We compiled all the new info from the High School Years deep dive into a handy bullet list!
Today’s two-hour deep dive livestream into the upcoming High School Years expansion pack was jam-packed with new information about the teenage experience, high school life, the new world, and so much more! The stream was hosted by SimGuruGeorge and SimGuruJessica who walked us through all of the new features coming in the pack (and looked quite fashionable while doing so, if we might add!)
In case you didn’t have two hours to spare to sit and watch the full livestream, we’ve compiled all of the information from the stream into a handy bullet-point list for you!
World

- The new world is called Copperdale and is a residential world.
- Copperdale is a quaint town with a rich history as a mining town but the mines have since dried up.
- Copperdale was inspired by gritty teen dramas like Riverdale and Stephen King novels; the sleepy, idyllic town that gets rocked to its core when a grisly discovery is made. Everything is quaint but with a creepy undertone.
- 3 neighbourhoods: Rockridge Heights, Prescott Square, and Plumbite Cove
- All the lots in Copperdale were built by Game Changers
- New lot type! Boba tea shop! The boba tea shop in Copperdale also doubles as a thrift store.
- Plumbite Pier has a carnival area with rides and attractions. It’s a perfect spot for a group of teens to hang out.
- The carnival has a haunted house, go cart rides, and a ferris wheel. You can ride them alone or with friends. Both friendship and romance options available during the rides (yes, you can Mess Around and/or WooHoo on the rides) but it’s more of a chance card experience; you don’t actually see them on the rides.
- Places to buy food and carnival snacks on the boardwalk.
- All families have in-depth backstories and lore attached to them. A lot of effort went into making them fleshed out characters
- Lots of little hangout spots in Copperdale for teens to hang out as friends or get romantic.
- The water by the pier is swimmable and has a fishing spot. There is also another swimming hole that’s more private.
- The houses are reflective of a typical home with teenagers; the rest of the house is decorated like how the parents want it but the teen bedrooms are wild with all their personality and unique décor.
High School Life

- Multiple Sims in a household can attend high school together! For the first time, you can send multiple Sims to the same active career lot at the same time. This is not supported with older active careers. The Gurus said they had to build this feature from the ground up to make it work for High School Years. The older active careers can’t support it.
- You can decide whether or not you want to play your teens at high school. If you want to focus on other family members during school hours, you can still send the teens alone to a rabbithole high school if you want.
- New after-school activities show up on the calendar.
- The style of the default high school in Copperdale is Art Deco but the high school is fully customizable. You can bulldoze it and build a whole new school if you want but not while Sims are actively attending classes.
- You can’t put high school lots in other worlds; Copperdale is the only high school location but teens from every world can attend the high school in Copperdale. You don’t have to live in Copperdale to attend high school there.
- School is an active career. There are goals you have to complete throughout the day in order to do well.
- Classes and exams are an important part of the school day but more effort was put into the socialization that happens in between classes.
- You can claim and customize your own locker.
- Classes are active! There are two classes per day. Subjects rotate each day and build different skills.
- How well you do in class will determine your grades. You can fail to graduate high school now! Some careers will be locked to high school dropouts and they can’t get into university but you can attend online classes to graduate if you fail high school.
- Classes are the smaller portion of the school day. The Gurus thought we’d have more fun socializing and doing other activities so hall time, lunch period, and after-school activities are a bigger focus of the school day.
- If you do really well in school, you can become valedictorian at your graduation.
- You can get in trouble at school. Prank lockers, tamper with the PA system, and skip classes. You might get detention if you get caught.
- NPC relationship autonomy. Sims can now do things like ask you out or break up with you autonomously!
- You don’t automatically go home after the school day ends. You can join after-school clubs and stay to hang out with your friends.
- There are four after-school teams you can join. Football, cheerleading, chess club, and computer club. You can join at school or through the phone. When you join a team, you’ll have increased comradery with your teammates but also a rival you have to deal with. Your rival is someone on your team who hates you because… teenage drama.
- Teams will have different festivals and activities you can attend.
- Teens can ask their schoolmates to prom as romantic interests or as friends. There are new sentiments related to prom.
- Teens can “prompose” in different ways. They can leave a note in their potential date’s locker for them to find or make a promposal sign and surprise them with a big grand gesture.
- Prom is laced throughout the whole high school experience. It’s the highlight of your teen years so there’s a buildup to it. Teens talk about prom, plan out their prom outfits, decide who they’re taking to prom, and get ready together before the big night.
- The prom venue is fully customizable. You can totally bulldoze it and rebuild it from the ground up so you can do all kinds of different themed events and dances.
- Prom is a goaled event; you can do well or terribly at it. Have lots of fun with friends or have the absolute worst night of your life.
- Vote for prom jester and prom royalty.
- Dance, use the photo booth, and show off your outfits to everyone at prom.
- You can cause a lot of drama at prom. For example, Sims might be pretty upset with you if you start dancing with their prom date!
- If your teen is popular, they might get invited to an after-party when prom ends!
General Teen Life

- Wants and Fears are coming back to the base game but there will be a few Wants and Fears that are exclusive to the High School Years pack. They will work differently than in the past.
- Sims will have three Wants: long term, short term, and reactionary. Unlike Whims, Wants are more tailored to your Sim’s unique traits. So no more BUY BEE BOX!!!
- Fears are developed through negative life experiences but they aren’t just things to avoid anymore. Your Sims can actually choose to face and conquer their fears to overcome them for good.
- New selfie poses!
- New streaming options: lifestyle and gaming streams, can watch other streamers.
- New part-time careers for teens; Influencer and Streamer. You can choose a SimTuber avatar for yourself.
- New phone UI with a more app-based layout resembling a real smart phone. Lots more phone designs/cases to choose from which actually change the in-game design of the phone, not just the UI colour scheme.
- Social Bunny is a new active social media platform. See posts from other Sims, talk about your life on the social platform, react to posts, send DMs, add social bunny friends, and @ people. Other Sims will react and respond to what you post, too!
- More ways to hang out on beds! Sit cross-legged on beds and have pillow fights on beds. Sims can also sit on the floor to hang out now.
- Teens can sneak out of the house! New windows you can crawl out of and a lattice object you can use as a ladder to climb down from the second floor. You can sneak out from the first floor, too, and attempt to sneak out through front and back doors.
- You can get invited to different events, movies, college parties, etc. You can ask your parents for permission but if they say no, you can sneak out of the house. You can get caught sneaking out and get in trouble for it.
- New boba teas available to order at the boba tea shop. Can drink from straws now! The boba tea shop is also a thrift store.
- Trendy is another new phone app. It’s a fashion marketplace where you create designs based on what you find at the thrift store. If you’re good at it, it can be pretty lucrative.
- Create designs from the store’s selection, give it a style and a name, and purchase them. Once you’ve styled and purchased your outfits, hype them up by taking selfies with them and uploading them. Check the style trends to see what clothes are trending. Sell your designs and set the prices. Mail out purchased outfits and browse for outfits to buy on Trendy. Resell outfits you’ve purchased but don’t want anymore. Having a lot of followers on Social Bunny will help your designs become more popular.
- If your designs are really popular, you might see other kids at school wearing them!
- The Sims collaborated with Depop; a fashion marketplace that focuses on sustainable fashion and supporting individual designers. Some in-game pieces will be made by Depop creators and you can see which designers made each piece in-game.
- The thrift store rotates regularly and some pieces are not available directly through CAS. You can only get them at the thrift store when they’re in stock.
- Teens can take on viral challenges like the T-Pose Challenge. If you see teens t-posing, the Gurus promise it’s not a glitch! They’re doing the T-Pose Challenge for social clout! Teens will have to learn about the latest viral challenges by talking to other teens about them.
- Teens will be on their phones ALL the time. They basically live inside their phones, much like real teenagers.
- Teens can mess around with each other in a number of places, including the carnival rides, but if they get caught, they can get banned from the ride for a number of days.
- There is a photo booth at the prom venue and at the pier.
- This pack comes with new deaths! Feeding into the Stephen King/Riverdale vibes of the town, teens can get involved with urban legends, sometimes resulting in their own demise! There is a Bloody Mary style game Sims can play in the mirror. Most of the time, it will just be a fun teenage prank, but sometimes, Bloody Mary may actually appear and scare your Sims to death! Pranking certain objects can also go terribly wrong and kill your Sim so beware!
- Crushes are being added to the game in the form of sentiments!
- New WooHoo/Mess Around partners you can be physically intimate with with no strings attached.
- Sims can ask each other about their sexual orientation (if they’re friendly enough with that Sim).
CAS

- Clothes for teenagers. ALL fashion is aimed at teens exclusively.
- A large array of fashion styles for teens. Dark academia, kawaii, Y2K, and e-girl inspired fashion to suit a wide variety of Gen Z aesthetics.
- Clothes for different situations, like hanging out, school, and prom.
- Fashion is a big focal point of the pack since teens are all about expressing themselves through fashion.
- Some unlockable CAS items. You’ll have to go thrifting at the Copperdale thrift store or browse through the Trendy app to get access to those pieces.
- Cheerleading outfits in different styles.
- Unfortunately, Copperdale High does not have official school uniforms, but there are some school-uniform CAS pieces for storytelling purposes.
- Sparse facial hair to suit a teen going through puberty.
- BODY HAIR! Body hair will be a free base game update, but some body hair presets are exclusive to High School Years.
- Ability to enable hair growth. Sims will need to shave regularly to keep themselves groomed. This can be disabled as well.
- Acne came with Parenthood initially but were just presets in CAS. Teens will actually get acne in-game now and will need to apply cream to keep it under control.
- Four new teen-specific aspirations focused on different aspects of high school life. These aspirations are only available to teens. Each aspiration has a unique reward trait that will follow your teen Sim into adulthood.
- New fashion likes and dislikes in CAS.
- New Socially Awkward trait. Socially awkward Sims will be incredibly awkward around new people but will find extra comfort in being around close friends.
- Sexual Orientation feature coming to the base game! Can select which gender your Sim is attracted to, if they are currently exploring their sexuality, and which gender they want to WooHoo/Mess Around with. You can choose one, both, or no genders for all of these categories. For now, it’s gender-binary due to technical reasons but the Gurus have plans to expand upon it and make it even more inclusive in the future.
Build/Buy

- A new gamer chair getting added to the base game.
- Modular furniture.
- New curved walls feature coming to the base game. Most windows and doors will be able to be placed along curved walls. New filter in build/buy that will let you find curve-compatible windows easily. Some windows will actually curve to fit the wall, too!
- New Womp Womp gnome!
- Dual monitor computers! Streamer setups with widescreen curve monitors. Lots of colour-changing LED lights.
- A lot of mismatched styles to be realistic to a teen’s room.