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What is The Sims 4: City Living?
The Sims 4: City Living is an expansion pack for the The Sims 4, the famous virtual dolls house style "life simulator" series that's been tearing up PCs everywhere since the turn of the millennium. Adding the ability to live in apartments, along with a selection of new careers, and a handful of fun new festivals you can have your Sims attend, City Living gives you a range of new ways to play with your Sims characters, whether they're stuck in a poky little apartment with a perpetually broken toilet, or living the high life in a swanky penthouse suite. Be aware though, that as an expansions pack, City Living does require The Sims 4 to play!
How do you play The Sims 4: City Living?
A fairly free-form game at heart, the Sims sees you creating characters from the ground up, choosing everything from their looks to their clothes, personality, and even their dreams, before plonking them into a house - or in the case of City Living, an apartment - of your choice, and helping them live out their lives. Perhaps they'll find love, settle down and start a family; perhaps you'll be a bit of a playboy billionaire genius philanthropist instead; or maybe you'll slob around in your pants all day, running from the repo men as you struggle to make ends meet - with the Sims, you can create your own stories and lives for your virtual characters, with the only limit being your imagination. With limited autonomy themselves (but plenty of things happening behind the scenes to keep things interesting), much of your time is spent dictating your Sims' every day activities, from what to eat and when to go to sleep, to their recreational activities, social lives or personal development as they seek out that next big promotion at work.
In terms of what City Living adds to the core game, the biggest change is in your Sims' living arrangements - instead of individual houses surrounded by plenty of room to expand, your Sims are now crammed into tower block apartments, sharing walls with neighbours across the hall. Giving them more opportunities for social events, whether it's having a friend over to hang out, throwing a party, or paying a visit to the current festival or special event, life in the city of San Myshuno is much more bustling and busy than the usual suburban Sims life. However, living in such close quarters can give you issues with noisy neighbours, disrupting your Sims' sleep and potentially making it harder to get up and get to work on time the following morning, with plenty of opportunities for new stories to play out.
How easy is The Sims 4: City Living to pick up and play?
Generally speaking, The Sims 4: City Living is no more or less complicated than previous entries and expansion packs in the series. How you play is up to you, and while there's no real goal or missions to complete, a lack of attention to your Sims' needs could leave you with a depressed character, passed out in a pool of their own urine, sacked for poor attendance at work and having most of their furniture repossessed for failing to pay the bills. That being said, it is a fairly forgiving game, and there's no way to fail out at all; life simply goes on regardless (although your Sims can die if you neglect them too much).
However, while there's no real dialogue to navigate, and the Sims largely talk in their own made up language, there are occasional pop-up boxes and messages that do require you to read and make decisions, potentially affecting your job performance, relationships with other characters and more. Likewise, the requirements for promotions is also listed solely with text, making a more serious Sims game the realm of more confident readers. That being said, there's nothing stopping you bringing up the in-game cheat console with Ctrl+Shift+C and typing in various money cheats (Motherlode and Rosebud to name but a few), to give you near-infinite funds to mess around with to your heart's content.
When it comes to mature content, The Sims 4: City Living is light on almost everything, with no bad language, violence or gore. The Sims' made up language mitigates any concerns about bad language, while violence is limited to the occasional slapstick Tom and Jerry-esque fight, which leaves your Sims embroiled in a comedy dust cloud, with occasional limbs poking out. There's no blood, guts or gore at all.
However, as it's a life sim, your characters can fall in love and start families, meaning there is some sex involved. Known in game as 'WooHoo', adult Sims can retire to a bed and choose to either 'WooHoo' or 'Try For Baby' with another Sim, at which point they disappear under the covers. You'll see a blob moving around under the covers, with the occasional limb flying out, accompanied by squeals, comedy roars and giggles as fireworks go off above the blob in the bed. When finished, the couple will emerge from the bed clothes in their underwear, before falling asleep next to each other.
Age Ratings
Format Reviewed: PC
