The Sims 4
Play with life and discover the possibilities. Unleash your imagination and create a world of Sims that’s wholly unique. Explore and customize every detail from Sims to homes–and much more.
Your like matters. Every heart nudges this game's GamingPickz Score and where it ranks (a small 5% of the score), so the lists get better for everyone.
- Released
- 2014
- Developer
- Maxis
- Platforms
- 4 systems
- Critics
- Not scored
- Steam Deck
- playable
- Download
- 26 GB
What is The Sims 4?
Play with life and discover the possibilities. Unleash your imagination and create a world of Sims that’s wholly unique. Explore and customize every detail from Sims to homes–and much more.
Description as published by the developer on its own store page, read 30 August 2026. It is marketing copy, not our assessment.
The record
| First released | 2 September 2014 |
|---|---|
| Developer | Maxis, The Sims Studio |
| Publisher | Electronic Arts |
| Platforms | PC, PlayStation 4, Xbox One, Steam Deck |
| Genres | Sandbox, Simulation |
| Languages | 18 supported |
Source. Catalogue facts from Wikidata Q12579896, seeded 30 August 2026. Store data from Steam, read 30 August 2026.
How was The Sims 4 received?
Method. Player figures are Steam's own totals for the PC version, read 30 August 2026. The Metacritic score is the one Steam publishes on its store page and can lag the site itself. Neither is our opinion. We have not published a review of this game.
Accessibility
Seeing
None declared
Hearing
- Stereo Sound
- Surround Sound
Input
- Mouse Only Option
- Playable without Timed Input
Difficulty
- Save Anytime
Method. Features the publisher declared on its own store page. A declaration is a floor, not a review.
What does it support?
| Capability | Support |
|---|---|
| Controller | Not stated |
| Cloud saves | No |
| Cross-platform play | No |
| Mod support | No official workshop |
| Online play | Single-player only |
| In-game purchases | Yes |
| Steam Deck | playable |
| Download size | 26 GB |
| Add-on content | 114 DLC listed |
| Age gate | None |
Method. Read from the publisher's Steam listing on 30 August 2026. Describes the PC version. Console versions differ.
What does it cost?
Steam price in US dollars, read 30 August 2026. Prices move hourly and vary by region. Check the current price.
Is The Sims 4 worth it?
86% of 199,663 Steam reviews are positive, which Steam rates Very Positive. It is free to play.
That is the data, not a verdict for sale: whether it is worth it depends on the price you pay and what you want. Players do report problems — see the reported-problems section below before buying. We have not published our own review of this game.
How long is The Sims 4? How long to beat it
Total play time for The Sims 4 is about 273.6 hours to do everything, and around 22.4 hours to reach the end of the main story. These are player-submitted times from HowLongToBeat, not our own, shown with the number of players behind each.
| How you play | Hours | Players logged |
|---|---|---|
| Just the main story: straight through the critical path | 22.4h | 63 |
| Main + the extras: story plus the side content most people do | 104.3h | 51 |
| Completionist: everything: 100% the game | 273.6h | 30 |
The Sims 4 is free to play, so the only cost is your time: about 22.4 hours to beat it.
Source: HowLongToBeat community submissions, read 2026-10-19.
The Sims 4 system requirements
The minimum requirements from The Sims 4's Steam page. These are what it takes to launch and be playable, not to run at high settings.
| Memory | 4 GB RAM (other games at this level) |
|---|---|
| Storage | 26 GB (more games this size) |
| System | 64-bit OS required |
Where The Sims 4 sits on the grid
Compare the whole catalogueThe Sims 4 plotted on the axes the GamingPickz Score is built from, on the full 0 to 100 scale so its position is its real one. Change either axis to see where it lands.
1 games have both
Players. The share of Steam reviews marked positive, pulled toward the catalogue average in proportion to how few reviews stand behind it. A game with 200 reviews moves a long way toward the average; one with 200,000 barely moves at all. Without this a title sitting at 100 percent on nine reviews outranks Half-Life 2 at 98 percent on 278,000.
Popularity. A blend of two things that are not the same. Audience is how many people wrote a Steam review, which is a floor on how many played it. Reach is how many language editions of Wikipedia document the game, which is cultural footprint rather than sales. A game can score high on one and low on the other: a huge free-to-play title has audience without reach, and a landmark console exclusive has reach without a Steam audience at all. Where both exist they are averaged; where only one does, that one carries it.
- Multi-platform
Every point links to that game's entry. The value map and the reception map are fixed views of the same data.
How positions are decided
No paid placement, no favouritism, live third-party data
- Placed by the published method, not by us. Every coordinate is computed from the axis definitions and weights printed on this site. Nobody moves a point. See the axes.
- Nothing here is paid for. No sponsored placements, no promoted slots, no arrangement of any kind affects a position. If that ever changes it will be labelled and sit outside the ranking.
- No favouritism, including our own. The 16 games we have written full reviews of are scored by exactly the same formula as the other 1,510, from the same third-party inputs, and they land where it puts them. Our own opinion of a game does not enter its coordinates.
- A position is not an endorsement. It says how a game was received and what it costs, not that we recommend it. Where we do recommend something, it carries a written review with a name on it.
- Fetched from live third-party data. Player sentiment from Steam, critic aggregates as published on store pages, prices checked hourly, attention from Wikipedia. Each figure carries its source and the date it was read, and we do not adjust any of them.
The Sims 4 price & deals: is it on sale?
We have one reading so far: Free on 30 August 2026. Prices are checked daily from here, and this becomes a chart once there is more than one point to join. A single observation is a price, not a history.
Latest The Sims 4 updates & patch notes
Pulled from The Sims 4's own Steam feed on 5 September 2026. Posts marked as from the studio were written by the developer; the rest are articles Steam syndicated from elsewhere. Every one links to its source.
- On Wednesdays, Sims Wear Pink
- Free Content and New Performance Cache!
- New Mean Girls and Clueless Kits are coming to The Sims 4 on August 27
- July Patch Update
- EA have gone private, as Saudi Arabia and Jared Kushner's investment groups complete their $55 billion acquisition
- "I wish I could do that": A developer on The Sims has been eyeing up Paralives' characters' asymmetric shoes and their wider possibilities
What readers say about The Sims 4
Reviews written by people who have played it. These are separate from the GamingPickz Score and are never averaged into it: that score comes from thousands of Steam reviews with a sample-size correction, and a handful of unverified ratings would distort it rather than improve it.
Loading reviews…
Problems players report
We read the 300 most recent negative Steam reviews of The Sims 4 on 30 August 2026 and counted what they mention. These are complaints, not confirmed defects: we have not reproduced any of them, and a review describes one person's machine. What the counts tell you is which problems more than one person ran into.
- Monetisation inside the game9 of 300 (3%)
Electronic Arts has locked basic features as simple as weather behind a paywall of dozens of expansion, game, and stuff packs.
Steam review, 8 August 2026 · 694 hours played · 3 readers marked it helpfulIf you enjoy games that are a money grab, owned by a company that doesn't care about its player base, and is now filled to the brim with microtransactions then,,, The Sims franchise is just for you!
Steam review, 18 July 2026 · 686 hours played · 3 readers marked it helpful
A further 15 reviews call the game buggy or broken without saying how, which is why they are counted separately rather than assigned to a theme. Counted by keyword across review text, so a review discussing two problems is counted under both. Read the reviews yourself.
Did it run on your PC?
Tell other players how it ran on your machine. One tap, from your saved PC if you have one.
Where The Sims 4 appears
The ranked lists and finder pages The Sims 4 qualifies for, from its own genre and platform to what it takes to run.
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Games like The Sims 4
24 games overlap with The Sims 4 on the tags Steam players applied to it, on genre, and on theme. The closest are InZOI, The Sims 3 and SuchArt: Creative Space.
Part of the The Sims series
The Sims 4 is one of 4 The Sims games we track. See the whole series ranked by the GamingPickz Score, plotted on the grid, and listed in release order:
The Sims 4 head to head
See The Sims 4 compared side by side, on score, price, specs and more:
Common questions about The Sims 4
What platforms is The Sims 4 on?
The Sims 4 is available on PC, PlayStation 4, Xbox One, Steam Deck. It first released in 2014.
Is The Sims 4 free?
Yes. The Sims 4 is free to download on Steam. It carries in-game purchases.
Do players recommend The Sims 4?
86% of 199,663 Steam reviews are positive, which Steam rates Very Positive. That is players rating it, not our review. We have not published a review of this game.
Does The Sims 4 work on Steam Deck?
Valve rates The Sims 4 as playable on the Steam Deck, from its own testing.
How big is the The Sims 4 download?
26 GB on PC, from the storage requirement on its Steam listing. Console versions differ.
Who made The Sims 4?
The Sims 4 was developed by Maxis, The Sims Studio and published by Electronic Arts.
Is The Sims 4 worth it in 2026?
86% of 199,663 Steam reviews are positive (Very Positive), and it is free to play. That is the strongest signal we hold; "worth it" depends on the price you pay and what you want, so weigh the sentiment against the current price above.
What are the system requirements for The Sims 4?
At minimum, The Sims 4 needs 4 GB RAM, 26 GB of storage, from its Steam listing. That is what it takes to launch and be playable, not to run at high settings. Check it against your own PC on the can-I-run page.
How long does it take to beat The Sims 4?
about 22.4 hours for the main story, 104.3 hours with the main extras, 273.6 hours to complete everything, from HowLongToBeat's player-submitted times. These are community medians, so your own run may be shorter or longer.