The Sims 4 is Free? Top 10 Reasons to Get Started Now!

So Sims 4 is nearing five years and the game is now free to get for the next few days, and to celebrate this occasion, I thought it was a perfect opportunity to follow up my first article by giving you rundown of the Top 10 Best Things About The Sims 4.

10 – Hobbies

You can’t start appreciating The Sims 4 without giving a nod to all the side-activities and hobbies your sims can do. Even with its bare contents back in 2014, Sims 4 still came with a colourful selection of hobbies ranging from fishing, to gardening, to painting, to Rocketship building. When Sims 1 first came out, there wasn’t that much activities to do in just the base game, all you could really do is skill. Painting was really the only thing that was different since you could make extra simoleons out of it, but other than that, your sims pretty much just filled their needs every day.

With Sims 4, your sim can spend their spare time (especially with the introduction of weeks to the series) doing some hobbies.

One of my favourites is the Rocketship. Its ridiculousness is so endearing but it’s also an incredibly fun object. Your sim can go on adventures into outer space (choose-your-own-adventure style) and with Get To Work can even visit Sixam (which I’ve yet to do, but working on it slowly). It also reminds me a lot of the fixer-upper car from Sims 2 Freetime, because it is a slow process to get completed, and it provides a new spot for WooHoo.

But even the other hobbies like Gardening (which can yield you a nice Cowplant), Mischief and the Voodoo Doll, and even objects like the Microscope and Telescope (which are incredibly gigantic for some strange reason) are just fun side-activities that can enhance their digital lives, especially since a lot of these influence your sims emotions which was a key selling point of the game, but these hobbies also just add a little bit of flavour to your sims personalities if you’re the story-telling kind.

9 – Attention to Detail

One of many beautiful things about the game is the attention to detail put into the many things, and it does require keen observation skills to notice them. From animations, to little gameplay features, to just the way a Sim will react to certain things, just injects so much more life to the game.

In Sims 4 Laundry Day Stuff Pack, your sims can get hampers to put their dirty clothes when they change outfits, this is one of those little automatic things where it just automatically puts clothes in the nearest hamper, but if your sim has the lazy trait, they will always just drop the pile under them, and it’s just like such a funny little detail. It not only enhances the way a Lazy sim acts, but it just brings some joy.

Other things include like the animations. I think one of my favorite things to do is just to watch sims cook. Low-level chefs just make some many funny fails like dropping an entire salt shaker into their food or drop glasses when mixing drinks. All of these were done by hand (as far as I recall) and none of it was done with mo-caps. And as someone who has a little background in animation I know just how hard and tasking it is to make these animations and bring them to life, and yet, these animations have made these sims feel so much more alive and real, as well as relatable.

It’s these little things in the game that make the game feel so much more, it’s an already complex game and to see our little sims have so much spirit in the way they move, act, and feel, gives them such depth that you would never really think of otherwise.

8 – Creative Outlet

Any Sims game wouldn’t be a Sims game without all the amazing creations the community makes, from the beautiful and genius builds, to the unique and gorgeous Custom Content hair, objects, swatches, all the way to the modding community.

Honestly when Zerbu’s “Get To School” released my jaw literally dropped. The idea of having such a unique and innovative mod. I do not recall anything as big and functional as that mod in the previous instalments. It felt like an entire add-on to an expansion pack. An Expansion pack for an expansion pack you may say.

But I’ve just seen such a unique vast array of modifications to the game, people have built flying houses, underwater mansions, created new traits, new aspirations, and just gives the player the power to enhance their experience so much more. Want your bills cheaper? Get a tuning mod! Want crazy hair!? Get some Custom Content! Need your sims to look like creepy dolls? Get some replacement skins!

Anything you imagine is possible thanks to the creativity of the Sims community, and while I personally do not use Custom Content in Sims generally, I have seen many amazing mods, tunings and pieces that make me amazed at the creativity that ours from the people in the community.

7 – Free Updates

With the Sims 4 initial release, the game was very much controversial as many expected features were missing, pools, toddlers and ghosts to name a few. And while many expected it to come eventually, many people were fearing the worst: these features were going to be trapped behind a paywall.

But that wasn’t true, and I think credit is due to the team for giving us these for free without any catches. Over the years the game has existed the team has graced us with several updates that added new features and over-hauled existing ones, and a lot of these weren’t things that was needed, but the team still gave us free stuff.

Things like the Freelancer career, the overhaul to the Gardening system, basements, and even the staples were all added for free for all players to enjoy and expand the already impressive toybox for the player. We even got short-time features like skill boosts weekends, and special challenges that unlocked unique objects and activities for your sims to do.

The Sims 3 nor The Sims 2 had this kind of update system, The Sims 3 did get some updates, but it was only during releases of Expansion Packs, and Sims 2 only added certain functionalities if you had the latest expansion pack installed.

I look forward to what the team has up their sleeves because there’s still so much we can see coming, there’s a huge list of features the fans want to see back in Sims 4 and I’m sure we’ll see many of these being eventually included, and many of them likely for free. The game is far from completed.

6 – The Expansion Packs

You can’t talk about what makes any Sims game great without mentioning what the game is just as famous for. The various Expansion Packs, Stuff Packs, and Sims 4’s new Game Packs, give the player the optional but valuable additions to the game. From making the worlds feel more real with Seasons, to enjoying a good night out in Dine Out, to infecting your sims with the deadly rabid rodent fever from My First Pet Stuff Pack (yes, I do like the pet cages, but I get why the controversy exist, it’s worth a read).

From Windenburg, to San Myshuno all the way to Selvadorada, there’s so much content to get that really expands the world of the Sims, and I have yet to play many of these packs! The game becomes so much more vibrant and colourful with the various activities your sims can do. Want to travel to a strange new world? Use the Rocketship to travel to Sixam (available in Get To Work), want your sim to become a saboteur and wreak havoc with your band of bandits? Create a club (available in Get Together). Want your sim to become a 5-star celebrity and be stalked by Bob Pancakes? Become an actor (available in Get Famous).

Each expansion pack, game pack and stuff pack enhance your game and fills up your catalogue of not only new objects, but things to do. And the best part? None of it is needed! Your game is just as fun without these packs, but believe me, once you become a simmer, it’s only time before you end up with the entire Sims collection.

5 – The Gallery

I’ve already mentioned how crazy it is to me to see how creative our community can get, I’ve seen some amazing builds, and I like to think I’m not bad myself. But there’s one thing that’s available in The Sims 4 that really enhances it, and it is the availability of the Gallery. This built in exchange is what really makes it so much better to have access to these crazy creations. In previous Sims games, we had to use the Exchange, which was basically a website that stored all the shareable content, and a lot of it required a lot of clicks to get from the website, to your desktop, to your game. The Gallery just entirely removed this and made it so fast to not only get something in your game but share it to the world. I built my new houses, and almost immediately I upload them to the Gallery.

You also get notifications of your followed creators and instantly see what they have created or shared or even liked, and it’s just amazing to feel that connection to others straight from your game.

Best part is the Sims team also takes time and curates several creations once every few days and they specifically target the lesser known creators so who knows, maybe you’ll become the new face of the Sims community with the creations you make someday?

(Lot in the picture below was made by Tazreen Tasnim and can be found here)

4 – Toddlers

Okay, so, this one’s very special because OH MY PLUM. Toddlers are like the most adorable things in the game ever. Like honestly, they’re pudgy little faces are just so fun to look at, but what makes Toddlers so unique and on this list is ultimately their gameplay.

In the previous games, Toddlers were just… there, they existed and that was about it. You’d spend some time training them to speak, teaching them to go to potty, and teaching them to walk, but that was it, all those interactions were literally a single interaction you had to direct your sims in doing.

But Sims 4’s toddlers was the first where their gameplay evolved in a massive way. They were no longer as boring but had fun gameplay. They came with unique traits that affected their skill level gain, and to raise them well, you had to get their skills up, which is NOT an easy task since their default life span is only 7 days before they become children. The best part is that you don’t necessarily need to waste your adult sims time in teaching them since they can self-teach, albeit at a slower pace, but you can still achieve the first tier quite easily.

Plus, their behaviour, appearance and animations are just adorable, especially since they usually experience the harsher of the emotions (anger, sadness and happiness), it’s fun (in a slightly evil way) to see them have their tantrum but it’s also fun to use their emotions to make other Sims life miserable, when they cry other sims become tense and get worried.

But there’s also the other adorable gameplay, like reading a toddler to sleep, or having a toddler imitate one of your pets.

They are just so adorable and fun to play with, and honestly were worth the wait that we had with them. They filled a good and missing niche in the game and really made the game so much more fun and exciting.

3 – The Graphics

I think what makes Sims 4 so special comes down to how everything looks. When I left Sims 3 everything was somewhat painful to look at, sims all looked the same, and world just seemed… simple. When Sims 4, the graphics just look beautiful, the sims looked full of life, their detail and genetics were much more noticeable, and I remember looking over the children of some of my sims and seeing their parents features in them.

But I think the biggest stand out in my eyes were the worlds, and the attention to detail in them. Each world has its own unique style and is filled with so many decorative pieces, from the Von Haunt estate in Windenburg, all the way to the port of Brindleton Bay. Each world is truly unique and worth visting.

Forgotten Grotto was just beautiful to look at (and I think it is easily forgotten about) when I first went there, the way the light shone inside that cave made me want a full world that looked like that and I’m still sad we don’t have custom world tools, imagine what the community could do with them.

If you have Seasons, the worlds take on a whole new beauty with the weather. Seeing my graveyard covered in snow in Forgotten Hollow was stunning. Seeing the park that the League of Adventurers go to in Windenburg covered in leaves left me speechless.

And the views from the various high-rises in San Myshuno always leave me wanting more, the views I had in Bridgeport in Sims 3 were always some of my favourites.

2 – The Tools

I think one of the biggest selling points of the game is what the other games simply don’t have, the tools. From Create A Sim, all the way to Build Mode, the things we can do in the game is just amazing and fun to play around with.

In Create A Sim, we have such a high level of detail, and their simple interface make them ridiculously easy to use, I remember trying to use the sliders in the previous games and being horrendously bad. They were always monsters. But in Sims 4, I found the clay system to be so simple to use that my sim did feel unique to their own.

But even outside of that, the clothing system is a complete masterpiece, even in the beginning the ability to use assets from across categories was refreshing, no more were you restricted to weird clothing choices and your sims could wear underwear as a formal! But when the team released the uni-gender options it completely changed the way the game was, and we could create anything from gender-fluid sims, drag kings and queens, all the way to creating transgender sims, something that was never an option before.

When it comes to Build Mode, the room system is simply the best, it allows you to quickly change the layout of your house, and features like friezes, different wall heights, and the ability to even build pools on different floor levels just really enhance what’s possible to do in the game.

The tools have been the strongest suit and I think the team has shown amazing ingenuity with this game, even if it has its short-comings, there’s a lot that I hope will get to see in future instalments.

1 – The Community Itself

And the number 1 thing that’s the best about The Sims 4? Well it really relates to any game, but the truth is, you if you have Sims 4 you get to be part of the most wonderful community on earth, and sure, it’s not perfect, but more than anything I have seen it be truly a beautiful place, a safe place for people from all walks of life, who are connected by this beautiful game.

I’ve met some of the best people in the world thanks to this game, some are my close friends some are my best friends. I get to be part of this community no matter how known or unknown I am, I’ve made long-lasting friendships that I cherish forever.

There’s this positive buzz whenever a new leak comes out, it’s like a hive that comes alive, because we have something new to talk about it, but even when there isn’t new content we get to laugh and cherish the humour that this game provides. From funny glitches to funny situations (looking at you Bob), the game and the series has created this wonderful community that is so welcoming. It doesn’t matter if you are a builder, or a storyteller, or if you stumble and somehow manage to starve your single-sim. We just laugh with you because we understand, and I do believe that this community is a loving one.

It’s a truly special place, and if it wasn’t for this community, you wouldn’t even be reading this article, because it’s thanks to this community that Jovan even allows me to write these new articles.

So enjoy it, because we’re a family who are passionate about this wonderful game, through good, or through bad, we are one and we are proud to be Simmers.