Some of my favourite Sims 4 growth packs like City Living and Snowy Escape broaden on gameplay components and add in new options that make enjoying extra enjoyable — like the power to take your Sims to karaoke, reside in flats, and even take a snowboarding tour. And the Sims 4’s latest growth pack, High School Years, brings a bunch of latest options into the sport which are as refreshing as a glass of promenade punch.
High School Years provides gamers a brand new world, Copperdale, that’s residence to a completely functioning highschool, new pre-designed households, and new areas that have been ripe for exploration such because the dockside amusement park and the mix boba tea and thrift retailer.
To actually take a look at out all of those new components within the pack, I took the chance to place my Sim by way of the total highschool expertise — drama, selfies, existential disaster, and promenade included.
Right into the social sport
Starting my new Sim household off on Sunday in Copperdale, I instantly needed to take a look at one of many new facet hustles for my teen. Teens and up can tackle two new facet hustles: Sim-fluencer and Video Game Streamer. The working hours for each can be found early within the morning or in a while at night time — completely mimicking when IRL teenagers may really have the ability to stream or pursue facet gigs whereas attending college.
The Sim-fluencer facet hustle paired with one of many new Teen Aspirations, Admired Icon, instantly had me leaving the home to exit and meet individuals on the town. One new location I really like is ThrifTea, the boba and thrift store the place Sims can type new outfits to promote on Trendi (i.e., the Depop of the The Sims 4). The thrift store has a rotating stock of clothes to select from, some even designed by Depop sellers themselves who labored in collaboration with the Sims 4 staff.
Alongside the brand new areas in Copperdale are all new social interactions as properly that really feel very becoming for a teen-centered growth pack to incorporate. My Sim met a number of different teenagers whereas she was out exploring, together with a number of who she had some flirty interactions with. Those flirty interactions later translated into my Sim with the ability to “confess daydreams about crush” to her mother as soon as she’d returned residence — an lovely new interplay.
More on the teenager crush facet of issues, as soon as my Sim did make it to highschool there have been a number of interactions with different Sims that she had flirty vibes with that included revealing her crush to them and even asking them to promenade. When she developed crushes on a number of Sims, she additionally had the choice to attempt to recover from crushes.
The new world and social interactions from High School Years brighten up the sport for teenage Sims. I loved attending to have my Sim work together with different teenagers, each on a friendship stage and for these pesky teenage crushes all through the time I performed. Rejections have been had, social awkwardness ensued, and even taking photos within the photograph sales space on the boardwalk left my Sim feeling equally excited or dejected, relying on how the interactions went.
Off to highschool
I used to be capable of get proper into the tutorial grind by following my Sim to high school come Monday morning. Checking her class schedule revealed a characteristic that’s comparatively small when in comparison with every part else on this pack — every day of the week has Sims attending two courses that train them a distinct ability. For my Sim, her Monday schedule consists of math and science, which each concentrate on the logic ability.
That’s a small characteristic, however a extremely sensible one too. Now teenagers are engaged on the varied abilities accessible to Sims whereas attending highschool, whereas teenagers can solely construct their abilities by doing homework after college within the base sport.
Time spent in school gave my Sim loads of free time to work together with different teenagers and pursue actions. There’s a big basement within the pre-built highschool that has a pc lab, health club, and chess membership house that Sims can freely spend time in. I didn’t find yourself utilizing these areas throughout college hours as a result of it does take a little bit of time to your Sim to truly stroll all the way down to the basement throughout these breaks in between courses. I used to be centered on having my Sim make buddies, research for last exams, and hitting totally different college day objectives like being pleasant with employees members or engaged on homework.
Once the college day is definitely over, the college stays open as a haunt spot for Sims which I notably loved. There are after-school actions and golf equipment like cheerleading, however Sims also can dangle with buddies, research, use the totally different services, and ask their crush out to promenade through promposal signal.
Similar to dates, weddings, and different social occasions in The Sims 4, promenade comes with its personal objective tracker that prompts you to bounce, vote for promenade royalty, and participate in all issues promenade. Prom noticed my Sim going with a very totally different date than she had initially requested, which introduced a little bit of jealousy and laborious emotions into the combination of teenagers.
And whereas I didn’t customise the precise promenade itself, I did return to the auditorium afterward to fiddle with totally different setups for promenade with the totally different prom-specific objects. Much like the highschool itself, the auditorium may be rebuilt fully into your individual promenade (or a very totally different constructing) and mixing and matching for some totally different themes was enjoyable — one thing I feel gamers who get pleasure from constructing will get quite a bit out of.
High School Years delivers a enjoyable growth pack that brings plenty of new components into The Sims 4, all of which I’m having a blast with. The capacity to set developments, thrift store, pursue facet hustles, and discover new relationships throughout the highschool years is refreshing; particularly for teenage Sims who I loved enjoying beforehand, however by no means as a lot as with this pack. My Sim’s highschool expertise noticed her completely prepped for exams, juggling some existential emotions late at night time whereas she performed video video games for hours at a time, and having to scramble to discover a new promenade date the night time earlier than.
Compared to my very own highschool expertise the place I attended a very on-line college, my Sim’s tutorial ventures have been way more conventional than my very own ever have been. And whereas there have been undoubtedly some commonalities between my very own highschool expertise and my Sim’s, the irony just isn’t misplaced on me that I lastly bought to see what promenade was like by way of the lens of a digital promenade.
The Sims 4: High School Years is obtainable now on PC, PS4, PS5, Xbox One, and Xbox Series X/S.
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