When The Sims 4: The High School Years graced The Sims 4, players were gifted the opportunity for the first time ever to follow their teens to High School. This expansion brought incredible advancements to gameplay, including a High School Lot, Prom, lockers and physical changes like acne and shave-able face and body hair!
However, hopping on the yellow school bus to Sims High School didn’t always meet expectations that dedicated ‘simmers’ had! Where did The Sims: High School Years fall short, and what do players wish had been added to gameplay to enrich the teenage sim’s high school experience?
10 The Principal's Office And Teacher Sims
Copperdale High School comes equipped with Principal Mei Prescott and a Principal’s Office where she resides. Principal Mei roams the halls patrolling for truanting teen Sims during Class. Students who break school rules are reprimanded on the spot and given detentions. However, the Principal’s Office is under-utilized, in some Simmer's opinions! Players have wondered why parent Sims can't be called to the Principal's Office when their teen Sims misbehave! This could have featured a multiple-choice pop-up for teen Sims to try to receive fewer consequences, or parent Sims to choose how to discipline their teens.
Unique Principal or Teacher specific interactions could have been added to differentiate Teacher Sims from other adults. Teachers don't interact with the classrooms beyond writing on whiteboards or having Lunch. Wouldn't it have been exciting to see Teachers grading homework, arguing with other Teachers and getting into shenanigans as well? Perhaps student Sims could 'ask about grades', request tutoring, 'heckle' or argue about school rules, plead to get out of detention or ‘snitch’ on other students!
9 Parenting Teen Student Sims
The Sims 4: Parenthood enabled Sim parents to reward and discipline their teen Sims to help them thrive in their adult lives. The Sims 4: High School Years introduced ‘Sneaking Out’ of the parental home via a new trellis item from Build Mode, giving rebellious teens the ability to ask permission to go out or defy their parents by sneaking out. Observant parent Sims can catch their children sneaking out, causing the teen to lose ‘Responsibility points’ (although parents cannot ground teens for sneaking out).
Players suspected that detentions and expulsions would provide opportunities for Sim parents to discipline underachieving teen Sims for High School shenanigans. But what happens at High School stays at High School! Parent Sims are not notified when children receive detentions or are worse expelled, so teens can repeatedly misbehave at school with almost no consequences! Furthermore, neither teachers nor parents react to teens not completing homework or projects - an odd thing to neglect in an expansion focusing on school performance!
8 Social Bunny
“Social Bunny” is one new social media app in The Sims 4: High School Years and calls back to the bizarre bunny costume NPC that visited sad children in The Sims 2. Talk about nightmare fuel! But what does the Social Bunny app in The Sims 4 offer Sim teens? Social Bunny is unique because unlike “Simstagram” from The Sims 4: Get Famous, players can view and react to other Sims' posts, read inbox messages and tag other Sims. Interactions on Social Bunny can hugely raise or lower relationship levels. Thus far, Social Bunny is the highest functioning social media app in The Sims 4 franchise.
Social Bunny criticisms stem from the limitations of messages and posts. Sims can only post about their experiences, massively limiting postable content - especially when huge milestones in a teen Sims’ life are not registered by the app, but Sims can always complain about homework. Additionally, players can select ‘Friendly’, ‘Flirty’, ‘Mean’ or ‘Funny’ messages, but the actual message is pre-determined and randomized. Social Bunny can dissolve into teen Sims spamming friends with the same rotation of messages every day. Sims cannot directly reply to messages, restricting virtual conversations to one-off messages. The Sim 4 Development team could have built a messaging system mirroring the multiple choice pop-ups in The Sims 4: Parenthood, allowing players to choose from several messages with different outcomes as opposed to forcing players to roll the dice on what messages Sims send.
7 Socializing, Bullies And Popularity
Every High School in the teen film genre comes with a ‘mean girl’ or ‘school bully’ to make teen lives miserable! But perhaps players are fortunate to be spared from watching their Sims be shoved into lockers among other bullying antics in The Sims 4: High School Years! Several new teen-specific aspirations do encourage gaining popularity, partying and causing mischief, which is a valid part of teen High School experiences.
Despite complex traits, sentiments, moodlets and interactions throughout The Sims 4, this pack misses a few details in teaching students about empathy and responsibility. Student Sims are instantly given detention for walking too slowly to class, but Mean interactions with Teachers or Principals have no educational consequences! Most unrealistic of all, a Sim’s social media has no impact on school performance. A teen Sim can’t be pulled into the Principal’s office for ‘cyber-bullying’ on Social Bunny (or tagging students in one too many inappropriate flirty posts).
6 Football And Cheerleading Teams
Simmers were brimming with excitement over new teen-specific activities including joining the Football or Cheerleading Team! Would Sims now get to devise cheer routines, perform that perfect touchdown or even just watch in awe from the bleachers? Not exactly. These activities work like mini careers, with daily tasks to complete at home, but unfortunately, there is no customizable choreography for cheerleaders or a changing playbook for footballers. Players can't organize “pizza night with the Football or Cheerleading team" to develop team spirit (but players can manually create a club to facilitate team building with The Sims 4: Get Together).
Cheer or football practice is a rabbit-hole where Sims disappear, but players can attend ‘Sports Day’ for Football and Cheerleading on the football field. Sport Days are short, underwhelming competitions, where Sims perform Group or Solo routines or Practice Football in pairs to submit scores to a NPC Judge. Players can watch a pre-determined cheer routine or Sims throw a ball back and forth, but don’t expect any exciting visuals of a full-scale football game, crowds or cheerleaders performing flips or forming pyramids!
5 Backpacks, Lockers And School Uniforms
The Sims 4: High School Years introduced incredible new content, including clothes, wallpaper, furniture and makeup for Simmers to enjoy! However, players noted that some items, clothing and furniture could be improved upon! In Create-A-Sim, there are new outfits resembling school uniforms, but there's no option to select an outfit as their Sim's ‘School Wear’. Students often switch outfits at school without being instructed, requiring players to actively change their teen Sim’s attire to ensure students are appropriately dressed in class.
New lockers in The Sims 4: High School Years are customizable and include interactions like inviting Sims to Prom, ‘Grab an Apple’ or ‘Cram for Exam’. However, Sims cannot transfer items from their inventory to lockers or collect textbooks or homework from lockers throughout the school day. Instead of backpacks being a piece of ‘Clutter’ or an accessory that players cannot interact with, Simmers hoped for functioning, customizable backpacks in this expansion, but were disappointed.
4 Crushes And Teen Romance
The Sims 4: High School Years implemented a new dating system where teen Sims can develop crushes. Sims receive moodlets when in close proximity to their crush, encouraging players to allow their Sims to follow their heart’s desires. The Sims 4: High School Years misses out double dates, pre-date nerves or teens asking parents for dating advice!
One missed opportunity is an ‘Introduce to Parents’ event for teen Sims to introduce significant others to parent Sims to seek their approval and gain rewards or relationship "sentiments". Relationships could positively or negatively impact friendships, with friends becoming jealous or feeling distant! The upcoming The Sims 4: Growing Together expansion pack could have designed parents' romantic relationships to affect children’s relationships with new step-parents or step-siblings!
3 Customizable Prom And High School Lots
The Sims 4: High School Years brought the classic teenage milestone of Prom to The Sims 4 gameplay. Prom decorations are available in Build Mode and players can manually redecorate the default Prom venue to their liking (or download a new Lot from the online Gallery). However, there is no ‘Prom Committee’ that allows Simmers to customize the Prom menu (twenty roast chickens??), plan activities or reduce the frequency of Prom, which causes the weekly ritual of Prom to lose its allure.
The Sims 4 Team missed the mark by not including multiple High School lots or a ‘Boarding School' option to live on campus. This is a huge oversight considering the popularity of players creating their own magical boarding school ‘Hogwarts’ in The Sims 4. Technically players can add beds to High School lot, which may be necessary as teen Sims are often exhausted within the first minutes of the School Day!
2 Impact On Other Life Stages
Unsurprisingly, this expansion focuses on the teen experience with little content for other life stages. Players cannot accompany child Sims to Elementary School or attend Pre-School or Daycare with toddlers. The Sims 4: Discover University introduced the Education career path, but disappointingly, The Sims 4: High School Years doesn't enable following adult Sims to teaching jobs or offer the option to become Principal.
The Sim 4 gameplay doesn’t allow players to switch freely between following different Sims to High School, Work or Goaled Events. Players now face a tough choice as to which Sims to prioritize, as stay at home parents, toddlers, or career-driven Sims in Get to Work fields achieve very little while players follow teen Sims to school. It is increasingly difficult for players to balance multiple life stages in one household without neglecting several Sims to allow another family member to flourish.
1 Elective Classes And Classroom Interactions
The Sims 4: Discover University allowed players to elect into classes and complete assignments to achieve high grades. The Sims 4: High School Years only hosts two pre-determined classes a day and there are no class specific homework to complete to achieve grades for individual classes.
Teen Sims can ‘study for exams’, but class participation ends there. During class, some players were frustrated that slacking students couldn't ‘pass notes’, ‘whisper to classmates’, or ‘sneak food’ and studious overachievers had no ability to ‘ask teacher questions’ to improve school performance. Impractical High School Lots made it difficult for teens to avoid lateness or skipping class accidentally and quickly depleting needs caused Sims to fall asleep in class! As such, it often seemed that Sim students would be better off if players stayed home instead of following them to High School!