The best thing about playing The Sims is getting all the expansions and new content released into your new world. While most of the expansions for The Sims offer something new, not all of them are equally exciting. If you’re looking at the mountain of expansion packs for the franchise and aren’t sure which ones to pick up, here are our picks for the best The Sims expansion packs ever released.
The greatest The Sims expansion packs ever
The Sims has always run off of new expansion packs dropping at regular intervals to keep players interested in the game and continue the steady stream of money coming in for its publisher. Thankfully, the series has enjoyed one of gaming’s best modding communities, allowing players to download plenty of other content not officially released by EA. Here are the best official expansion packs.
The Sims: Hot Date
Romance has always been a part of The Sims experience, but it wasn’t until the original game’s third expansion pack that we got to take them somewhere to find love. Hot Date came with the Downtown area, giving a whole new environment to visit and explore. It wasn’t as vibrant or alive as some of the other city areas released in subsequent games, but it was a huge step forward for the franchise.
The Sims: Making Magic
The last expansion pack for the original The Sims game was a big one, delivering something that had been missing from the game to that point: magic. Makin’ Magic introduced new characters to your neighborhood and gave Sims the ability to cast spells or create magic charms. This expansion pack proved so popular that many of its features have been incorporated into subsequent games in the series.
The Sims: Superstar
Everyone has dreams of reaching the top of the pop charts, which is why The Sims has always been so popular. The Superstar expansion pack for the original Sims introduced a metric called Fame, which influenced how other Sims viewed them and what career paths were available to them. It also included new mini-games to help your Sim perform better, giving you better control over the twists and turns of their pop career.
The Sims 2: Open for Business
Unless you resort to cheat codes to help you rake in the cash, your Sim was going to need a steady job to afford that giant house you spent hours building. In the base version of The Sims 2, there weren’t that many careers you could take on, which was why the Open for Business expansion pack was such a game-changer. Sims not only had more career paths to choose from, but players were able to be more active in those careers than ever before. Rather than simply sending their Sims off to work and waiting for them to get back, there were ways to influence how well they did at their job for the first time.
The Sims 2: University
Some Sims were happy to find their way in life by sitting on the couch and looking finding a job in the newspaper, but some wanted to seek out higher learning to help them on their way. When The Sims 2 introduced college classes in the University expansion pack, it not only gave new skills and learning environments to play in, but it also gave teenagers and young adults something more meaningful to do. This was the update that made them feel more like well-rounded characters than ever before.
The Sims 3: Into The Future
Anyone would love to have a glimpse into the future, but time travel comes with a lot of weird rules and paradoxes. Thankfully, The Sims 3 chose to ignore all that and focus on the fun side of things when Into The Future was released. In it, Sims can travel hundreds of years into the future to see what life is like when robots solve all your problems. Sims could then travel back home and change how the future looked by changing what technologies they invented, which was a fun twist on the usual time travel formula.
The Sims 3: World Adventures
Most expansion packs for The Sims added a new area to visit, but nothing compared to the new regions added as part of The Sims 3’s World Adventures pack. The game came with three new vacation destinations where Sims could dive into unexplored tombs, discover relics to take back home with them, and get up to a bit of puzzle-solving. It was a great way to expand on the world of The Sims and give players something more interesting to do than just looking around a new location.
The Sims 4: Cats and Dogs
Every Sim needs a best friend. Sometimes that comes in the form of another human, but the love of a pet is often far more reliable. The Sims 4 waited until the Cats and Dogs expansion pack to give players a furry companion to adopt, but it also added several new features to the game. Sims could adopt neighborhood animals, choose to become a vet as a new career path, and visit the new area of Brindleton Bay. The range of potential pets was also expanded to include raccoons, foxes, and other unusual friends.
The Sims 4: Island Living
We all need a little time away to recharge our batteries and soak up the sun. Island Living gives players the chance to do just that. On top of all the usual island activities like jet skis and sunbathing, Sims can meet and even become mermaids in this expansion. The tropical environment in this game is really well implemented, making the new areas of the game feel alive and welcoming. Perfect for a vacation on the beach.
The Sims 4: Seasons
This wasn’t the first expansion pack for The Sims that introduced seasonal weather and holidays to the game, but it was the best implementation of that concept the series had seen when it was released in 2018. The Sims 4: Seasons added new a new career path, holidays, and skills to the game along with the by-then standard weather and seasons. Fans got more in this expansion pack than in similar content for the previous two games in the series.
