Gather ’round the fire, Campers!

It’s pretty safe to conclude now that in a matter of days, The Sims Team will introduce us to The Sims 4 Adventure Awaits. With our ongoing coverage of The Sims 4 Adventure Awaits’ many leaks, we’ve been eagerly attempting to puzzle out the contents of this pack. 

With the revelations from our exclusive look at the official pack materials by our anonymous source, we can glean some ideas, visually, about what this pack may entail. While we don’t currently have the full pack details yet, we can make a series of educated guesses with the information available to us. 

Until the official pack announcement, this is all, of course, quite speculative. We’re flying blind here, folks. Though, as always, I hope you’ll enjoy the ride with me as we rip these digital documents to shreds to sate our pre-pack curiosity.

As stated in our previous article, the watermarks on the images we’ve obtained were embedded by our source. We’ll leave it up to you whether or not you agree with the message.

So…It’s Camping? Again?

Simmers aren’t unfamiliar with the idea of roughing it; the first game pack, The Sims 4 Outdoor Retreat, took us into the great outdoors in the scenic vacation world of Granite Falls. This pack was very much set within the concept of the “great American campout”; sleeping bags, flimsy tents, log cabins, burnt marshmallows, and all the nature that the US National Park Service has to offer! The Sims 4 Adventure Awaits seems to be within that same vein of rustic camping fun. Though there seems to be a bit of a difference. What’s the difference? Well, let’s dive in and see!

So far, the images we’ve been given haven’t all been sing-alongs around the campfire. 

1) Archery

Archery is coming to The Sims 4! The most conclusive piece of information we can gather is from the pack cover. What seems to be a camp counselor (based on the uniform) is instructing a Child Sim how to use a bow. So far, we’re unaware if this skill will be universal across Sim age groups, but we’d certainly hope so.

2) Cootie Catchers

In the section with the camp bunks, we can also see that one child Sim is playing with a “cootie catcher”—a paper fortune teller made by children to divine a variety of things. Hopefully, this will be a fully realized gameplay item as we can see the camp counselor interacting with it as well. Maybe it will be similar to the charm bracelets found in The Sims 4 Growing Together.

3) Critter Carrier

On the table in the foreground of the bunkhouse, we can see an item made of blue mesh. From the handle on the top, and the twig we can see inside, I believe it may be a unique animal collectible! Similar to the unique enclosure of the Death Frog in The Sims 4 Life and Death. An educated guess from the looks of it is that the collectible inside is a caterpillar. It looks very similar to the mesh critter carriers available for catching and observing insects.

If it’s not a collectible, maybe it’ll be similar to the science-based kits where you watch a butterfly’s life cycle by raising a caterpillar through pupation. That would certainly be an interesting new item and would add to the variety of stories Simmers would be able to tell!

But What are The Adults Doing Here?

While the kids in the leaked promo images seem self-explanatory, the adults? Not so much. While it can be argued that they seem a bit asynchronous with the overall 1980s camper vibe you get with the Child Sims, I think they may be two sides of the same coin.

It seems like this may be some sort of “retreat” style camp—on one side, you have the more “traditional” camp experiences for Child Sims, but on the other? It seems to be a luxury style “glamping” excursion. In theory, that means your Sim’s children will be off doing fun, tropey camp activities while they hit the gym, or, from what we see in the promo images, find them a new step-parent. #justsimmerthings, am I right?

4) New Exercise Equipment

It’s been a long while since we last received a new piece of machinery for our Sims to work on their Fitness! The Elliptical bikes shown are certainly mainstays at modern gyms. Along with what seems to be a (now) fully functional hand weight rack!

The blond Sim on the elliptical in the gym scene seems to be experiencing a new moodlet based on using this particular piece of equipment.

5) A New Appliance

In the very back of the gym scene (yes, waaaaay back there), you can see a female Sim pouring something from a pitcher into a cup. While we do have a variety of drink sets available in-game from previous packs, you may notice there seems to be a base to that pitcher! So our Sims may eventually be getting a Blender to add to the appliances in their kitchens!

6) Waterfront Housing

This is a bit of a difficult spot, but waaaaay in the back in the outdoors scene with the adult Sims, you can see what appears to be a dock! With the building so close to the water, there’s the possibility that it’s attached. So we might be seeing the first instance of waterfront housing in-game since The Sims 4 Island Living.

7) The Return of the Imaginary Friend?

Finally, the biggest revelation from this leak—the possible return of Imaginary Friends! First introduced in The Sims 3, this mysterious plush toy is received via mail from a distant relative when a Sim is newly born. The Imaginary Friend then goes through all stages of life with its Sim friend, aging up from a somewhat inanimate plush doll to a fully mobile magical automaton.

If the Imaginary Friend is well-loved and becomes a Good Friend with its assigned Sim, then you have the opportunity to make them into a real boy! Currently, we aren’t 100% on whether or not these dolls are a new incarnation of the imaginary friend. Though from their inclusion in the pack cover art, they’re most certainly going to be one of its core features.

What did you think about this breakdown? Are you excited for The Sims 4 Adventure Awaits, or are you going to give this pack a pass? Please let us know in the comments section!

With thanks to my wonderful colleague, nooboofever, for their help with the creation of this article.