The Unwritten Rules of The Sims 4 Explained | Games Rants

The Sims 4 is a fun and immersive life simulator that’s popular for a reason. It’s been around for nearly a decade, and so its players have a set of unwritten rules to maximize enjoyment and minimize fuss. Some of these tips and tricks help out when navigating building houses and community lots, as the Build Mode in The Sims 4 is incredibly robust but can also be overwhelming with some frustrating limitations that can be hard to overcome for beginners.

Other tips simply help with storytelling, lore, and enjoying the more creative side of the series. There are, however, some unwritten rules that may appear strange to those who are completely new to The Sims. For the most part, these eccentricities happen because of the limits or demands of gameplay, are an evolution of the game series as a whole, or form a part of the storytelling the community engages in.

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Use This Cheat in The Sims 4 Builds

The Sims 4 uses a grid for building, which means objects snap to the grid boxes when placed. This includes walls, doors, windows, and furniture. While this should make everything fit together in theory, in practice it’s a very different story, with objects becoming misaligned and ending up in the wrong place. A simple cheat sorts this out: moveobjects. This cheat has been a staple since the early games in The Sims series, and most builders in the community use it. To activate the cheat, players should:

1. Open the cheat bar by pressing CTRL+SHIFT+C.
2. Type in the cheat “bb.moveobjects on”.
3. Press Enter.
4. To turn off the cheat, open the cheat bar again and type in “bb.moveobjects off”.

One should just remember that the grid does help with Sim mapping, and using moveobjects and positioning objects with obstructions may mean Sims are unable to use them. Players can double-check by testing builds with their own Sims, and be careful of clipping or overlapping objects with each other or walls.

Use a Few Limitations When Building in The Sims 4

It might be tempting to build a dream house from scratch, but many builds end in failure because of a lack of direction. A reference photograph does wonders to help when building in The Sims 4, and even expert content creators for The Sims 4 with years of experience use references when building.

References go a long way when creating builds that look “right,” and they can inspire creativity. Many creators hit blocks, and finding buildings from real life in styles different from what they’re used to creating is usually just the thing needed to bring their creativity back. At the same time, players shouldn’t go for the biggest empty lot when building. Creating massive builds in The Sims 4 is a recipe for disaster as it usually results in a build that looks amateur or unfinished. A smaller, more contained build usually looks more polished, contained, and more like a lived-in home, perfect for Sims and their families.

Discover The Sims 4 Challenges

The Sims 4 is a sandbox game and, while it has a ton of content, especially with its add-ons included, ideas of what to do next can run dry after a bit. To keep the ball rolling, many Simmers turn to Challenges, where they play out scenarios based on rules that make gameplay more challenging. Rules can be simple, for example, no money cheats or marrying custom Sims, while other Challenges are intricate and have entire documents explaining possible scenarios the player may encounter.

The most popular Sims Challenge by far is the Legacy Challenge, and many others are based on it. At its most basic, a Legacy Challenge requires the player to create a single Sim and place them on the biggest lot in whichever world they choose. Without using any cheats, they then have to get to ten generations. On the birth of the tenth generation, the Legacy Challenge is won. This is a very basic framework, and many players have added to it by adding different rule sets to each generation.

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Players Can Use Custom Content

It’s no secret that The Sims 4 is an expensive game. Despite the fact the base game is now free, the total cost of all the add-on content is over $1,000. It’s a lot of money to spend on a game, and so a lot of players turn to custom content instead. The Sims 4 community has a talented modding community that has created some incredible content for The Sims 4 and there’s something for every kind of player, from building to CAS to gameplay. Unfortunately, as of 2023 fan-made content is only accessible on the PC version of The Sims 4 and is not available on consoles.

Death and The Sims

Death has always been a part of The Sims, and The Sims 4 is no different. Nearly every expansion pack comes with a new death associated with the gameplay of that pack, and the resulting ghost has features resembling their unfortunate end. For a series that appears to be so family-friendly and wholesome, the fandom’s tendency to set their Sims on fire and kill them in new and increasingly creative ways may be confusing, but it’s been a longtime tradition that dates back to the original Sims game.

When the developer changed the game by making it so that removing the ladder from the pool stopped being an easy way to kill their Sims, which is arguably one of the funniest ways to die in The Sims, players simply began building walls around their pools, preventing any kind of escape for the Sim. There are a number of reasons a player might need a Sim to die: for storytelling, for tragedy, to alleviate boredom, the Sim is annoying, or because it’s a Landgraab.

The Sims 4 is available now for PC, PS4, PS5, and Xbox One, Xbox Series X/S.

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