Sims have a wide range of career options available to them in The Sims 4 and ample opportunity to rake in the Simoleons by pursuing the career of their dreams. The Sims 4 features 29 careers, which include 5 professions or active careers, a Freelance career that encompasses a bunch of other skill-based careers where Sims can work from home, as well as 10 part-time career tracks that are also available to teens. Young Adults, Adults, and Elder Sims can all work 2 part-time jobs.
The most lucrative careers in The Sims 4 are both branches of Covert Operator and Officer in the Military career from The Sims 4: StrangerVille, which earns $16,880 a week and requires a Sim to work 5 days. While this seems like a lot of money, it does take a long time to get to this point, and getting there is often tedious and boring, with repetitive daily tasks to complete to earn that all-important promotion. And, while there is the Freelance career which doesn’t have the same repetitive problems as the conventional careers, the six Freelance tracks just don’t have the depth necessary to be truly compelling.
Careers in The Sims 5 Need to be More Lucrative
Another issue is that careers in The Sims 4 really don’t earn a lot of money. Sims earn far more money, and faster, by gardening flowers than by being in the highest paying career track, for far less labor. While this is a useful hack, it doesn’t speak well for the actual careers when growing and selling flowers brings in more money per day than what the top-paying career pays in a week.
Sims need to earn money, and especially for players who enjoy the different kinds of challenges available in The Sims, the careers need to pay more to at the very least compete with hobbies, especially if they require one’s Sim going off-screen for most of the day with nothing but the occasional pop-up to entertain the player. The Freelancer career, while a step in the right direction, doesn’t offer very lucrative gigs on top of personal projects and depends on reputation, and players may feel discouraged sticking to it especially when it just makes more sense to invest in the Gardening skill.
Players Should be Encouraged to Follow Sims to Work in The Sims 5
Active careers, also known as professions, were introduced in The Sims 3: Ambitions, and were continued in The Sims 4: Get to Work, with the Scientist, Doctor, and Detective careers, while The Sims 4: Get Famous and The Sims 4: Dream Home Decorator added the Actor and Interior Decorator careers. Active careers let players follow their Sims to work and take a more interactive role in their careers by completing tasks on-site. While many players find this entertaining at first, a lot of the tasks become repetitive and boring with time, and players often end up just sending the Sim to work offscreen like a normal career anyway.
The Sims 5 needs to overhaul the career system because, while there are many of them and they do come with fun perks, unlocks, and surprises along the way, there’s so much more that could be done with them. Players should have the chance to build interactive, living careers in The Sims 5 and gain access to reward content that goes beyond items. Another option would be to emulate the skill trees for occults like vampires or werewolves in The Sims 4 to offer careers more depth, even if that means focusing on a few core careers rather than a wide range of them.
The Sims 5 is in development.