In a sense, The Sims is all about social interaction. One of the main things you’re likely to find yourself doing is spending time building relationships between your Sims and strangers, often in a pursuit of companionship, clubs, or just to fill up that pesky social motive.
Despite that, actually playing The Sims is often a solitary activity. After all, there’s currently no official way of playing any mainline Sims games multiplayer. Not unless you plan on huddling around the computer and backseating your friend while they try to train their horses, that is.
If you want an official solution to playing The Sims with friends, then your best bet is trying out a couple of older spin-off Sims titles. The Sims and The Sims 2 on console both offer some pretty fantastic multiplayer modes, for example.
Still committed to playing The Sims 4 with friends? Well, there is actually a community-made workaround for that. You just need to be prepared to use a mod and to be a little savvy with setting it up.
Electronic Arts is also hard at work exploring some options for adding multiplayer options to The Sims at a later date. It’s just not currently clear if that’s going to be The Sims 4, or a different beast entirely.
A special mod makes it possible to enjoy multiplayer madness in The Sims 4
S4MP is an unofficial (but EA-recognised) mod that transforms The Sims 4 into total co-op chaos. You might’ve even come across it on YouTube before, with a handful of popular content creators like Vixella, LilSimsie, and James Turner testing it out on their channels.
Free users can connect with other Simmers via a Local Area Network (LAN) connection, making it possible to all pile into the same game on their own devices. From there, you can build, buy, and muck around in Live Mode to your heart’s content.
Paid users (who have signed up to the S4MP Patreon) can also play together over the internet. This means that you and your friend don’t have to be in the same place, and you don’t have to mess with setting up LAN connections.
Does it cost to play The Sims 4 multiplayer?
No, not necessarily. If you’re happy throwing a retro LAN party, then you can just go for the free version.
However, if you want to play The Sims 4 with your friends online, then you will need to subscribe to the S4MP Patreon. Subscriptions start at £9.50 per month, rising up to £21.50.
Both the Rare Patreon and Epic Patreon tiers give you access to multiple accounts, which you can share with a friend. So, if you plan on paying, you can save big by coordinating carefully with your pal.
Where can I get S4MP?
You can grab the mod from their website or Patreon. Once you’ve downloaded it, make sure you follow the instructions for loading the mod into your game carefully.
