A new the last being The Sims 4: Cottage Living which released in July 2021. With the one year anniversary of an Expansion release approaching, many fans have been anticipating an announcement for some time, and it looks like this will finally come to fruition this week.
Expansion Packs are the largest, most comprehensive size of DLC for The Sims 4, including entire new worlds and featuring large amounts of new gameplay elements, clothing, and items. As the one year mark between Expansion Packs grew closer, rumors of the next release began to swirl after a survey sent out by the Sims 4 team asking about titles fans had played included an unreleased Expansion Pack entitled High School. At the time the leak was met with scrutiny, but a roap released for The Sims 4 this week has given a sizable amount of hints that the next DLC will indeed involve new school activities for teenagers, through imagery like a graduation cap and pencils.
A new post from The Sims Twitter features various Sims 4 creators reflecting on their teenage years and offering advice. The video clip shows Sims 4 creators like steph0sims reacting to questions about their adolescence, presented with topics like "the parts they loved," "if there was drama," "what advice they'd share," and "if they'd do it again." The post features a hashtag referring to an Expansion Pack and links to a Youtube video on The Sims channel that premieres on June 30 at 8 AM PT, with a description that reads "So many changes...learn how an important period of your Sims’ lives is getting more exciting."
At this point, outside of a full official announcement, it couldn't be clearer that the next Sims 4 Expansion Pack will be focused on the teenage life stage. Although many players already accepted this as fact, either with the first leak of the Pack or the subsequent listing of the Sims 4 DLC on third party websites, there was still doubt for some about the validity of the information until now. Although it's not yet certain that the Expansion Pack will focus on high school and not just new depth for teenage Sims, previous academic imagery points to that being the case.
This is great new for many players - the Sims 4 fanbase has long expressed a desire for teenagers to have more complexity in the game, with many feeling that the current interpretation of teenagers essentially makes them look and act like slightly smaller adults save the fact they have to attend school. Currently, players don't even see students attend school, with teens simply disappearing in the morning and returning in the afternoon. This new DLC will open up a host of new activities for storytelling in The Sims 4, particularly for players who love family gameplay. Whether Sims 4 players want to have teens rebel against their parents, find their high school sweetheart, or stir up drama at school, this Expansion Pack sounds like it will offer many new exciting opportunities for adolescents.
Source: The Sims/Twitter, The Sims/Youtube