Including tips on getting started in the Making Money and Finding Love After a Breakup scenarios
How do Scenarios work in The Sims 4?There have been fan-made Sims challenges for as long as there have been Sims games, but now the makers ofThe Sims 4have introduced Scenarios into official gameplay.This new type of gameplay challenge works a bit differently to existing Aspirations, Lot Challenges, and so on. Scenarios are attached to every Sim in a household, have a unique set of starting and victory conditions, and — crucially — are quite open-ended, leaving it to the player to work out the best way to complete them.
If that all seems a bit confusing, don’t worry! In this guide we cover how to start a new Scenario inThe Sims 4, the rewards for completing one, and tips on getting the best possible start in every Scenario that’s currently available.
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How to start playing a Scenario in The Sims 4
In order to begin playing with scenarios in The Sims 4, you first need to ensure that your game is updated to Patch 120. This is a free base game update released on November 2nd, so as long as you’re connected to Origin you should see it download automatically the next time you play.
At this time, you can’t apply a Scenario to an existing household — however, EA seem to be aware that this isn’t ideal for many players, and have hinted that they’re working on implementing this option.
As it stands, there are two ways to initiate a new Scenario, but they both begin with you clicking on theNew Scenariobutton that’s appeared in the main game menu just below the New Game and Load Game options.
Clicking this button will bring up a menu of all currently available Scenarios. ClickViewon a Scenario to see its starting and victory conditions. From here there are two options:Start in a New SaveorStart with Existing Save. Either way, you’ll be taken to Create-A-Sim, where you create a brand-new household to play the Scenario.
The household you initially create needs to meet the exact specifications of the Scenario. This generally means that you’re limited to one Young Adult or older Sim unless the requirements of the Scenario specify otherwise. You can’t have any additional household members like children, pets, or even roommates. However, you can add more Sims after you move in by merging two households; this shouldn’t cause the Scenario to fail unless the new household members cause a direct violation of the victory conditions.
Once your household is created and moved in, you can view or hide the victory conditions for the active Scenario by clicking the little flag icon in the upper left hand corner of the Live Mode screen. You can also cancel the Scenario from here if you choose to, with no penalty (other than the fact that you’ll need to create a new household from scratch if you decide to restart later).
While playing a save with an active Scenario, you can switch to other households and play as them without cancelling the challenge. However, you only progress through the Scenario whenever you switch back to playing with the founding household.
When viewing your Saved Games list, you’ll see the flag icon on the thumbnail denoting that there’s an active Scenario in the save. You can have multiple active Scenarios in the same save. I haven’t had a chance to test it thoroughly yet, but there don’t seem to be any limits on how many concurrent Scenarios you can have.
Successfully completing a scenario in The Sims 4 rewards the whole household with several thousand Satisfaction Points apiece. Satisfaction Points can be spent on bonus traits and powerful potions in the in-game Reward Store.
Now, you may be interested to know thatyou can use Cheats to meet all victory conditionsand win a Scenario with no penalty. (Furthermore, you can just use Cheats to load up on Satisfaction Points if that’s your whim.) So my advice would be to play Scenarios because you want a gameplay challenge, not because you’re grinding towards the rewards, since honestly they’re not in any way special or unique.
At launch, the feature introduced two permanent Scenarios:Making MoneyandFinding Love After a Breakup. Further time-limited Scenarios are being added periodically.
Below we’ve summarised the existing Scenarios, and given you a few tips to help you get each challenge off to a good start.
In this Scenario, your household’s funds are drained to zero Simoleons once they’ve paid the move-in fees on their chosen residential lot. Naturally, you’ll want to start making some money straight away — the end goal is to become a millionaire, but in the short-term, your Sims still need to eat.
Tips for getting started:
In this Scenario, you play as a couple who have recently broken up but are still living together (for now at least). The set-up requires you to create a household consisting of two Sims who are Young Adults or older, and are not related. When loading into the Scenario, their romantic relationship values towards each other are set to -100, and their friendship value to around -25. They’ll receive various negative Sentiments towards each other and will recognise each other as Exes.
Tips for getting started:
This Scenario sees a solo caregiver challenged with raising triplet toddlers to be upstanding members of Sim society. The set-up requires you to create a household consisting of three Toddlers and one Sim aged Young Adult or older. The victory condition is met when all three Toddlers have achieved Level 3 or above in 4Toddler Skills.
Tips for getting started:
In the Perfectly Well Rounded challenge, your task is to create a Young Adult or older Sim and help them juggle several simultaneous goals. The victory conditions for this Scenario require your Sim to be knowledgeable (have maxed out threeskillsto level 10), well-liked (have five friends), and have followed their dreams (completed an Aspiration). To be honest they sound a little bit annoying, but with almost every other Scenario to date focussing around you rescuing a trashfire Sim from their own poor decisions, maybe one where you make an average Sim perfect instead will prove to be a nice breather.
Tips for getting started:
Finally, a time-limited Scenario that actually justifies itself with a (somewhat) seasonal theme! This Scenario feels like it was ripped straight from your favourite festive comedy. Two Sims who are sworn enemies are forced to live together thanks to some sort of inheritance clause/real-estate scam/provide your own back-story, despite having a whole slew of negative Sentiments towards each other that makes being in the same room unbearable for both of them.
To begin, you simply need to create two Sims who aren’t related to one another and are Young Adults or older. Victory occurs in one of two ways: when all of their negative Sentiments towards each other are wiped out and they recognise each other as Friends, or (the more dramatic option) when they become “Enemies with Benefits”.
Tips for getting started:
You can continue to play any time-limited Scenario after it’s no longer available, provided you have a saved game with the Scenario still in progress within it. So if you really want to make sure you have ample opportunity to enjoy the challenge, duplicate your save as soon as you begin and keep a “clean” back-up copy in your Saved Games folder. That way, in theory, you can always return to the start of the challenge after it has officially ended, just as long as you don’t lose the save.
Furthermore, a little bird has told us that if you disconnect your PC from the internet, clicking on the New Scenario button will give you access to a full list of every Scenario that currently exists in the game code. This includes all of the time-locked ones. If you can see them, you can start any of them you like. Just don’t tell EA we told you. Remember, it was the bird.
Scenarios are just one of many ways of expanding your gameplay in The Sims 4. Check out our picks of thebest DLC for The Sims 4if you’re trying to decide which paid add-ons you might like to treat yourself to. Or for community-created and completely free cosmetic additions to the game, see ourfavourite Custom Content hair and clothing in The Sims 4.
