The Sims 4 has enjoyed a long and notable life to date, receiving dozens of expansion packs, game packs, kits, and other updates over the last decade. (Can you believe the game is now more than a decade old?) From the very beginning, players have been treated to an array of excellent new features, with each expansion designed to create more compelling, layered Sim experiences.
Have you ever wanted to get famous? Well, The Sims 4 now has you covered. How about wanting to be a witch? Well, that’s possible, too. Over the years, the game’s development team has also introduced changeable weather, strange alien encounters, more depth for school and university life, and so much more.
That said, not all packs have been created equal. Some are far more worthy than others, introducing genuinely game-changing features to allow players to live whole new lives. Sometimes, expansion packs for The Sims 4 are light-touch, with only small but meaningful inclusions. Sometimes, they completely overhaul the experience and give you plenty more reasons to invest your time.
Read: The Sims 4: Enchanted by Nature reintroduces fairies
If you’re looking to expand your gameplay in The Sims 4, these are the best expansion packs currently available, with each tried and tested by the ScreenHub team. For any beginner with the base game and a dream, we hope this list will help you make informed decisions about which expansion packs to try next.
Table of Contents
City Living
City Living is one of the very first expansion packs for The Sims 4, and it remains one of the most essential. What you really need to know is early packs significantly expanded on gameplay, adding a raft of new features that many players requested (or in some cases, expected) after experiences with the base game. The primary draw of City Living is that it adds in apartments to live in. Plenty of folks live in apartments, so if you want a realistic world in The Sims 4, then City Living is your ticket.
In additional to being able to live in apartments, this expansion pack also lets your Sims visit a wide, open city filled with special cultural festivals and celebrations. Visit a karaoke bar and spill your heart on stage. Visit the spice market for some brand new food. With City Living, all of this is possible, and more.
Seasons
For another set of features that should rightfully be in the base game, you’ll want to grab Seasons. This expansion pack introduces four unique seasons to the game, with each providing new activities, new weather patterns, and new looks for each town. The best part is there’s lots of new things to do with each changing season. In winter, you can build a snowman and have snowball fights. In summer, you can go sunbathing, or play in a pool. Autumn invites you to play in leaf piles. In spring, you can focus on growing crops.
The best part of this Sims 4 expansion pack is that it also introduces a formal calendar, with each season marking the passing of time. As winter disappears, you can watch ice evaporate, leading to a bountiful season of crops. As summer fades, you can see the autumn leaves turn orange. It’s beautiful.
Get Famous
Get Famous adds spice to The Sims 4, and brings whole new goals for gameplay. If you become a novelist in the game, you can become a famous novelist with this pack, signing autographs and taking pictures for extra cash. You can also become a famous movie or soap star, inspiring people around you to gawk wherever you roam.
With the introduction of fame, Get Famous also lets you build a Sim reputation, with this leaning bad or good depending on your deeds. In Del Sol Valley, a neighbourhood inspired by Hollywood, anything is possible – and amidst the glitz and glamour, you can make or break your new Sim life.
Vampires
If you’re looking for a spooky, supernatural time in The Sims 4, you’ll want to check out the Vampires game pack. This is one of the earlier creature packs for the game, but it remains one of the best, thanks to its cast of quirky characters, and how layered life as a vampire can be. With this pack, you can choose to befriend bloodsuckers or become one yourself, embracing a life of darkness as you tend to new needs and impulses.
While this isn’t a fully-fledged game expansion, unlike some of the other packs on this list, it might as well be. It feels fully-featured enough to standalone, and more than justifies the price of admission. Whether you just want gothic vibes in your next Sims 4 playthrough, or you’re looking for a brand new challenge, Vampires is excellent.
Realm of Magic
To keep the supernatural vibes going, why not head to Realm of Magic? This is a spell-casting game pack that lets you lead the life of a witch or wizard in a new fantasy world. Like Vampires, this pack isn’t strictly essential, but it’s great for adding some flavour to your everyday life in The Sims. Once you gain the abilities of a spellcaster, you’ll be able to perform all sorts of new tricks to add magic to your days – you can use magic to clean, change emotions, or even cause chaos amongst your Sim friends.
The best part of Realm of Magic is you get a special spellbook when you become a spellcaster, with new spells being progressively unlocked over time. If you’re somebody who enjoys a challenge, being able to unlock each and every skill adds satisfying new goals to gameplay.
Discover University
Discover University adds an entirely new sub-game to The Sims 4, one where life isn’t so much about living, but about surviving, as you run through the trials and tribulations of attending university. Functionally, this pack doesn’t serve a lot of use – it lets you start a career higher up the ranks, but you can achieve this on your own anyway – but the act of attending university and striving for higher goals is a lot of fun, as is campus life.
If you want, you can spend your time with this pack like a good student, attending classes, learning, and advancing your future career. You can also spend time with your classmates, bonding over new activities like juice pong, soccer, and debate.
StrangerVille
StrangerVille might be a contentious choice on this list, but it’s a personal favourite of the ScreenHub team. This story-based Sims 4 expansion pack introduces the desert town of StrangerVille, and has you investigating a mysterious alien plot. As you meet new people in town – including some that appear slightly off – you’ll slowly unravel clues that lead you to the heart of StrangerVille, where an evil presence lies.
Over the years, The Sims 4 has dabbled in deeper storytelling, and StrangerVille is its deepest dive overall. Think of this pack as more of a spooky side quest in your travels. It allows you to experience a wild and wonderful alien-themed story, to spice up the game’s cosier side. While not strictly essential, this expansion pack remains a real blast.
Cottage Living
Don’t you long for a quieter life? One where you can sit back, live off the land, and raise animal on some distant farm, away from the hustle and bustle of city living? With the Cottage Living Sims 4 expansion pack, you can do exactly that – raise new animals like cows, llamas, and chickens (while also fending off foxes), plant new crops, and decorate your home like a cosy little cottage.
While its depiction of rural life is incredibly idyllic, rather than realistic, it provides a wonderful sense of escape, and lets you indulge in your real-world fantasies. Life would be much simpler if all you had to worry about was the latest horse-jumping show, or your regular participation in the artisan-focussed Finchwick Fair, right? Of course, it wouldn’t solve everything, but it perhaps it’d make for a brighter, more carefree life.
High School Years
Most of us remember our high school years. Some more fondly than others. If you’re looking to revisit yours, the Sims 4‘s High School Years pack might get you some of the way there. This school-themed expansion pack is inspired by American childhood, with school lockers, football, and cheerleading on the menu, but it still well-evokes that wonderful, awful sense of freedom and finding your own identity at a young age, letting you guide your teenage Sims down a good path.
While not everything in this pack works perfectly, it has vibes in spades, and it introduces more meaning for younger Sims. They can go about their day with purpose, and you can see how they grow and change with each new education milestone. As an added bonus, this expansion pack introduces a bright new world to roam in, with a fun boardwalk location that adds in new afterschool activities, and opportunities for bonding between Sim classmates.
Life & Death
Life & Death is one of the newer packs for The Sims 4, but it’s also one of the most compelling. This introduces a brand new gothic neighbourhood, with touches of Tim Burton in its design, as well as a host of death-related features. While most games like this shy away from depicting death in any meaningful way, Life & Death embraces the nature of living and dying, giving you reasons to embrace your days as a Sim, and then take a new path in death.
Not only does this pack let you host funerals for Sims – a feature that’s long been requested – it also lets you become a ghost (before or after death) with a host of special abilities at your fingertips in ghost form. You will also be able to choose the path of the Reaper with this pack, get to know the Grim Reaper intimately, make friends (and more) with ghosts, and even befriend crows. If you’re looking to overhaul The Sims 4 entirely, then this expansion pack is what you’re looking for.
