The Sims 4 faces an interesting challenge right now. More than nine years in, the game needs to continue finding new ways to evolve the core gameplay, and 2023 saw the release of three expansions aimed at partly addressing that.
For Rent, the third expansion that came out last year, is the weakest out of the three. That there are some appealing ideas in here makes it more frustrating, with a lot of the potential clear yet failing to be realised.
One of the headline features in this pack is the new Residential Rental lot type, a significant addition that lets you build multiple units on one lot. Whereas typically it’s just one single unit per lot (and thus only one household), Residential Rentals open up the possibility for flats, terraced houses, maisonettes, and more. This lot type isn’t limited to For Rent‘s world either, which is great.
It’s pretty intuitive to build what you want, though if you’re not a builder, you can rely on user creations from the gallery.
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This ties into the new landlord/tenant gameplay. As a landlord, you can rent out a unit on your property and collect rent, but the idea of playing as one is just not that appealing.
The expansion does try to provide incentives to be a more ‘considerate’ landlord. Units have ratings based on a number of factors, and that influences what sort of tenants you’ll get. Tenants will revolt if they’re unhappy.
There’s not enough to make an impact, though, and the gameplay here ends up being mundane and not particularly satisfying, compounded by a number of rather noticeable bugs and oversights (the developer has already been working on bug fixes).
Living in a Residential Rental comes with additional quirks as well. As an example, we found that Sims that live in neighbouring units would just invade your own personal space and use your living room or bathroom uninvited. Locking the doors doesn’t help when you have guests you want to invite over.
It breaks immersion — ironic in some ways, as having multiple households living the same lot does, in other moments, provide more natural opportunities for interactions with other Sims. When it works as intended, there is something to the idea.
The world is another mixed bag, which pains us to say because we were really looking forward to experiencing Tomarang. The Sims 4 is largely dominated by locations inspired by Western countries, so news that a Southeast Asian world was being introduced was very welcome.
And there are definitely positives. Visually, it looks wonderful, and a number of small touches (child Sims can play marbles) help to evoke a sense of place.
There is also a variety of new Southeast Asian recipes, and the CAS and Build/Buy items — perhaps the highlight of this expansion — are superb and complement the aesthetic side of the place really well.
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But Tomarang feels rather empty. Take the night market. You would expect it to be bustling with people walking about, but in our experience it was usually deserted and lacked any atmosphere.
There’s a tiger sanctuary and a temple, but they are rabbit holes — not unexpected, yet one can’t help but wonder why the interior of a temple couldn’t be recreated. Tomarang consisting of just two neighbourhoods instead of three is an obvious issue to bring up, though that could have been mitigated if the world had felt dense and alive.
When For Rent was first unveiled, there was a lot of excitement — but the final release falls short of expectations considerably.
There are glimpses in here where some of the potential shines through, but not enough. Held back by a lack of depth and polish, the big selling points of the expansion struggle to flourish, resulting in a pack that’s underwhelming despite its initial promise.
Platform reviewed on: PC
The Sims 4 For Rent is out now on PC, Mac, PlayStation, and Xbox.
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