feature, as they see their creations grow along with their families.
1 Can Be Evil With No Consequences
This is a feature that, for better or worse, a lot of people use. A lot. Like, a lot. In real life, if someone decides to randomly choose evil over good, it is almost certain that it is going to have consequences and people are going to get hurt. In Sims though, someone can choose to do the evil thing, and if they don’t like the result, can just load up the game again before they ever get to do the bad thing.
If ever anyone wanted to play with morality without actually doing something irreversible, Sims is a great way to go about it, since they can play with actions and put characteristics in their Sim that they would loathe having in real life.
The Sims 4 is available now for PC, PS4, PS5, Xbox One, and Xbox Series X/S. The Sims 5 is in development.