If you’re a part of The Sims community, you know there are dozens of different kinds of “Simmers,” as Maxis affectionately calls us. You have the luxury-focused “motherlode” spammers, the architects, the storytellers, the folks who find comfort in watching a simple family live out their simple life, the ladder-deleters, and more. Yet even heartbroken players executing their revenge fantasies are not the most depraved of all Sims players. No no. It’s the Wicked Whims community who take that crown.
Wicked Whims, for the unacquainted, is a popular mod that adds graphic nudity to The Sims 4 as well as just about everything you can do while graphically nude. Like, everything. Not that I would know because obviously I’ve never installed it. That would be indecent. Obviously.
But if I had installed it, I would be able to tell you that The Sims 4’s upcoming Lovestruck expansion certainly doesn’t come close to being as colorful as WW. However, it does add just enough spice to put that “Rated T for Teens” label to the test and contains some concepts we’ve seen in Wicked Whims’ less-spicy companion: Wonderful Whims. And overall, The Sims 4 experience is made much better for it. On top of adding a healthy dose of lust to the game, Lovestruck adds a whole lot of love to the game. Thanks to Lovestruck, we get some much-needed complexity and clarity to relationships, a better replication of what real-life relationships can look like, and a reminder of what makes Maxis a simulation-game powerhouse.
Shortly after attending a hands-off preview event offering an overview of Lovestruck, I was given the chance to test out the expansion. Seeing as the DLC was all about romance, I decided to boot up the game and make my very own rom-com protagonist, complete with a job at a very important magazine, an ambitious personality, and a fear of love. I found there are a lot of fun new additions to Create-A-Sim: cute and inclusive new hair styles, plenty of sexy going-out tops, and plenty of other fun items. However, the greatest changes resided in the Simology panel. New to the game are Romantic Boundaries, Turn Ons and Turn Offs, two new personality traits (Love Bug and Romantically Reserved), two new aspirations (Romantic Explorer and Paragon Partner), and the long-awaited ability to set roommates as partners.
Romantic Boundaries are easily the most substantial update to the game, making it no surprise that Maxis opted to bring the system over to the base game as well. Essentially, Romantic Boundaries establish what behaviors you are okay with in a relationship. Lovestruck breaks it down with four questions: Does your sim get jealous if a partner flirts with another sim? What about if they get a bit hands-on? What if they WooHoo? And lastly, is your Sim willing to talk through their boundaries if they are broken and negotiate their relationships terms? I decided to go with no, yes, yes, yes to see how everything would play out.
Selecting her Turn Ons and Turn Offs was also a lot of fun. Rather than simply allow you to choose from the game’s pre-established traits, the system lumps them into general ideas. For example, rather than just selecting that you like “Loner” types, you can select that you like “Homebodies,” which includes Bookworm, Clumsy, Geek, Lazy, Sedentary, Socially Awkward, and Loner. I made her attracted to Hardworking, Career-Minded, and Wealthy Sims, then threw in a bit of a problematic trait that, in my own little headcanon, had gotten her into trouble before: Already Taken.
I then moved my sim, the somewhat ham-fistedly named Juliet Hart, into the expansion’s new city: the also somewhat ham-fistedly named Ciudad Enamorada. The Mexico City-inspired neighborhood is gorgeous, with colorful buildings, plenty of rooftop terraces, and beautiful stone masonry buildings. I moved her into the cheapest of these lots, across from a motel that cost 40 simoleons a night.
Despite Juliet’s ambitions of being an award-winning columnist, I decided I needed to try the game’s newest career path: Romance Consultant. On top of being novel, I figured it also probably offers more job security. Sure, she wasn’t a romantic herself, but perhaps her cynicism, which she’d argue was merely realistic, would make her an interesting choice for the position. The second thing I did was sign up for Cupid’s Corner, the game’s new dating app. While you can’t lie about your traits or appearance on the app–sorry, aspiring catfishers–you can only select two traits to showcase on your profile, allowing sims to hide any particularly unappealing characteristics prior to going out on a date.
After taking a new profile picture and selecting “Ambitious” and “Outgoing” as my traits–conveniently leaving out “Romantically Reserved”–I began swiping, so to speak. In Cupid’s Corner, you are presented with seven potential suitors, with the traits that you like and dislike highlighted on their profile; these can then be refreshed every 12 in-game hours. Of the seven matches, you are allowed to “like” three of them, which adds them to the saved part of the app. From there, you can choose to save their number and/or ask them to go on a date with you. The first person Juliet went on a date with was a man named Manuel, whose artsy, Lovebug personality type was a bit different for her.
To spare going into all of Juliet’s misadventures with Manuel (and Gavin, Carmen, Aziz…), here are a few highlights that exemplify what this expansion does best. On a random Thursday, Gavin called Juliet from his job and told her she was having an awful day. Juliet then told him she’d bring him lunch and set off to his work with tacos, which made their relationship grow closer. Gavin soon became the situationship she was most invested in, causing her to develop a fear that he might be seeing other sims behind her back–she then was able to have a sit-down with him in which he reassured her he was serious about her, causing the game to grant her “Fear Progress.” While I don’t know what conquering a fear entails–this was the only time the scenario popped up during my brief playtime–I am excited to explore the concept more.
A few days later, however, the obscenely wealthy Nancy Landgrab called Juliet with a strange proposition; in fact I am still somewhat unsure of the exact intention behind it. The lonely wife told Juliet that she was looking for some companionship and would pay Juliet a hefty sum to spend time with her at the nearby motel. Naturally I had to say yes, and met the “wealthy weirdo” as the game called her across the street. After two hours, Juliet came back with a bunch of strange objects in her inventory, including several precious stones and a rare black axolotl. Shortly after, Juliet was then invited to star on a reality dating program; the stranger told her they would set cameras all around her home and her mission would be to simply have one week’s worth of hot dates. A Herculean task, but she was up for it. She soon developed a number of unique dynamics with other sims: a “Steamy” relationship with Manuel, a “Wholesome” one with Gavin, and a “Strained” one with the married Nancy.
Lovestruck is full of these weird, sincere, and steamy interactions. On top of being able to perform “Back-to-Back WooHoo” in the newly resurfaced vibrating bed–a callback to The Sims 1–whilst dressed up in a variety of suggestive costumes found in the game’s new costume trunk, there are several new dialogue options. You can ask about WooHoo and romantic interests, ask to attend couple’s counseling, ask what they’re attracted to, ask about romantic boundaries, check in on your relationship status, recap WooHoos, and reveal desires. Romantically Reserved sims are also offered a number of Mr. Darcy-esque options, like asking an “indecent question,” praising beauty, and offering a “civilized remark.” After several “civilized remarks,” conversations about relationship boundaries, and plenty of “Back-to-Back WooHoo,” Juliet and Gavin decided to become exclusive and now live together in their newly renovated Ciudad Enamorada home–and I couldn’t be happier for the lil’ lovebirds.
In short, Lovestruck adds a bewildering amount of relationship complexity and over-the-top drama, the likes of which I haven’t seen since my favorite The Sims entry, The Sims 2. The Sims expansions can be hit or miss; while some feel like they completely change the game’s dynamics and are well-worth the $40 EA charges for them, others can feel more surface-level. Suffice to say, Lovestruck is the former, and I can’t quite imagine going back to a version of the game without it. While all the options might be a lot for those whose playstyle is more simplistic (though it’s worth mentioning you can turn Relationship Boundaries off in the settings menu), I believe Lovestruck is one of the series’ most substantial and fun expansions.
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