The Sims 4: Get to Work

Expansion Pack Review

Unlike Outdoor Retreat which hit Origin back in January, The Sims 4: Get to Work is the first fully fledged expansion pack for The Sims 4. This pack amalgamates several features and concepts initially delivered in The Sims 2: Open for Business and The Sims 3: Ambitions, complemented by a number of new additions to help set the expansion apart from its predecessors. Following the lukewarm reception to The Sims 4, given the number of standard features which have had to be patched in via monthly post-launch updates and the removal of completely open worlds, this was the first chance for The Sims Studio to showcase their grand vision for the game.

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Ever since I began following The Sims franchise almost fifteen years ago, playing the base game on a computer that barely had the 300MB available to install it, there has been one expansion pack request which has occasionally been made by fans but never followed up on completely by the development team: “I want to follow my Sims to work”. Whether it was having your Sims vanish in The Sims 1/2 or enter rabbitholes / conduct “service” work around town in The Sims 3, it has never been possible to see exactly what a Sim gets up to during the day when at the office. At best, it has only been possible to see a text description of what happens through opportunity prompts, with your button selection alone determining the fate of your Sim’s job prospects and finances. While allowing players to follow their Sims to work would add an additional layer of realism to the game, it wouldn’t without its risks. Namely, there was the risk that programming each individual job to be more than a Sim sitting at a desk would have been incredibly time consuming.

Favouring just three career routes over all others which retain the old system, The Sims 4: Get to Work allows players to follow one of their Sims into their place of work as they start as low-level doctors, scientists and detectives. From conducting preliminary work which is then handed over to a supervisor, your Sim will slowly be given extra capabilities in the work place to effectively diagnose/treat a patient, unlock new discoveries or complete a full cause by himself/herself – complemented by a larger paycheck at the end of each day. In terms of potential gameplay, these three were definitely the wisest options out of all standard careers in the franchise.

Using a goal-oriented system similar to the one which shows up during a party, each day at work sees your Sim given a number of continuously unlocking objectives related to their career path. A doctor for example may be given objectives such as treating X number of patients, bringing a patient food or simply washing their hands. A detective on the other hand may be given objectives related to the case (s)he is working on and where they are. While less guidance and more player autonomy would have been nice, the jobs themselves are pretty enjoyable.

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“Death by Deadly Neurotoxin” is currently not available in The Sims 4: Get to Work.

Being a Doctor involves your Sim going into work at the local hospital. Once there, a number of patients are often there awaiting admission for the routine set of diagnosis and treatment. Initially you can only do basic diagnostic tests and non-medical tasks such as bringing patients food as an intern. As the Sim climbs the career ladder in this path, they will obtain the skills to effectively diagnose and treat patients, perform pathology tests and use some of the hospital’s medical equipment in the process.  It was one of the more challenging careers in my opinion, especially due to a noticable lack of staff and a considerable crowd of patients consistently accumulating at the front desk. If you thought the Guinea Pig Virus from The Sims 1 was trouble, just wait to see some of the “Theme Hospital” style ailments that half your neighbourhood turn up to the clinic with. Unlike The Sims 3, there are no pagers and no hefty ledgers of research to peruse outside of working hours.

Being a scientist is all about the research. Coming into work each day, they must use a variety of equipment to create scientific specimens and come up with some enticingly interesting items with practical and decorative benefits. This is perhaps the only career that really needed the objective system to direct players, as it was very open ended in what you could do with very little structure. The career requires you to collect materials and dedicate hours towards research in order to discover each new invention. Because of this and the number of inventions there are to produce, this career path has the most replay value – despite not involving the player as much. This is also the career with links to the new alien race of Sim, with aliens creatable through Create-a-Sim or by your male/female Sim giving birth to one. Aliens come with a range of special abilities, including the ability to analyse someones personality to disguising themselves as a normal Sim. Now all Sim’s have to ask… is the Sim they just WooHoo’ed with a Sim or an Alien?

Finally there is the detective route, which see’s your Sim enter the force to solve cases which happen around town. Out of the three careers introduced in Get to Work, this is the only one which sees you travel to different areas in order to search for clues and ultimately catch the perpetrator of a crime. After you arrest them, you have the option to go “Good Cop” “Bad Cop” on them in order to get a confession, subsequently being able to lock them away if successful. This was initially the most appealing career to me, but soon tended to become a repetitive loop of (Go to Crime Scene > Collect Evidence > Analyze Evidence > Identify Perpetrator > Catch Perpetrator > Interrogation Time > Imprison > Repeat). A variety of distinct cases comparable to The Sims 3: Ambition’s Investigator profession would have been better, driving these events through storyline rather than a couple of menus and adding some much needed replayability to this career. Another issue I found was that when travelling to a house for an inspection, the Sims present at the scene tended to be ones residing elsewhere – with the actual family owning the property being nowhere in sight. The impression that a property is just randomized with residents and evidence each time a case begins ruined any form of immersion for me.

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The Sims line of games are not only about controlling and witnessing the lives of your Sims, but also showcasing your creative capabilities through room and building design. Unfortunately, none of the three career lots can be accessed outside of actually partaking in the career. Therefore, it is not possible to manually customize them with additional wards, offices or any sort of additional flair. This proved disappointing, as I wouldn’t have minded going all “Theme Hospital” on my world’s medical clinic. With only four additional lots in the new “Magnolia Promenade” as well, don’t expect to be building too many new homes/outlets if Oasis Springs and Willow Creek are already at maximum capacity for you.

An additional issue with them only introducing four new lots is the lack of space available to take full advantage of The Sims 4: Get to Work’s second major feature: creating and running a retail business. While this would have been a lot nicer introduced alongside or after an expansion pack which introduced restaurants/cafes, it is possible for your Sim to create any form of retail business with items available for it in-game – from a boutique stocking the latest trending clothes to selling baked goods or furniture. It is a nice system overall, with a lot of thought evidently put into the employee and general management systems than comparable expansion packs. However, unless doing it alongside building one of the new skills such as baking or photography, I couldn’t find anything particularly appealing and useful about this system. With furniture and clothing available through Buy Mode and CAS respectively, running or visiting certain retail lot types can be considered more for the sake of immersion than the challenge of crafting items and convincing someone to buy them.

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Get to Work is an adequate start to The Sims 4 expansion pack run, which brought some new ideas to the table, but otherwise wasn’t distinct like Livin’ Large (TS1), University (TS2) or World Adventures (TS3) as far as the “first expansion pack” goes. I personally feel that the retail content would have been better once more features have been introduced in later expansion packs, while the three careers could have easily been three individual Game Packs given the limited scope each of them offers – comparable to Outdoor Retreat. Each career is only something I could envision myself doing for a single run-through, if that, then subsequently changing back over to a standard career so the “Would you like to join your Sim at work” message wouldn’t pop up every day.

However, The Sims Studio must be admired for not deciding to stick with safe options like Seasons or Pets for their first expansion pack. But at the same time, could have and should have gone with something more in-depth in my opinion. All that being said, I do think there is still quite a bit that The Sims 4 can offer, and look forward to seeing future directions that Electronic Arts and Maxis / The Sims Studio take with this game. The question is… will they be able to match the sheer scope of features offered by The Sims 3’s eleven expansion packs? Time will tell…

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The Sims 4 – Reviews

The Sims 4 [Base Game]

The Sims 4: Get to Work

The Sims 3 – Reviews

The Sims 3: Supernatural

The Sims 3: Seasons

The Sims 3: University Life

The Sims 3: Island Paradise

The Sims 3: Into the Future

Sam
Sam
Founder of The Otaku's Study. I have been exploring this labyrinth of fandom these last fifteen years, and still nowhere close to the exit yet. Probably searching for a long time to come.

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