Experiencing The Sims for the first time is a thrill; there’s something new and exciting everywhere you look. After a while—especially with The Sims 4—you notice what’s missing. This is where DLC is supposed to make a world of difference.
The Sims 4: 10 Essential Cheats
Cheats in The Sims 4 let you experiment and take the fun element to another level. Here are some of the best cheats to use in the game.
What about when EA’s packs and kits don’t cut it anymore? Well, now you’re in modding territory, and there’s something for every aspect of your gameplay here.
This is a rundown of the best mods to enhance The Sims 4 well beyond what EA turned out.
11T.O.O.L (Take Objects Off Lot)
Your Imagination Is The Only Build Limit
Description
Mod Author
Take objects off your home lot, and other essential transformation utilities.
TwistedMexi
The TOOL mod is the closest we’ll get to Create-A-World for Sims 4 until TwisteMexi’s CAW mod is released for public consumption.
It lets you take objects off your home lot to add a little more color and life to the surrounding area. I use this a lot to get cars parked out on the street in front of my Sims houses.
The tool gives you more transformation options, too: rotate on any axis, resize past game limitations, and elevate to the finest degree.
You’re no longer bound by The Sims 4’s object placement constraints. You use T.O.O.L in Live mode, not Build/Buy, and if you mess around with it enough, you’ll figure out all its neat tricks.
Personally, I hate the standard window and door placements in apartments; with T.O.O.L, that’s no longer a problem.
Tailored Banking To Suit Every Sim
An all-in-one redefinition of the Sims 4 financial system. Earn, trade, borrow, lend, and save, all in one neat UI.
This one’s niche, but necessary if you’re bored with the Sims 4 economy system. SNB gives each Sim a separate bank account over and above the household funds—cheque and savings accounts.
If you want more than one signatory on an account—like a shared account—you can do that too. It also introduces tiered banking and home connectivity services for Sims in different income brackets. On the point of income brackets,some Sims 4 careersare better than others.
The mod comes with convenient ATMs that you may place on community lots from Build/Buy, and several Sim National Bank lots tailored to different worlds that you can place down as well.
Apart from adding more realism, it’s easier to manage individual finances, apply for loans, and grow your wealth in The Sims.
9MC Command Center
The Ultimate Sims 4 Cheat Menu
MC Command Center
The main command center mod.
DeaderPool
Finer controls for intimacy in The Sims 4. This is a constituent part of the MC Command Center ecosystem, but you don’t need it for MC Command Center to work.
MC Command Center is your one-stop shop for getting rid of a lot of annoying limitations in The Sims 4, and turns the game into one ofthe best god games around.
If you want to change general things about your current active household, like lot challenges, time, Seasons settings—if you have the pack—and any number of NPC or active Sim settings, you’ll do that with MC Command Center through the mailbox.
The Sims 4: Every Family Dynamic, Ranked
Every Family Dynamic adds something new to relationships in The Sims 4. Some make for great drama, while others are just a headache.
Changing anything related to a specific Sim happens through MC Command Center by clicking on your Sim. The bulk of MC Command Center’s functionality, though, is found by clicking on a PC or laptop in-game.
When I want to tell a particular story, with predetermined parameters, characters, and events, MC Command Center is my go-to.
This is only if I need to constantly manipulate my Sims, the world, and NPCs while I play. If I want to play organically without absolute control over every decision, I hardly touch it.
8UI Cheats
Slide To The Left; Slide To The Right
The main UI Cheats mod file. Each part of the Sims 4 user interface that monitors or indicates a certain aspect of your Sim’s life now becomes a way to manipulate or control that aspect easily.
There’s a lot of overlap between MC Command Center and UI Cheats, so I’ll just go into the differences here.
The name UI Cheats should give you a clue as to how it works; anything in The Sims 4’s user interface becomes a shortcut to a cheat. Right and left-clicking on your household funds has a different effect, but ultimately gives you more control over the money available to you.
Anywhere you see a progress bar, you’ll either be able to slide that baby with a mouse-click, or left-and-right-click to open a context menu. This means promotion requirements, needs, and skills—it’s all under your control.
This is again helpful if you need total domination over your Sims' lives. But for organic playthroughs, I hardly touch this one either.
7Map Replacements
The Map Screen Doesn’t Have To Suck Anymore
Map Replacements
Free map replacements for all the worlds in The Sims 4
20th Century Plumbob
HQ Map Replacements
Free HQ map replacements for a few of the worlds in The Sims 4
FanArt Map Replacements
Free digital art map replacements for all the worlds in The Sims 4 up to Snowy Escape.
Medieval Map Replacements
Unique free medieval map replacements for all the worlds in The Sims 4. (Works best with other medieval mods from the same creator)
MissChipsa (Estrella | Estele)
While not technically a mod in the traditional sense, these do modify a certain aspect of the game—the objectively awful base map screens.
There are little bits and pieces here and there where you can see a slight overlap of the composite images, but the sheer effort, time, and ingenuity that went into this project are just insane enough to offset any minor imperfections.
I don’t spend all that much time in the map view, but when I do, it’s nice to have this part of the game match the aesthetic of the rest.
Now, there are numerous modders who do this; I know of realistic maps by Mama-Llama on CurseForge. Personally I prefer the map replacements by 20th Century Pumbob, available for free on their Patreon page. This creator has made maps for every single pack that adds a new world.
If you don’t have a particular pack, you don’t need to download that map, but it won’t cause any issues with your game if you have maps for packs you don’t yet own.
6Lighting Overhaul
Better Light For Deeper Immersion
Realistic lighting mod for The Sims 4
Softerhaze
Purple Skies
Better quality outdoor lighting for The Sims 4
Lotharihoe
Milk Thistle
Softer more ethereal outdoor lighting for The Sims 4 (Sunblind and Milk Thistle can be used together, pick the best file for each world)
This one is quite self-explanatory.
Sims 4’s Lighting sucks. It’s probably something to do with the fact that this was never meant to be a mainline game in The Sims franchise, but a lot of the game looks plasticky and like it was destined for the decreased screen size of your average smartphone, not next-gen consoles and powerhouse PCs.
Any of the myriad lighting overhaul mods makes the lighting in The Sims 4 more natural and realistic.
Other than just making the game prettier to look at, this also gives you more realism when you’re snapping photos of important moments in your Sims' lives.
The Sims 4: 10 Best Challenges To Play
Wondering what Challenges awaits you in The Sims 4? Well, here’s a list of the best ones.
My chosen lighting mod—Sunblind by Softerhaze—tailors each world’s lighting to the real-life environment upon which it is based. This means each world’s lighting is unique, and the blue sky in Sulani has a completely different feel from the blue sky in San Sequoia.
I cannot overstate the massive difference a mod like this makes. It brings The Sims to life, at any time of the day, my worlds are phenomenally beautiful.
5Direct Control
W,A,S, And D—For The Sims 4
Direct Controls
Direct control capabilities for The Sims 4
Victor Andrade
It’s trippier than you expect and more fun than you could imagine. Direct Control puts you in the driver’s seat of your Sim’s movements. No more point and click.
This mod takes a little getting used to, but it’s easy enough to toggle on and off with F1 if you need a break.
It can be a bit disorienting, it isn’t as smooth as GTA V or any number of other games specifically designed for direct control, but it’s a more involved way to explore The Sims 4 worlds.
I suggest you not try whizzing around your apartment like this; Melissa kind of had her hands up in front of her as if to say “Please don’t make me walk into that wall again.” Open spaces are awesome, but this mod won’t land The Sims 4 on the list ofthe greatest walking sims.
It brings to mind The Sims 2 on my old PlayStation 2—why did EA stop direct control on The Sims console games?
4Better BuildBuy
A Builder’s Not-So-Secret Weapon
Better BuildBuy
Organized debug menu and enhanced Build/buy menu for The Sims 4
I try not to be biased, but this is a non-optional mod if you want the best out of The Sims 4.
For some reason, EA and Maxis give us a few new items and objects with each new pack, but hide a vast amount of assets behind the infamous Debug cheat. Better BuildBuy should be known as the Organized Debug mod, because that’s what it does.
No more entering an annoying succession of cheats into the text console; just download the mod, set it up, and all the Debug trees, rocks, cars, buildings, and newborn babies—why are these still an object—are all within your grasp.
Further than that, Better BuildBuy lets you copy Debug items, either with the eyedropper tool or by Shift-placing. Because it was also created by TwistedMexi, it meshes well with his other mods like T.O.O.L.
If you’re looking for Debug food items, click on the fridge icon in your Build/Buy interface—where else would you store food?
3Meaningful Stories
Why Are Your Sims So Crabby?
Meaningful Stories
An overhaul of social interactions, moodlets, and mood management in The Sims 4
To be brutal, the biggest difference I noticed immediately when I first installed this mod is that my Sims walked around angry and disappointed with life, and it just didn’t end—until I tweaked the settings a little.
To the mod’s credit, it’s supposed to make managing your Sims’ moods more challenging and realistic.
Playing a game on her laptop for five minutes suddenly isn’t enough to get Melissa out of a depressive rut anymore—now she actually has to leave home and talk to people.
It’s a massive change to get used to. Your Sims maintain emotional states—good and bad—for a lot longer, and simply being in a (subjectively) nicely decorated space doesn’t make them happy anymore. In the interest of personal growth, I’ll credit the mod here; just because I like beige apartments doesn’t mean my Sims do.
It’s more difficult to keep your Sims happy with this mod, but for the purpose of storytelling, it adds a tantalizing amount of realism. If you’re struggling to maintain bonds with or without this mod, check out thesecheats for Sims 4 relationships.
2Have Some Personality, Please!
Preventing Idle Prattle Since 2017
Personality Please!
Finer personality controls and more intuitive interactions for The Sims 4
PolarBearSims
No, no. Not you, you’re fine. It’s just the name of the mod. As expected, this mod adds a lot more nuance to personalities and social interactions in The Sims 4.
One of the biggest pet peeves we Simmers have, is that when a Sim walks up to a stranger randomly, they’ll engage in idle conversation.
And, after all, dear, what is idle prattle for?Your Sims don’t learn anything when they do this, and this mod nerfs that feature.
Now, they’ll pick an actual interaction that adds to relationship gains or losses, or makes gameplay more interesting. This is a mod with a lot of related files—7 files total if you want the full experience. But you may pick and choose your favorite bits or explore evenmore mods for social interactions.
I get a kick out of the Mean Interactions file, as well as the Cats & Dogs and toddler-specific files. I’d take a moody cat or impossible toddler over idle prattle any day.
