The Sims 4 Life and Death is hands-down the best expansion pack EA and Maxis have released for the game to date. My view my be coloured by a love for all things morbid and curious, but it’s substantiated in the vast array of content and gameplay options presented in Life and Death, and just how deep the rabbit hole goes.
This is an intricate expansion pack, packed with tiny, careful details that add up to an altogether transformative gameplay experience. You’ve got new ghost neighbours, the ability to become a ghost (permanently or temporarily), new ghostly abilities, a collectible tarot card set where each card is hidden in the ghostly town of Ravenwood, the ability to hold funerals, the ability to create wills… take a deep breath here…
There’s also new lore to uncover across live and build-buy modes, a handful of creepy ghosts to befriend that each bestow certain powers, a handful of new festivals inspired by real-life macabre celebrations, new “Grimborn” Sims that descend from the Grim Reaper, new Reaping and Undertaker careers, explorable Crypt rabbit holes, and more besides.
It’s an absolute dream for the gothically-inclined, and for those who aren’t so enamoured with the macabre, there’s still plenty of opportunities for fun scares, and rich new gameplay modes and careers to explore.
The best part of it all? It actually works. The Sims 4 is now more than a decade old, with occasionally rebellious code to show for it. In the past, there have been major troubles with a handful of expansion packs – My Wedding Stories was broken for many players, and more recently, For Rent had its fair share of tenant issues. Life and Death is as smooth as it comes, based on my personal experiences with early access on PC.
Funerals were perhaps the biggest concern from players, thanks to the event challenges of My Wedding Stories, and I will admit to some hesitancy on my part, before holding my very first one. Thankfully, EA and Maxis seem to have learned from the past. My funeral events worked brilliantly from the jump.
From the event menu, you select who you’ll be mourning, who’s invited, what attire guests should wear, what activities will take place, and where the funeral will be held. If that Sim wrote a will beforehand, you can use this as a basis to inspire your event – otherwise, you can get creative.
Mourning the loss of my Sim’s dear sister Josie Terrible, I was able to corral a large group of Sims into the funeral parlour of Crow’s Crossing in Ravenwood, for a beautiful ceremony that included light-hearted mourning, listening to music, and some barbecue canapés.
Everyone cried where appropriate, listened in silence when requested, and doused Josie with love – as she watched on in ghost form. It was a beautiful ceremony, and one that allowed her death to become more meaningful.
In ghost form, Josie Terrible was also granted new, more exciting life. She developed cool ghostly abilities, like one that allowed her to enter objects with a corporeal Sim, to WooHoo in wild fashion, and another that allowed her to scare Sims, and gain special fear juice to be sold to the mysterious ghostly merchant who hangs out in Ravenwood’s cemetery.
Her sister, Dana Terrible, took a more noble path – wielding her experiences with death to become a skilled Reaper, leading people to their final reward. Of course, she also started a workplace romance in this setting, beguiling the Grim Reaper into giving her a Grimborn child.
In both courses, there was plenty of opportunity to revel in the grim and macabre.
This is an expansion pack that naturally invites curiosity and experimentation, with each corner of Ravenwood hiding some new secret or discovery. It’s an absolutely beautiful new town, with a purple-and-green hue illuminating its segmented “land of the dead”, and lovely Victorian styling on the “living” side of its magical river.
Exploring the “dead” side, you’ll find all manner of creepy ghosts, each with their own stories. There’s a terrifying ghost child named Edith waiting to scare you silly, and another ghost named Alice, who keeps her own mysteries close. On the “living” side, you’ll find a cemetery full of other secrets, and underground Crypts where you may discover special items if you tread carefully.
Here, you’ll also find hints at a secret society devoted to the macabre – and investigating these clues will reveal tarot cards, as well as the opportunity to take on individual character quests.
The Sims 4 Life and Death offers a robust range of experiences in this mix. You can be so many things with this pack – a creepy, ghoul-obsessed teen, an Undertaker looking after the dead, a Reaper providing comfort to those in need, a dedicated tarot reader, or just a cool, death-inspired goth.
The Sims 4 has explored supernatural themes before, in packs like Vampires, Werewolves, and Paranormal Stuff, but Life and Death takes this exploration further, for a more layered, thoughtful pack. It deals with tough topics in death and grief, and it provides a real sense of beauty and dignity to the act of dying in-game. Of course, it also amps up the horror vibes, with its new supernatural types, and its lean into morbid fantasy lore.
There are elements that aren’t perfect – the new ghost supernatural type is relatively beige, and levelling up is made grating, rather than satisfying – but as a whole, there’s so much to love about Life and Death. It’s the first Sims 4 expansion pack in ages that’s genuinely shaken up gameplay, and it provides hours of new content to dive in with, depending on how deep you want to go.
There’s secrets upon secrets in this expansion pack, and revealing them makes for a wonderfully scandalous, but entirely satisfying time. It’s appropriate that one of the new features in The Sims 4 Life and Death is rebirth, because that’s exactly what this expansion pack delivers.
Four-and-a-half stars: ★★★★½
The Sims 4 Life and Death
Platform(s): PC, PlayStation 4, Xbox One
Developer: Maxis
Publisher: EA
Release Date: 31 October 2024