The Sims 4 High School Years review: The fashion rules

Do It Do you want to return to high school? Absolute not. However, do I really want to throw my Sims in a maze of education, social hierarchy and puberty? Sure! Sims 4’s The High School YearsExpand adds a feature that is highly sought-after: high school to allow teen Sims to go to, along with all other amenities.

The High School YearsThe game was launched in July and focuses primarily on teens. Most of the gameplay can only be used by them. Set in Copperdale, the new city, teen Sims have one major lifestyle change — you can follow them to school now. Before, teen Sims would just go off to the bottom of the world when they went to school. The High School YearsIt comes with a high school that has been pre-built, however it is easily modified and rebuilt to your specifications.

The experience for teen Sims is largely what you’d expect from high school. Sims have classes, meet at lunchtime and hang out with their friends. Sims may also be detained. After-school activities include cheerleading and chess, and there are also new side hustles available for teens, such as video streaming or selling clothes through a thrift store. If you, like me, aren’t a Sims 4player, who is often involved in making or playing with teenagers and their families. The High School YearsExpanding may not seem like a significant novelty. For players who have a family, however, expansion is a natural progression. The High School Years fundamentally changes the day-to-day gameplay, and that’s huge. It’s one of those expansion packs that, for some players, will touch most families and game sessions, but for others, like me, it doesn’t feel as impactful as, say, Cottage Living, Cats & DogsYou can also call it: Seasons.

Image by Maxis/Electronic Arts

All of that being said, I think nonetheless The High School Years is an expansion that’s worth it for most players. Though I’m less interested in the dynamics of high school life, like getting my Sims to ask other Sims to prom or navigate socially awkward situations by the lockers, The High School YearsThere is a lot of additional content I enjoy about the expansion pack. Namely, the Create-a-Sim additions and furniture options in the expansion pack are incredible — some of the best I’ve seen added with an expansion.

Even though the Sims’ clothes and accessories were designed specifically for teenagers, these items can also be worn by adults. (Kids, on the other hand, don’t get very many additions, aside from a few new hairstyles. The teen/adult clothes don’t work on kids, but some hairstyles do.) The new clothes span a whole bunch of different styles — we’ve got a goth anime T-shirt, dark academia-inspired school wear, sweet preppy looks, and cool streetwear options. A collaboration with Depop online thrift retailer expands the clothing choices. Sims have the option to sell or buy clothing through an app called Trendi. They also have access to ThiftTea, a thrift/boba shop. Fashion should be diverse and good because it is part of teenager life: exploring new things and trying different styles.

The furniture options and construction choices are also included. The High School Years, too. The focus is, of course, on teens — which means a lot of the new options were designed specifically with teen bedrooms in mind. That makes sense; it’s one of the few spaces in a home where a teen can truly have ownership and express their personal style. It’s clear that Sims 4When creating this collection, the team kept that in mind. There are a bunch of new bed options, plus lots of decorations and little details, like clutter and LED lights, to spread around a Sim’s bedroom.

Image by Maxis/Electronic Arts

A lot more features have been added. Sims 4’s base game as a free update, regardless of whether the The High School YearsAn expansion was purchased. These are some of the most exciting additions, even though they’re small details, because that’s often what matters most with Sims 4. Body hair, sexual orientation, wants and fears, and curved walls add more depth to a game that’s already pretty dang deep. The wants and fears features have replaced “whims,” which were little goals that Sims had, related to traits and emotions. You could earn satisfaction points by satisfying these whims. While wants and fears work similarly to whims in that they are generated by things like fire, rejection, or fire in-game, the latter is called a desire. It’s a feature that makes the overall system feel more tailored to individual Sims — but if you’re not interested, it can be turned off entirely. I haven’t noticed a huge difference, especially, between wants and whims, but I do think it’s neat that fears are something that Sims can now experience and overcome.

It is all a bit sad. Sims 4’s new expansion and base game update launched with a bunch of bugs — some of them particularly problematic. Sims began to age rapidly due to one of the bugs. This caused Sims early death. Another bug caused Sims to want to meet family members. These didn’t necessarily make the game unplayable for everybody, but EA did recommend that players stay away from save files that might be impacted negatively.

Electronics Arts has said an updateThese and other bugs will be fixed by the time this week ends. It’s certainly not an ideal rollout for a highly anticipated expansion pack like The High School YearsIt is possible to fix it, but the expansion will be well-worth your time.

Sims 4’sYear of High School The expansion announcement was made July 28th Mac, PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5, Windows PC, Xbox OneAnd Xbox Series X. Electronic Arts sent a downloaded code to review the game. Vox Media is an affiliate partner. Although these partnerships do not impact editorial content, Vox Media could earn commissions for products sold via affiliate links. Here are some links to help you find. additional information about Polygon’s ethics policy here.