The Sims 4 Rebirth Guide: A Whole New Life Of New Possibilities

The Sims 4 Life & Death brings a new feature which allows ghosts who have completed their Soul's Journey to be reborn as a completely different Sim. With this comes a new life, a new Soul's Journey, a different life path while keeping small fragments of their past self.

But how does it work exactly? What can you expect from reborn Sims and what to keep in mind? Fortunately, these all get answered here!

Unlocking Through Soul's Journey

In order for your Sim to be able to be reborn, they have to complete their Soul's Journey. This can be done by earning Satisfaction Points or more efficiently by completing Sim's Bucket List/Unfinished Business tasks. The Soul's Journey becomes available when the Sim either becomes a young adult or becomes a ghost as a teen. While children have no Soul's Journey even as ghosts, they can age up in Baleful Bog to start completing their Soul's Journey as a teen should they become a ghost.

Soul's Journey has 8 levels Sims can reach (6 before they become a ghost). While the rewards can be found here, we are interested in the 6th level: Dreams Fulfilled. This is where your Sim unlocks the ability to be Reborn.

But don't stop just yet! When your Sim becomes a ghost, they can continue their Soul's Journey even further. Should your Sim reach the maximum level: the Big Picture, they will earn the Burning Soul trait, which will give your Sim extra advantages once they're reborn. Should the ghost become alive (either by resurrection or the temporary time running out), the extra Soul's Journey progress won't be lost.

Cheating to unlock it immediately

Want to unlock the Rebirth immediately? Good news is that there are cheats available to change your Sim's Soul's Journey progress. In order to use them, you need to enter testingcheats on first.

To get the Dreams Fulfilled level, you'll need to use this cheat:
stats.set_stat rankedStatistic_MovingOn_SoulsJourney 30

If your Sim is a ghost (either temporary or permanent), you are able to set it even further for the Burning Soul trait. To set it to The Big Picture level, use this cheat:
stats.set_stat rankedStatistic_MovingOn_SoulsJourney 40

In rare cases where the progress bugs out, simply set it back to 0 first.

Being Reborn

How To Start

Once unlocked there are two ways to start this process.

You can choose to immediately have your Sim be reborn when they die instead of them becoming a ghost. However, most of the time at this point, your Sim hasn't earned the Burning Soul trait, so if you wish to obtain it first, consider having them be a ghost first.

Ghost Sims (even temporary ones) can visit the Baleful Bog any time to start their rebirth process. Simply click on a swimmable area in the Bog and the option is available. Do note that your Sim changes into their swimwear first, so if you want your ghost to appear in their everyday outfit in the family trees, have them swim in there first, click on your ghost to have them change their everyday outfit, and then start the rebirth process.

Once you choose to have your Sim be reborn, you will get a confirmation dialogue box which is your last opportunity to turn back and keep your ghost as they are. If you press yes, the process begins.

Creating a New Sim

You will be first taken into Manage Worlds screen, where you can choose a new lot for your Sim to live in. If a household already lives there, your reborn Sim will join it. Otherwise, the reborn Sim will move into an empty house for free, starting their new life with §20,000 in their household funds.

You will then be taken to Create a Sim where you can fully customize your reborn Sim. By default, you get offered a new infant resembling their past self. However, above them in the Sims Skewer you can choose to randomize them based on their past self or based on the genetics of the existing Sims. Your reborn Sim won't get any inherited traits from their new parents however, so if you'd like to add these, check out the Reward Trait guide's inherited traits section here.

You can freely change your reborn Sim's life stage, occult status, and even family relationships with existing Sims. You cannot set romantic relationships for the newly reborn Sim (Partner, Engaged, Spouse). While you are free to create more Sims to the household, you cannot edit the existing Sims.

After you're done, the new household will be saved to My Library. Remember that adding that household to other games will not bring over their past self data, leaving your Sim out of traits and relationships. You can also press X to select another household to be reborn into.

The Reactions

After your new reborn Sim has been created, you will be taken to the lot where the new Sim just appears in front of the lot. While infants and toddlers always have a gentle landing, older Sims may not be lucky enough.

Your Sim will react to their new being, gaining a moodlet depending on their traits, occult status, and life stage.

Sims that witnessed the rebirth will always get a happy moodlet. However, children, toddlers, and Sims who are reborn themselves will get a 1 point Happy moodlet instead of the default 2 point one.

And after that, the Rebirth process is complete!

After Being Reborn

Now your Sim is ready to start their new life, starting their Soul's Journey from scratch. In addition, the Soul's Journey panel will now also display how many times your Sim has reborn. The Sim they were previously will no longer exist, with their name only existing in the Family Tree, on their gravestone, and on everything they've created. In fact, their gravestone can now be deleted with Sims unable to mourn them anymore.

The memories of their past life will be hazy, with them not keeping the traits, milestones, career progress, skills etc from their past life. However, should they find the gravestone/urn of their past self, they can Recognize Familiar Name. Whenever they meet a Sim (or a Sim reborn from them) that was close to their past self, they'll have Friendly Introduction replaced with Greet Familiar Face.

Speaking of greeting familiar faces, your Sim can bring their past relationships to their new life. At first, re-meeting those Sims give Odd Familiarity to past family (disabling Romantic interactions) and Strange Connection with past non-related close Sims. You can have your Sim share the insight, which will boost their relationship and unlock new interactions. If the Sim was a romantic partner to their past self, they unlock Re-encounter Soulmate interaction, which will completely fill up the Romance Relationship between these Sims when successful. This Deja Vu moment can happen even with the Sims reborn from the close Sim too, no matter how many times.

Burning Soul Additions

If your Sim earns the Burning Soul trait from fully completing their Soul's Journey before rebirth, they will keep this trait in their next life. This trait will accompany to their next life once they fully complete their Soul's Journey again. But what else does it bring?

If the Sim is reborn as an infant, they will have all the Infant Milestones unlocked from the start if Growing Together is installed. Toddlers and children (whether reborn as one or aged up into one) will have all of their fundamental skills fully mastered. This will make earning Top Notch Toddler trait considerably easier.

When your Sim is teen or older, they can use a mirror to Peer Into Soul to add the reward traits they had in their previous life. You can bring forth many as you want. However, not all reward traits (like university degrees) will be available through there. This interaction can be performed multiple times, so if you leave some traits behind, you can always get them later.

In addition, teens and older also gain a new self-interaction called Recall Past Life. With this, they can add one of the personality traits they had in their past life to their current one. As an added bonus, this allows Sims reborn with Burning Soul trait to have one extra personality trait, allowing them to have up to 3 traits as a teen and 7 as an older Sim (if they don't recall it as a teen). Once a trait is added, this interaction cannot be performed again.

Finally, young adult and older Sims have the Transcendent WooHoo ability (Mess Around for teens) when they're alive, allowing them (and their partner) to become ghost temporarily to WooHoo... well... anywhere. Do note as Sims become temporary ghosts, they cannot try for baby that way. Pregnant Sims, however, are not blocked from this interaction and have their pregnancy not affected from it.

Breaking the Cycle

A soul can be reborn as many times you want, yet that cycle of becoming someone new, setting up a new life, potentially dying, and completing Soul's Journey again will be repeating. At any point, you can break the cycle by not having the ghost be reborn, but rather moving on, erasing them from the save forever.

The base game option is clicking on their gravestone and Releasing their Spirit to Netherworld. If the ghost is currently playable, they can Return to Netherworld from their own gravestone. If a ghost is left unplayable, they may eventually return to the Netherworld on their own unless their Connection to the Physical World is regularly strengthened from their gravestone.

With Life & Death Expansion Pack, another method is introduced. Once your Sim has reached No Regrets level in their Soul's Journey (4th level), they unlock the ability for ghosts to Move Onto the Great Beyond from their gravestones. They not only give other Sims a trait called 'Perspectives on Death', but also leave behind their PlumBob (with their occult ring included). If a Sim with Burning Soul trait does that, they'll leave behind a colorful PlumBob instead. There are 12 possible PlumBob variants to get from here and it can be used to Remark on Exceptional Sim or be sold to Curio Collector.

After one of these interactions, the Sim is erased from the game permanently. Their portrait will remain in the Family Tree and crafts made by them will keep their name though. Sims cannot mourn them on their gravestone/urn anymore and clicking on it will give you an option to delete it.

Conclusion

The Sims 4 Rebirth feature from Life & Death Expansion Pack which allows the ghost to leave behind their old life and embark on a new one. Their new appearance, family, occult status, life stage, and traits are all picked by you. Yet they will still recognize their old name on the gravestone, sense a connection between Sims who were close to their past self, and, if they have earned the Burning Soul trait, even pull forward the traits from their past self. This journey can be repeated as many times as you want.

So, what do you think about The Sims 4 Rebirth feature? Any stories to share from your experiences with the features? Or any questions that have popped up? Feel free to share them in the comments below!