The best Sims 4 expansions ranked from Awasa Poa to unmissable

Sul, school, and parties by the pool

Author:
Josh Broadwell
Publish date:
Jan 9, 2024 7:04 PM EST

The best Sims 4 expansions turn EA and Maxis’ life-sim video game from just your average simulator into something deeper and more enjoyable. With over a dozen expansions over the course of a decade, though, it’s inevitable that some of them just don’t hold up that well anymore - and depending on your tastes, a few are downright boring.

Our Sims 4 expansions ranked list lays out which expansions are must-haves for any Simmer and which ones you should probably save your money on.

A groups of Sims dressed in fancy clothing mill about a large drawing room with gilded furniture — Muffy and Buffy discuss their latest investment coup
EA/Maxis

Get Famous doesn’t feel like a proper expansion pack. The world is tiny, and all it really adds is a set of jobs – which are strong additions, don’t get me wrong – and some very expensive items that go along with those jobs. It’s a half-step between a stuff pack and a full-on expansion.

Get Together

Get Together suffers from a similar problem. You like clubs? You’ve got clubs. You don’t have anything else. That said, Winderburg is a lovely world addition, with some fresh architecture styles and a range of things to do. Most of them are club-related, though.

Get to Work

Get to Work bundled together some excellent ideas, but most of them probably should’ve been in the base game anyway – retail store owner as a career option, for example, or a wider range of interactive jobs. You get a strong selection of new features for the money, but maybe consider getting this one on sale.

For Rent

It’s hard to see For Rent as something other than a missed opportunity. The changes to lot management are refreshing, but moving between apartment units comes with the unpleasant drag of laid screens. The night market also seems a bit rushed, with just a few stalls and limited ways to interact with it.

Horse Ranch

If you like horses and ranches without the mess of the usual cowboy games, then Horse Ranch is the expansion for you. There’s not much here for anyone else, though. Even the new items you can buy through the catalogue are all ranch-theme. Sure, that makes sense given the expansion’s name, but it’s a bit disappointing when other expansions have added items with more universal appeal alongside the themed items.

High School Years

High School Years is a tough one to rank. Maxis did a solid job of creating an in-depth school experience and teenage fantasy, and Copperdale has some fun locations to spend time in. Rour teen Sims’ school performance could potentially influence their future – if you have the University expansion – but aside from that, there’s no real connection to the rest of the game. At least the bugs are mostly gone now, though.

Discover University

Discover University has its share of fans in the Sims community. I’m not really one of them, though. Sure, it’s better than High School Years in the sense that you have more ways to tailor your Sims’ life and create what feels like a unique college experience. Most of it’s wrapped around spending a lot of time in non-interactive classes, though, which makes the fun parts more difficult to enjoy.

Island Living

Island Living is another expansion that you’ll either love or have no use for. Unlike some of the best Sims 4 expansions, the ones whose effects change every aspect of the game, Island Living goes all in on, well, island living. Sulani is your new world, and it comes with some surprisingly deep ways of interacting with the environment. You can make the environment your concern and strive to keep the island vibrant and thriving, or you can just be a mermaid. The downside is that pretty much everything that happens on Sulani stays on Sulani.

Snowy Escape

A Sim on a snowboard decorated with cherry blossoms flies through the air over a snowy slope — Snowboarding without the snow or the boarding is the best kind
EA/Maxis

Snowy Escape is Island Living’s snow-themed equivalent. You get a vacation to The Sims’ version of Mt Fuji, a new job, winter activities that don’t require the Seasons expansion, and some winter-inspired furniture. There’s just not much to do with it once your vacation ends.

Cats and Dogs

Cats and Dogs is another niche expansion, but one that balances its nicheness a bit better. Cats and dogs are, unsurprisingly, the main focus here, and there’s quite a lot you can do with them. You can adopt pets in need, train your fuzzy friends, take them for walks, and splash out your Simoleons on some pet toys and cozy furniture, and there’s even an interactive career as a veterinarian. If cats and dogs aren’t your thing, though, the only bonus you get from this is the – admittedly rather nice – Brindle Bay world.

City Living

A group of Sims in stylish clothing gather around a karaoke machine in a penthouse apartment — Skyline views make any party better
EA/Maxis

City Living moved The Sims 4 in a natural direction – out of the suburbs and into the metropolis. With it came a city to explore, obviously, along with new jobs, new ways of living, and more options to customize your lifestyle. It seems a bit basic on the surface, but it adds a welcome and refreshing new layer of interaction.

Cottage Living

A Sim family enjoys a day in the garden with a picnic lunch, while two Sims tend the large vegetables — A rural escape that isn't terrifying
EA/Maxis

Cottage Living is another niche expansion, but it’s probably the strongest of the bunch. As you’d expect from the name, Cottage Living’s big draw is living a quiet life in a rural idyll, with charming homes, nosy neighbors, and plenty of space to raise crops and animals in your own miniature farming game.

Henford-on-Bagley has its own pub and farmers market, and you even get daily and weekly quests from villagers to help give a little extra structure to your daily life. What it lacks in activities and points of interest, it makes up for in charm and some deeper relationships.

Eco Lifestyle

Eco Lifestyle is a proper Sims 4 expansion of the kind I wish we saw more of. It lets you shape the world for better and transform it into a nature-friendly paradise – or let the power of industry take root and poison the environment in the name of progress. That last part doesn’t sound enjoyable, but the eco footprints you track and action plans you implement make it feel like every choice matters and give you a refreshing variety of ways to change your Sims experience.

Seasons

Seasons is such a brilliant addition. Along with the four seasons themselves, you get an impressive selection of new clothing and furnishing options; a calendar with events; birthdays; new seasonally-appropriate activities, such as skating and dying from heat stroke; and some welcome improvements to gardening. Yes, the base game should’ve launched with most of these features. But it didn’t, so this is the next best thing.

Growing Together

Growing Together makes important changes to one of The Sims 4’s most foundational components: relationships. While the focus is, ostensibly, on family ties, the changes that Growing Together introduces to traits and interactions – relationship milestones, envy, and a smarter set of aspirations, for example – affect your Sim weather they have kids or not. It’s like an excellent mod, only official and not free.