The Sims 4 update gives ghosts a makeover and lets you WooHoo Death

As PC’s most popular life simulation, that’s only natural The Sims4 has a lot to say about death. The end of a character’s time on Earth is an important part of the process, whether you’re someone living through generations of family growth or a more chaos-driven player looking to deliberately pull your Sims out of this mortal coil. Ahead of the next expansion, The Sims 4 Life and Death, a new update changes the way Sims deal with and are affected by death – and in an oft-requested change, you can finally get intimate with the Grim Reaper himself.

The Sims 4 patch notes have often been a great source of fantastic lines to read, and “Sims can WooHoo with the Grim Reaper again” is certainly one of them. That’s right, you can now do more than just get close to the Grim Reaper by, well, getting close to them. However, that’s just one caveat to the latest update to the free Steam game, which focuses on expanding death-related interactions and the way ghosts work.

For starters, your Sims will now have more unique reactions to deaths depending on the situation, their traits, and their relationship with the deceased. When you lose a loved one, they will of course be distraught, but the sudden death of a nearby stranger can cause illness instead.

Of course, death isn’t the end in The Sims 4. When one of your controlled characters dies, you have the choice of making it a playable or free-roaming ghost. In this form of afterlife, spirits will now have a new set of spectrally specific needs: for example, clearing out “sticky waste,” consuming “ethereal sustenance,” or seeking “ethereal bonding.” You can also create ghosts of any age in Create a Sim, and define how they died, with dog, cat and horse ghosts available if you own the relevant expansions.

When a Sim’s spouse dies, they are now considered a widow; however, a new interaction will allow them to ask their spouse to remain married, restoring their marital status beyond traditional boundaries. EA has also improved the behavior of autonomously controlled ghosts, making them less likely to break objects and leave puddles of ectoplasm everywhere.

Enter build mode and you’ll find a new outdoor category called ‘life event activity’, which contains all the accessories needed for the likes of funerals and weddings. Ten of the most popular formal shoe, boot and high heel styles have new ‘true black’ color options, ideal for attending such a gathering.

You also have the option to manually switch between gravestones and urns, and a range of additional themed graves have been introduced for players with certain other content packs, such as Vampires, Merfolk and Werewolves. There’s even a new bonfire pit as a special consideration for the time of year, along with many more bug fixes that you can find in the full patch notes courtesy of EA.

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