The Sims 4 has as robust a modding community as any game ever has, which is no doubt one of the secrets to the game’s longevity. For a lot of long-term players, the game has only managed to maintain their interest because of the best The Sims 4 mods. Without those bug fixes and quality-of-life improvements and inventive overhauls and metric tons of custom Create-a-Sim and build mode content, The Sims 4 can feel a bit hollow, regardless of whether you’ve bought every DLC or stick to the free base game.

But the world of The Sims 4 modding is a massive one, and it can be pretty hard to keep track of it all and find new stuff. There’s no hub where everything can be easily downloaded and installed and kept updated with a single push of a button like Steam Workshop. In a lot of ways, exploring these mods is as much of an adventure as actually playing The Sims 4 is.

But we’re here to help you with that today. If you need a bit of guidance on the best Sims 4 mods, both old and new, fret not, as we’ve gathered 31 of the most worthy fan creations here–though we’re strictly talking about mods here, rather than custom content. There’s a little something for every flavor of player in our list, including those who love a cheeky cheat or two and those hoping for a more human gameplay experience. For those of you who know how to download Sims 4 mods but not which ones to look into, here’s our rundown on some of the greatest around. Or if The Sims 4 isn’t your speed, the series’ 25th anniversary earlier this year has brought with it re-releases of the first two games.

• Creator: SimMattically
• Download link:Patreon

While the main menu might look like a dream to the corporate overlords at EA, the experience is a little different for players, who are forced to look at ads for The Sims 4 every time they play The Sims 4. The Refreshed Main Menu mod cleans up the main menu significantly, removing the splash-screen ads entirely, adding a toggle for the “news” feed (which is just more ads), and letting you swap in one of several alternative background images. It’s not a mod that seems all that essential on its face, but it is genuinely nice to be able to get rid of these UI elements that constantly scream for attention.

• Creator: Vicky Sims
• Download Link: Patreon

Do you ever feel like you want a more fleshed-out Create-a-Sim experience but aren’t sure how to get one that doesn’t involve clothes or make-up? 100 Base Game Traits is much more than a cosmetic addition to CAS, adding various traits to choose from that will affect your Sims’ animations, autonomy, buffs, relationships, and more. These new traits act the same way in-game canon traits do, adding more flavor to your Sims without compromising the feel of gameplay. From brave to unstable, joyless to mischievous, and impulsive to open-minded, 100 Base Game Traits brings all of the quirky characteristics you could ever want for your Sims.

• Creator: TwistedMexi
• Download Link: Patreon

Better BuildBuy is one of those essential mods most Simmers recommend upon being asked, “What mods should I download?” This simple quality-of-life mod doesn’t change your Sims 4 experience in any negative way; it only makes navigating around the build and buy mode menus easier. You can access every item, including those you normally can’t purchase, filter searches for a more organized shopping experience, pin your favorite objects, and more. Some of our most beloved Better BuildBuy feature highlights include the ability to edit lighting while building, the ability to view and efficiently organize debug or previously hidden environment items, and the ability to quickly locate objects by visual elements such as color or those from specific paid content like kits.

• Creator: Kuttoe
• Download Link: Itch.io

Career Overhaul pairs perfectly with the Get To Work expansion pack, adding a variety of new goal and job-focused features to The Sims 4. With Career Overhaul, skills are redone completely to play more realistically into Sims’ jobs. For instance, athletes need to stay in good shape while doctors require higher education. Some jobs will even require Sims to maintain certain fame levels and hit other such milestones. The mod also introduces pay rate changes, allowing for a more exponential growth curve. Other fun highlights include Sims’ coworker relationships building passively while at work and culinary worker Sims bringing food home.

• Author: Plumlace
• Download link: Patreon

The Sims 4 can get pretty complex with its social simulation, but for those of us who have been playing regularly for years, it can feel like we’ve seen it all. But the Personalities+ mod is a shock to the system, assigning personality archetypes to every sim in the game, with each archetype being accompanied by unique moods and desires. And if you don’t like the archetypes it gave your sims, you can pick a new one in your phone. For folks who play The Sims 4 for the simulation side of things, Personalities+ offers plenty of interesting new wrinkles to the experience.

• Creator: adeepindigo
• Download Link: Itch.io

While The Sims 4 is growing more inclusive by the day, there’s still undeniably room for EA to improve the life sim. Divergent Sims aims to help in that department and make our Sims feel more alive by introducing neurodiversity to the game as well as real-life mental-health conditions. From anxiety to learning disorders, this mod allows for more realism and relatability across the board with conditions that affect Sims of all ages. If you want The Sims 4 to truly feel like a world filled with people rather than game characters, Divergent Sims adds a layer of depth that simply isn’t present in the base experience while addressing more taboo topics. Neurodivergent Sims and realistic mental health conditions aren’t the mod’s only new features, as Divergent Sims also adds professional evaluation and treatment options for everything from addiction to illness.

• Creator: Littlbowbub
• Download Link: Patreon

Dine Out and Home Chef Hustle are admittedly quite fun DLC releases from EA, but they’re not free, and they focus on different aspects of the culinary world both outside of the home and within it rather than solely on food itself. If you want to expand your Sims’ recipe books and get them cooking something other than mac and cheese on the daily, that’s where free mods like Grannies Cookbook come in as a great alternative. This simple mod adds various tasty recipes from all over the globe to The Sims 4, including easy dishes like mixed berries and complex drinks like flavored bubble teas. The mod also adds an adorable cookbook item containing said recipes which you can customize as you please, choosing from pastel plaid swatches and vibrant fruit-themed covers.

• Creator: PolarBearSims
• Download Link: Mod The Sims

If Emotional Inertia and Divergent Sims are up your alley, then you may also enjoy Have Some Personality Please, as it adds a bit of flair to all members of your in-game households (yes, even the animals). This mod packs quite a punch of gameplay-enhancing content, bringing everything from alien interactions to more meaningful Sim conversations. It also allows for more Sim autonomy, making way for interactions based more accurately on conversations, moods, relationships, and traits. No longer will your Sims engage in boring idle chat that does nothing to further their relationships. Instead, you’ll find your Sims choosing other interactions on their own depending on how they’re feeling and how close they are with the Sim they’re interacting with. For instance, your Sim may choose to be mean to a Sim they dislike, or they may select a romantic interaction with a Sim they’re feeling flirty with.

• Creator: adeepindigo
• Download Link: Itch.io

Healthcare Redux does precisely what its name implies. This expansive mod completely revamps The Sims 4’s healthcare features and brings hours of new content to the game with its addition of accidents, chronic conditions, diseases, injuries, immune system mechanics, medical emergencies, pregnancy-related issues, treatments, and more. Any health-related condition or topic you can conjure up mentally is available with this mod, making it the perfect download to accompany aforementioned picks such as Divergent Sims. From anemia to aneurysms, hospital stays to health insurance plans, Healthcare Redux sees Sims deal with real-life health-related topics making gameplay far more immersive and relatable.

• Author: Lumpinou
• Download Link: Patreon

While representation in The Sims 4 has improved dramatically over the years, if you want your world to truly reflect the many complexities and nuances of human sexuality and gender, you’ll need the LGBTQIA+ mod. This essential mod adds a ton of new gender and orientation options, as well as the life experiences that come with them, like the ability for your sim to come out to their friends and family, or to get gender-affirmation care.

• Creator: roBurky
• Download Link: Itch.io

Much like Emotional Inertia, Meaningful Stories redesigns Sims’ emotions and mood changes in a bid to make them feel more human. This mod makes events, both big and small, much more meaningful as they carry a more accurate weight with them. For example, your Sims may suffer the consequences of a forgotten birthday for a more appropriate amount of time than usual, or perhaps they may feel more impactful joy after experiencing their first kiss. Whether negative or positive, events and moods meet much more fairly in the middle with this mod. Small, fleeting moments are just that with Meaningful Stories active, while truly game-changing situations leave your Sims with far longer-lasting, realistic mood-related consequences.

• Creator: TwistedMexi
• Download link:Patreon

One of the most inexplicable omissions in The Sims 4’s UI is that there’s never been a way to search for a specific Sim in the social menus. Instead, we’ve spent the past decade scrolling through menus scanning for the people we want to invite to parties or on dates–and the longer your Sim lives, the more scrolling you have to do, because they’ve spent their whole lives collecting names to add to the relationships panel.

No more of that. The Searchable Sim Picker mod adds a search bar to those social menus where you’re choosing which Sim or Sims to invite to an activity, so you can simply type the name of the person you’re looking for. It seems like such a little thing, but it’s a total game changer for folks whose Sims have lots of friends.

• Creator: Deaderpool
• Download Link: Patreon

MC Command Center is one of those mods that many Simmers consider a must-have. It gives you far greater control over your game and your Sims’ story progression. Whether you’re looking for more accessible cheats or the ability to control a Sim’s pregnancy, MC Command Center has it all. You can change any career, life, and social setting you’d like to, or choose to fix minor annoyances like the fact that neighbor Sims visiting your Sims’ lot always seem to come from a pre-selected pool with no variety. At its core, this mod allows you to customize and enhance your game however you’d like to, making it a perfect addition to an already dollhouse-esque experience.

• Creator: weerbesu
• Download Link: Patreon

More Columns in CAS is a relatively simple mod and acts as a quality-of-life enhancement tool in The Sims 4’s Create-a-Sim mode. All this mod does is increase the number of columns visible in the catalog panel in CAS. You can choose between three versions of the mod, tailoring the CAS menu more to your tastes. The options include three columns, four columns, and five columns, all seamlessly fitting within your CAS menu depending on your native resolution. It’s important to note that you need to have a minimum resolution of at least 1280×720 for three columns, 1600×900 for four columns, and 1920×1080 for five columns to appear properly.

• Creator: Sims 4 Multiplayer Mod
• Download Link: Patreon

The Sims 4 Multiplayer Mod is exactly what it sounds like, and yes, it actually works. With this mod, you can play the game with up to 12 friends in real-time multiplayer. You and your pals can share a household together, controlling separate Sims on the same lot. Multiplayer allows you to interact with other players’ Sims and see what they’re doing, making for the most functional co-op Sims 4 experience available to date. If you’re looking forward to Project Rene or The Sims 5 because you’re hoping to build and play alongside friends, you can hop into The Sims 4 with this mod for now and enjoy more prompt multiplayer chaos. It may seem too good to be true, but it works both via LAN and online.

• Creator: Dark Gaia
• Download Link: Mod The Sims

The Sims 4 finally has cars, and they’re fully functional. Well, kind of. It does if you download Ownable Cars, an iconic mod that adds one of the most missed features from previous Sims games: working cars. This mod adds five different cars to the game, ranging from vehicles costing 10,000 Simoleons to pricier options at 20,000 Simoleons. You can place the cars on terrain anywhere on your lot, and as long as your Sims can reach them, they can use them. Once your Sims have access to a car, they can drive said vehicle anywhere and even gain a “Traveled in Style” moodlet after doing so. Sadly, the cars don’t come with any animations but hey, at least we actually have them in some capacity.

• Creator: Lumpinou
• Download Link: Patreon

Rambunctious Religions is another one of those mods that adds a bit of real-life flair to The Sims 4. This mod brings new religious movements to the game fit for every Sim, whether you’re hoping to have them join in and pray in different circles or want them to abstain and engage in some Sims 4 atheism alongside the new Congregation of Non-Believers. You can categorize your Sims however you’d like with Rambunctious Religions. The Congregation of Non-Believers is for Sims who value logic and science over religion. The Worship of the Watcher is for Sims that break the fourth wall and realize that you, the player, are the higher power. Treaders of the Occult is a welcoming environment fit for all occult Sims. The final organized group is the Cult of the Cowplant, which is for nature-loving Sims. New mechanics accompanying the religions include conversion, prayer, and more.

• Creator: PandaSama
• Download Link: Patreon

If Healthcare Redux sounded like a mod you’d enjoy, you may also like Realistic Childbirth, as it adds some similar real-life medical flavor to the game. This mod adds childbirth options like natural delivery and planned cesarean sections as well as steps to each like in-hospital application of an epidural and labor induction via items like the yoga ball or actions such as walks. Sims gain weight after birth and carry visible scars depending on their method of delivery. They can also choose to have other Sims accompany them as they give birth and consult obstetricians. Any aspect of childbirth you can think of, you’ll likely find in The Sims 4 with this mod downloaded.

• Creator: charitycodes
• Download Link: Mod The Sims

Selectable Pets Always is a go-to mod for many Simmers as it allows you to control your household fully, animal members and all. With this mod, you can select your Sims’ pets and take their actions over much like you can with your Sims. Whether you want a pet to go to bed or direct them to their food bowl, they’ll follow your commands just as any Sim does. This makes taking care of pets’ needs far easier and also introduces a greater sense of playability and personality to your Sims’ furry companions. If you want pets in The Sims 4 to feel less like needy objects and more like full-fledged members of a household, we’d recommend checking Selectable Pets Always out.

• Creator: KawaiiStacie
• Download Link: Patreon

Slice of Life is yet another realism-enhancing gameplay mod for The Sims 4, introducing all sorts of challenges and interactions to help make your Sims feel more like actual people. The mod comes with a health module that introduces various conditions like colds, the flu, stomach problems, and more as well as respective remedies. There’s also a beauty module that allows for dynamic fashion choices, hair styling, and skincare routines. Your Sims can purchase new clothes, do their hair, apply makeup, and get reactions from other Sims after doing so. Slice of Life also adds adult elements to the game like alcohol and self-pleasure.

• Author: Zerbu
• Download link:Tumblr

While you can live in and freely come and go from most of the worlds of The Sims 4, there are a few that are designated as vacation worlds–you have to actually take a vacation to even visit them, and the only way to live in them permanently is to keep extending your vacation every week. This mod simply turns those worlds into normal residential worlds that you can travel to without any restrictions, and it’ll allow you to build whatever you want on the lots. The only exception is the Star Wars world Batuu, which cannot be built on because it has no lots–but you at least you can now just go there whenever you want.

• Creator: TwistedMexi
• Download Link: Patreon

TOOL, much like Better BuildBuy, enhances the Build and Buy mode experience in The Sims 4. It allows you complete control over the position, rotation, and scale of all objects both on your currently open lot and outside of it. You can lean your Sims’ picture frames about as you please, place throw pillows on their couches, hang rugs on their walls as tapestries, and more. With TOOL, you can customize areas without any of the base Sims 4 limitations holding you back. This quality-of-life mod feels almost necessary after you’ve played with it active thanks to the sheer amount of creative power it gives you as you build and decorate.

• Creator: weerbesu
• Download Link: Patreon

The UI Cheats Extension mod aims to make an activity almost all Simmers partake in, cheating, easier and far more approachable. Rather than needing to look up or memorize cheat commands to input into The Sims 4 console bar, you can simply make use of this mod’s cheat extension and click directly on the user interface for cheats. This mod features all the cheat panels you could ever want, with highlights including an aspirations panel, a career panel, a needs panel, a relationships panel, a skills panel, and many others. If there’s something you’d like to change about your gameplay, whether it be money-related or Sim-centered, you can do so with ease thanks to the UI Cheats Extension mod.

• Creator: AshenSeaced
• Download Link: Mod The Sims

Are you sick of how slow The Sims 4’s live mode speed can be, even when maxed out? It can be annoying to wait idly by for big events or for your Sims to arrive home after work, and sometimes the base game’s fastest speed-up option just doesn’t cut it. The Ultra Simulation SpeedUp mod amends this, giving you a brand-new speed-up option that’s lightning-fast. Whether you’re tired of watching pets slow time without your consent as your Sims sleep through the night or you simply need to speed things up in-game in anticipation of something more significant happening, this mod will solve all of your patience-testing problems with the addition of a mind-bogglingly quick speed-up setting. It’s not a gameplay-changing mod by any means, but rather a must-have quality-of-life addition that enhances your overall experience with the greater control over the Sims 4 clock that it offers.

• Creator: TURBODRIVER
• Download Link: Mod The Sims

If you’ve ever been stressed out juggling multiple jobs in real life and want your Sims to experience a bit of that harsh, realistic grind, you may want to look toward the Unlimited Jobs mod. It allows your Sims to sign up for various jobs all at once, whether those be full-blown careers or part-time gigs, and earn money from each of them. Unlimited Jobs lets you flesh your Sims’ schedules out with all flavors of work, including both freelance trades and even jobs added via custom content. This mod doesn’t just add a fresh layer of realism to The Sims 4; it also gives you more control over your Sims as a player since the base game limits your career options to just one full-time or two part-time jobs per Sim.

• Creator: TURBODRIVER
• Download Link: Mod The Sims

If you’re a long-time Simmer, you’ve likely heard of the undeniably iconic WickedWhims mod. WonderfulWhims is its more safe-for-work counterpart from the same creator, adding various pregnancy-related, social, and relationship features to the game. This mod introduces an attractiveness system to ensure your Sims’ preferences and relationships are a tad more realistic along with impressions and personality archetypes. WonderfulWhims also adds optional birth-control features, menstrual cycles, and even visible sweat that accumulates on Sims following any vigorous actions. Some of the more adult-oriented features include WooHoo-borne diseases, new WooHoo actions, and tons of pregnancy-related options.

• Creator: Andirz
• Download link:itch.io

When you’re missing that one last ingredient for that Age Away serum and simply cannot find any xenopetrium in any of the crystals you’ve been collecting on Sixam, the Sim Sim Online Store comes in very handy. In short, you can buy anything from the Sim Sim store, which can feel like a bit of a cheat–but it’s a real lifesaver when you forgot a single ingredient that would normally require a lot of effort and time to go retrieve. And it’s also informative–there are many items I didn’t even know were in the game until I found them in here, which was kinda cool.

• Creator: Basemental
• Download link:basementalcc.com

Basemental is best known for creating adult-oriented mods, and one of our favorites is this gambling mod which adds a functional casino venue to the game where you can throw away all your hard-earned money–or take somebody else’s. The Sims 4 is fairly light on vices without mods, so the addition of gambling, and the other stuff Basemental has mods for–like functional drugs–really spice things up in surprising ways.

• Creator: LittleMsSam
• Download link:lms-mods.com

One of the best modders for The Sims 4 is LittleMsSam, who’s been pumping out tons of useful utilities and gameplay tweaks for years–most of them aren’t hugely impactful individually, but they’re all useful and there are a ton of them. And it’s mostly low-key stuff, like one that improves butler AI and lets you hire additional ones–certainly a boon if you have a lot of kids. If you peruse LittleMsSam’s collection of more than 300 mods, you’re pretty much guaranteed to find several that make your Sims 4 experience much better.

• Creator: NerdyDoll
• Download link:CurseForge

Last year’s Lovestruck expansion added a Tinder-esque dating app to The Sims 4 called Cupid’s Corner, but it came with a really irritating restriction: You can only view five matches at a time, and you can only refresh your matches once per in-game day. This mod simply removes the time restriction and allows you to refresh your matches as much as you want.

• Creator: Kiara
• Download link:kiarasims4mods.net

The Get to Work expansion added “active” careers to The Sims 4–whereas most jobs just send your character to a rabbit hole where you can’t interact with them, these active careers let you follow your sim to work and help them do their job. But even though it’s been almost a decade since Get to Work came out, The Sims 4 has only added a couple more active careers since then. But fortunately we’ve got Kiara, a Sims modder best known for creating a large collection of new careers, mostly active ones, to play with. They’ve already made dozens of them, so you have a ton of options–though you’ll need to own the Get to Work expansion to use any of them.