Calendars
That’s right – The Sims 4 Seasons completely stepped up the game and added something that was never present in The Sims Franchise before – CALENDARS!
With calendars you are able to check the forecast for the next 7 days, see your Sims’ work and school schedule and also see which types of holidays and events are coming up. This is a feature that completely changes how you see both play the game and tell your stories as the concept of time has even more been redefined with this feature.
The calendar can also surprise you with an upcoming pre-made holiday that you haven’t seen before, as well as mysterious weather types that are sometimes predicted 7 days in advance.
One of the best things about the calendar is that you’re able to plan your own holidays and add your own events in advance (even allowing you to set the exact hour of a particular event). It gives you gameplay customization and manipulation that we haven’t seen before in The Sims Franchise.
Holidays & Activities
Beside actual seasons and weather that we get, Holidays is one of the biggest feature of this Expansion Pack. With Holidays Sims will have something to celebrate every season including Winterfest (which is basically Christmas for Sims), Harvestfest (Thanksgiving), Love Day and one of my personal favorites – New Year’s Eve!
Each holiday acts similarly to the events system that you get with The Sims 4 Base Game. You have certain objectives that you can complete in order to make your Sims have an awesome party and make them happy. However, there’s more complexity to holidays.
- Each holiday is celebrated not just on your lot but in each world in The Sims 4!
- Each tradition that you choose / play with in a holiday brings at least 1 unique interaction or ability in the game.
- Some Sims will choose to ignore or love certain holiday traditions depending on their traits and age.
- Successfully completing a holiday will give your Sim satisfaction points that you can take advantage of to spend on new Reward Traits – however unsucessfully completing a holiday will only give your Sims a small sad buff.
- Best of all – you have from 6AM to 2AM to complete a holiday, giving you enough time to not rush things.
Holidays and traditions are quite friendly and loving. Just be careful that you please the gnomes on your lot in time (that is if you choose the Gnomes as a tradition).
You’re occasionally going to get surprise holidays as well that will add a small twist to your holiday routine on your calendar.
You don’t have to play by the rules of the holiday game though. If you don’t like one or multiple holidays in your calendar you’re free to remove them and add your own! The game offers a crazy amount of new traditions and customization options such as choosing the name & icon of your holiday, decoration theme and choosing if that day your Sims should relax from work/school or not.
With this tool you won’t just manipulate the story of your Sim – you’ll manipulate all Sims around you!
Gardening
Seasons encourages your Sim to not only spend more time outside but to also nurture and take care of the nature around you. Gardening skill got a small overhaul but that’s not all – with this pack you’ll be able to join the Gardening Career, eventually choose a Botanist or a Flower Arranging branch and choose to earn money by going to work or working from home.
The gardening overhaul that you get with this pack will encourage you to pay closer attention to your surroundings and pick flowers that you’ll be able to arrange and sell at home.
With Seasons there’s an added complexity to taking care of your plants as not all plants will now grow during every season. Still, you’ll notice how things get easier if you build a greenhouse for your plants and even give them a company of the bees are also new to this pack! Just make sure you don’t use and abuse the great power of the bees…I’m kidding – feel free to bond with them and get revenge on your cheating husband just like I did!
The Verdict
I couldn’t find anything that really bothered me in this Expansion Pack, which I must admit is the case for the first time in The Sims 4 series. There are some small pet peeves such as lack of new pool objects and some other features and objects that were considered crucial in previous Seasons EPs. However, The Sims 4 Seasons Expansion Pack took a different approach, added a small twist to things we’ve had before and added something completely new to the franchise – which I’m glad it did.
