The Sims 4 has helped me cope with quarantine, but I've been a fan of the series since I was young. In these games, you design a person, build them a house, and then take care of their every need. You can get your dream job and become a rocket scientist, make friends (or enemies), and even cheat your way to riches.
In it, I can live any kind of life, and if I'm ever tight on cash, a simple motherlode cheat code (or three) remedies the issue. With thousands of hours logged, I've yet to tire of the game—largely thanks to the huge library of add-ons.
See, The Sims 4 is awesome, but there's a catch. The base game is sometimes as cheap as $5, and $40 at most. But that’s before the add-ons. With nine Expansion Packs, eight Game Packs, and 17 Stuff Packs available, it can cost you as much as $700 to get all the extra things. That's as much as a brand-new iPhone, a laptop, or the beginnings of a great savings account. It's all pretty tempting, but you don't need all that downloadable content (DLC) for The Sims 4.
Below, I will go through every piece of DLC in the game. (I've tried them all!) First, I'll give an overview of my favorite $40 Expansion Packs and others I think you can skip. I'll do the same for all the $20 Game Packs available, which add a mix of features and items. And last are the $10 Stuff Packs, which add themed items for your house and Sims. The links for each pack go to PC/Mac redemption codes you can buy and enter into EA's Origin game store.
Updated November 2020: We added Snowy Escape and Journey to Batuu to our rankings.
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