The latest expansion for The Sims 4, Eco Lifestyle, has finally arrived, allowing players to more directly affect their environment and gather as a community to enact lasting environmental change. The pack offers a ton of new features related to sustainable living, from solar panels and water collectors that decrease a Sim’s monthly bills to several crafting stations that allow Sims to create and sell products as a Freelancer.
In this ninth full Expansion Pack for The Sims 4, Eco Lifestyle introduces players to the new world of Evergreen Harbor, a largely industrial town unlike any that have come before. Rather than the perfect, vast and unmarred landscapes of Windenburg or Willow Creek, Evergreen Harbor looks like a real industrial town that has arguably seen better days. In addition to providing a community atmosphere and sustainable choices, Eco Lifestyle comes with new clothing, hairstyles, piercings, and accessories, as well as furniture and decoration, to help players build a hip, more self-sustainable life.
Though this Expansion Pack had a bumpy start, garnering some critique from fans, and though it appears to be a more misunderstood addition to The Sims 4, the game comes with some fantastic new features that carry over easily into any saved game or other available world.
The first and most talked-about new feature is the Neighborhood Action Plan and voting system. Players become more invested in their smaller neighborhoods by working with the other Sims who live there to vote on new ideas and initiatives at the community bulletin board. To do this, players will need to help their Sims build influence by interacting with other Sims in the neighborhood.
Players cannot vote on initiatives for neighborhoods to which they do not belong, making the game feel a bit more realistic and giving the player a personal stake in their neighborhood. Additionally, each neighborhood in Evergreen Harbor comes with one run-down community lot. Sims living in that neighborhood have the chance to vote and decide whether that space becomes a marketplace, a community garden, or a collaborative crafting area. While the initial buildings do not look like much, the spaces they transform into are beautifully created.
Sims can Dumpster Dive at community dumpsters to find compostable food, recyclable trash, food, and furniture. They can also nap inside the dumpsters, WooHoo in the dumpster, and try to clear out bugs from underneath the garbage. Sims who have one of the four new traits introduced in this pack, Recycle Disciple, will derive joy from this and will become tense if they are not able to find recyclables.
Players can also now have their Sims live more easily Off The Grid with the addition of Water Collection Stations, Solar Panels, Generators, and other objects that facilitate sustainability. When paired with The Sims 4: Tiny Living, players can now build their own self-sustainable tiny home. Players can also choose to have their Sim live in one of two new apartment buildings. Unlike the apartments in City Living‘s San Myshuno, these are smaller and more modest buildings with furnishings that look like they came straight out of a Midwestern American town.
Players now have the opportunity to join two new careers: Crafter (under the Freelancer career) and Civil Designer. In the upgrade to the Freelancer career, players can now craft furniture and decorations, juices, or candles to sell to clients via a computer. Meanwhile, as a Civil Designer, players can help transform the community into a more eco-friendly environment. The pack also brings in two new Aspirations, Master Maker and Eco Innovator. It also introduces four new Traits: Freegan, Green Fiend, Maker, and Recycle Disciple.
The new Create A Sim hairstyles and piercings are exceptional, adding more depth to Sims’ appearances. The clothing items are a bit hit or miss, depending on whether a player likes the trendier, more hipster style of baggy, layered, and patched clothing developers have chosen to include.
The pack is not perfect, though. As is typical of The Sims 4 Expansion Packs, children have been mostly left out of the new items and styles available, which likely will be somewhat of a letdown for family players.
Additionally, while the neighborhood feels full with buildings and realistic with piles of trash and free-floating plastic bags, as players explore, they will realize this is no more than a facade. The buildings are not usable, and the trash cannot be picked up. Instead, as players make more environmentally-conscious choices, it will gradually disappear. For players who love to build, the streamlined, pre-fabricated look of many of the streets in each neighborhood will ensure that any unique builds will stand out and even appear out of place.
Though the pack contains many new and attractive furnishings, these will always be hidden under DEBUG, as, without cheating, they are only accessible as a Sim crafts them. If a player is not looking for their Sim to be good at building furniture or crafting their own items, they will have to cheat in order to access everything available. Additionally, unlike Painting or Woodworking, a Sim’s skill level at making juice, candles, or furniture does not affect the quality or price of the finished product when sold. Though a Sim might have a maxed out Handiness score or Mixology skill, they will not see an increase in product quality or the price at which it is purchased.
Apart from some minor issues with gameplay and the initial lack of depth to the neighborhoods despite how full they look, The Sims 4 Eco Lifestyle is a unique, choice-based experience that offers tons of new features allowing players to tell new stories with their Sims. The features in this pack can affect every other world available in the game, making it, like Seasons, feel like a pack many Sims fans soon won’t be able to play without.
The Sims 4 Eco Lifestyle Expansion pack is available now for PC, Xbox One, and PlayStation 4. A PC code was provided for review.
