Electronic Arts and Maxis have revealed the new Neighborhood Stories System, now available in The Sims 4. It adds a variety of gameplay improvements that revolve around life outside of the active household and opens up interesting, autonomous changes all over the world.
Neighbor Sims everywhere may now:
- Adopt young Sims into their household, aged between infant and children.
- Become pregnant with their Significant Other, and eventually deliver. Family-Oriented Sims are more likely to do this, while Noncommittal Sims are less likely. If a Sim or their SO Hates Children, they will never do this.
- Some Sims may instead adopt a dog or cat (requires The Sims 4 Cats and Dogs).
- Join and leave careers. Sim Traits heavily influence these decisions. Elder Sims may decide to retire.
- Households can move into and out of lots.
- Die in different kinds of accidents, depending on risk factors such as Age, Traits, and Career.
The Neighborhood Stories System features a new set of controls that allows players to tune it in a few ways to decide which life life changes Neighbor Sims can and cannot have:
- Independent configurations: Players can choose to enable or disable each type of life change and even disallow all Neighborhood Stories in specific households
- By default: Neighborhood Stories can be enabled for Other Households and disabled for My Households
- Household-specific configurations: Each and every household can have its own configuration, allowing Simmers to tailor life changes that make sense to that household’s storyline
- Global enable or disable settings: Neighborhood Stories can also be entirely disabled under Game Options
To keep up with the events happening outside of your active household, use the new Check Recent Neighborhood Stories interaction on any mailbox. If you’re so inclined, use that information to visit the Neighbor Sims and see their life changes in person!
