The Sims is undoubtedly one of the most popular series in gaming history. It currently holds the distinguished honor of being the most played game on the PC by a long shot, and it's easy to see why. After all, when it comes to life simulation games The Sims is pretty much the only franchise that can provide the most complete and satisfying experience when it comes to fulfilling the various aspects of this genre. The sheer amount of detail and content present in these games is truly mind-boggling, and while the series might've experienced its fair share of speed bumps (which can mostly be blamed on EA's unnecessary corporate meddling) there's no questioning the staying power of this powerful franchise.

However, while there might a ton of detail present in the game in order to truly cement its position as a bonafide life-simulation game, most players haven't noticed that Maxis has actually included a number of hidden stories and secrets in the game that range from somewhat creepy to borderline disturbing at times. This can be especially jarring, especially since the tonality of The Sims is rather kiddish, which makes the existence of these horrifying elements all the more disorienting. The following entries list out 25 of the most disturbing facts about The Sims that even die-hard fans don't know about.

25 Olive Specter And Her Unhealthy Obsession With The Grim Reaper

The stories present in all of the games in The Sims series are pretty unique in their own little ways, providing you with an innocent platform to base your roleplay on. However, there are some Sims who don't exactly have such light-hearted backstories, and Olive Specter from The Sims 2 is one such example.

The garden behind the house of Olive Specter is full of dead people, including her previous husbands and people she didn't exactly like either. It's pretty obvious that one shouldn't get on Olive's bad side — after all, her memories also show that she is romantically involved with the Grim Reaper. This provides her with a powerful incentive to kill all these people, since she can meet her lover by doing so.

Speaking of the Grim Reaper...

24 Your Sim Can Use Her Body And Convince The Grim Reaper To Spare A Life

It's always heartbreaking when a Sim that you saw grow up in front of your very eyes experiences the last stages of their life. When this Sim is close to his/her death, then the Grim Reaper will appear for a while before taking the life of your Sim for good. However, if you're extremely attached to your Sim then you can postpone this fate... albeit at a rather disturbing price.

See, you can negotiate with the Grim Reaper to spare a life, but that can only be done if you're on good terms with him. And — let's face it — the best way to ensure this is by making one of your female Sims use her body to 'appease' the Grim Reaper. By developing this rather disturbing relationship, you can successfully convince the Grim Reaper to spare a Sim and extend their life for a few days.

Whether you're willing to pay such a steep price is a question for another time.

23 Skip Broke's Death Is A Rather Cheeky Reference To The Psychotic Sims Players

Let's face it — during your playthrough of The Sims, there had to be that one instance where you gave into your psychotic tendencies and removed the ladder of the pool while your Sim was innocently swimming around. And obviously, since there's no ladder, your Sim — who lacks the basic intellect to simply climb out of the pool — would keep on swimming around before getting tired and drowning to his death. Jeez, you maniac.

It seems that this manner of death became rather popular, and Maxis acknowledged these psychos in The Sims 2 by including a dead Sim called Skip Broke, who died because of a 'suspicious pool ladder accident.' It's a pretty cheeky reference that clearly implies that Skip's death was caused by these psychotic players.

22 It's Heavily Implied That Don Lothario Travelled Back In Time

The romantic Don Lothario is present in both The Sims 2 and The Sims 3, and his appearance stays pretty much the same in both games. This is certainly quite odd, since there's a time difference of 50 years between both games. Apparently, Don Lothario also appeared out of nowhere in Riverview, which strongly implies that he time traveled into the world of The Sims 3 to escape his engagement with Cassandra Goth from The Sims 2.

The fact that time travel machines and teleporters exist in The Sims 3 only serve to accentuate this theory. Apparently, there were several women laughing at him while he was teleporting as well (according to his bio), which can mean that Don decided to take the plunge and teleport to Riverview because of sheer embarrassment.

21 There Are Only Three Matrilineal Families In The Sims

Matrilineality is a concept that used to be alien due to the pre-defined gender roles that had taken over society a long time ago, but now this dated concept is slowly disappearing. It's not the norm anymore that the woman always has to take the man's surname after marriage... but this is certainly not what happens in The Sims franchise.

In fact, in the entire series, there are just three matrilineal families — only the Capp, Summerdream, and Tricou families have adopted this progressive mindset, which is pretty confusing to say the very least. After all, it's odd that in the midst of a societal shift towards a more progressive mindset, The Sims (which is supposed to be an accurate depiction of life) happens to have such a regressive environment.

Speaking of matrilineal families...

20 The Befuddling Existence Of The Tricou Family (Or Lack Thereof)

The House Of Fallen Trees is occupied by the Tricou family — a family that's shrouded in mystery for a number of reasons. Why you ask? Well, just take the rather glaring fact into account that anybody with the last name of Tricou died from starvation (aside from two exceptions), leaving behind the Teens — and no, we don't mean the age group. We mean the Teens family.

There are just so many questions that will come to a player's mind when they decide to play this particular house. How did the Tricou family die to begin with? How come all of them died by starvation? Did the Teens have anything to do with their demise? The questions are endless, and unfortunately, there are no answers to satiate one's curiosity regarding this subject matter.

But hey, since we're on the cheery subject matter of death...

19 Kill Too Many Sims And The Game Makes A Sarcastic Joke

The Sims is meant to be a simulation of life (who knew?), and in order to play this simulation properly, you need to treat your Sims with love and care as they grow from small infants into fully-fledged adults. And while death might be a part of The Sims, the focus is on constructing and guiding people through their life before meeting their death through natural causes.

What is certainly not recommended is for players to go completely off the deep end and find the most creative ways to kill their Sims. While this might be entertaining in the short run, it quickly gets old after a while, and if you stubbornly keep on killing off your Sims, then you'll fall victim to a sarcastic pop-up from the game that reminds you that — in the end — The Sims is a 'life' simulator.

18 How Did Erik Darling Die?

The Sims 3 features a dead Sim known as Eric Darling, who was the victim of another unfortunate drowning (it's up to the player to interpret how this drowning actually happened). His death happened during his honeymoon as well, making it all the more tragic... especially for the widow he left behind.

Agnes Crumplebottom (the aforementioned widow) was left heartbroken, lonely, and bitter due to the unexpected death of her husband. This only makes the death of Eric Darling even more tragic, since the full details of his demise aren't exactly common knowledge — even among the die-hard fans of The Sims.

These small stories are just one of the many reasons why The Sims shines so much — it's always a treat to solve these mysteries, and the online community is pretty active when it comes to formulating theories regarding these strange and mysterious incidents.

17 There's A Plant In The Game That Straight Up Eats Your Sims

The Cow Plant (more complicatedly know as the Laganaphyllis simnovorii) is a unique plant present in The Sims that can provide you with a refreshing elixir that can actually extend a Sim's life. This functionality makes the Cow Plant one of the most useful plants in the game... but do be prepared — if you're serious about growing this plant, make sure that you devote a sizeable amount of time and care into nurturing this beast.

We're saying this because there's a huge risk that can arise with this plant while you're growing it. You need to constantly feed it so that the plant can produce its milk and — more importantly — not get hungry. However, if you happen to forget that you have a massive beast plant that needs to be fed, then you'll be penalized appropriately since the plant will goad and eat up one of your Sims to satiate its massive appetite.

16 The Haunted Nature Of The Remington Family

In Riverview, there's a large house occupied by Hannah Jones and her husband Aiden. Her uncle (who was a part of the Remington Family) used to occupy this house with a lot of people — all of whom died in rather painful ways. The unsuspecting player might be forgiven for thinking that it's the best place to start a home... but trust us, it absolutely isn't.

The fact that the entire family died painfully for varying reasons should already be a pretty massive red flag, but if that isn't enough to deter you from trying this house out, then keep in mind that there are a bunch of unanswered questions to consider. There were some particularly supernatural horrors afoot. Perhaps the biggest question out of all is that who in the heck even invited Hannah to her uncle's house if everyone was dead, to begin with?

15 NPCs That Come Out Of Nowhere To Fulfill Your Sims' Critical Needs

One of the major gameplay loops present in The Sims involves the existence of needs, and giving your Sims instructions so that they can fulfill said needs. Failing to do so can certainly lead to some devastating consequences (unless you're a total psycho). When most needs go critical then your Sim will die, but others — like Fun and Social — will lead to something else entirely.

When any one of these needs go down, then your Sim will straight up start hallucinating and conjure up a character that can help them improve their needs. While the Social Bunny is still pretty useful for increasing your Social stat, a low Fun bar will lead to the appearance of Sunny The Tragic Clown, who fails at everything he tries to do and ends up being a complete nuisance.

14 Pixie Carlton's Mysterious Death

There's no shortage of mysterious deaths in The Sims, which is pretty jarring — especially for a game which is supposed to be light-hearted in nature. We've already talked about a bunch of mysterious deaths in the game, and another such instance is the demise of Pixie Carlton, a Sim in the Racket family household that died of electrocution.

Very little is revealed about this person in the game, which raises a bunch of questions. The most popular theory going around is that the Racket family killed her off, although without a clear motive this theory does have a pretty sizeable hole in it. Her last name also suggests that she's related to Sophia Carlton (even though she's not present in the Carlton family tree), which is somewhat affirmed by the fact that they share multiple traits as well.

13 Freakin' Supernatural Babies

Remember how we were talking about how you can make your Sim keep the Grim Reaper "company"? Well, guess what? You can choose to try for a baby with their eerie figure and become the host for a spawn of the devil as well (you freak), which is certainly... something. In case you were wondering, somehow this is also possible with ghosts and other such supernatural beings.

It simply boggles the mind as to how this is even possible, to begin with. How does everything work out? An average gamer might think that they're better off not knowing the answer, but once they give birth to a ghost child and raise it all the way up to adulthood, it's pretty obvious that even they need to ask the real questions.

12 Make Your Sims Play The Sims In The Sims

Time for some serious Simception.

So, The Sims is a game that has a pretty tongue-in-cheek sense of humor. Most of the people who've played the game have witnessed this firsthand. Perhaps the aptest example of this is the fact that one of the games you can make your Sims play on the computer... is The Sims itself.

While this might seem somewhat funny, a closer look at this reality raises a bunch of questions that can go pretty freaking deep. Are The Sims controlling Sims in another completely different game? And — perhaps more importantly — are we also being controlled by Sims who're making us play The Sims where we're being instructed to control Sims and tell them to play The Sims so that... actually, I think you get my point.

It's pretty freaky.

11 The Outbreak Of A Mysterious Illness That Sparked A Massive Debate

When The Sims was launched, players were somewhat bewildered when a mysterious illness afflicted their Sim from out of nowhere. The effects of this disease were rather debilitating as well, and players were at a loss as to what was the cause of this contagious disease. One can say that this was very much like the Corrupted Blood incident that ravaged World of Warcraft.

Thankfully, the active Sims community banded together and figured out that the disease was actually caused by people who had guinea pigs as pets and didn't bother to clean them properly. However, one can only wonder whether this disease was a way for Maxis to conduct a messed-up social experiment of sorts.

10 It's Hinted That The Doe Family Have A Pretty Sinister Background

Perhaps the most (un)imaginative names given to any Sim in the series, John and Jane Doe stay with their children in Midnight Hollow — a place generally known for housing a pretty hip crowd. The fact that such a painfully normal household can even exist in a place like this seems rather odd... and if you're one of the many people who might share the same thought, then your intuition is pretty accurate.

The description itself implies that the Doe family used to have a basement, and their names sound pretty made up (obviously), which might hint at a rather sinister past that the Doe family — if that is even their real name — are trying to run away from. In fact, there's a community blog by one of the producers in the game which just adds fuel to the fire.

9 EA Created A Real-Life Sim House To Market The Sims 2

The booming success of the first iteration of The Sims pretty much assured EA about the potential of the franchise. The development of a bigger and better Sims was greenlit by the publisher, and Maxis ended up providing us with one of the best PC games of all time, which still holds up to this day.

One of the major reasons for this success is the marketing efforts put into The Sims 2's promotion. In fact, EA's European division (known as EA Benelux) went the extra mile and actually constructed a glass house made specifically for real-life people to re-enact their lives like a Sim would. People could go up to this house and watch people live like actual Sims over the course of 4 days. The idea sounds terrible on paper... but hey, they were able to generate some buzz now, weren't they?

8 Pets In The Game Are Actually Voiced By Humans

The addition of pets in The Sims was pretty much a given, and the fact that EA always releases these pets as an expansion pack for every Sims game is a testament to their unending greed. After all, pets can provide regular players with a welcome change in the form of fresher gameplay mechanics.

What's pretty mind-blowing about these pets is that they're not even voiced by actual animals to begin with. In fact, pets in The Sims: Unleashed and The Sims 2: Pets are voiced completely by humans. Meanwhile, in The Sims 3: Pets, a combination of human and animal voices were utilized so that the emotions of these animals could be conveyed more clearly to the player.

7 The Secret Sylvan Glade Area Has Some Bushes With Creepy Eyes And Laughter

There are two hidden areas included in The Sims 4, one in each World — this includes The Forgotten Grotto in Oasis Springs, and Sylvan Glade in Willow Creek (the focus of this particular entry). Unlike the Forgotten Grotto though — for which you need max Handiness to gain entry — the Sylvan Glade can be accessed anytime during your playthrough without fulfilling any prerequisite requirement... provided you know the steps to reach this area, that is.

The general art style of the area is quite beautiful, but a closer look at this place can reveal something truly sinister. Near the bushes by the rainbow fishing hole, a keen-eyed player can notice two pairs of red eyes looking over in a sinister fashion. There's also the clichéd echoing laughter if that wasn't creepy enough.

Speaking of monsters...

6 A Monster In The Bridgeport Mine With An Eerie Stare

Witnessing something creepy in The Sims is always jarring no matter how subtle the instance might be — after all, the overall tonality of the game is so kid-friendly that even something so small can truly stay in the mind of unsuspecting players for a while. Let's take the example of the abandoned mine in Bridgeport to showcase this.

This mine has a blocked entrance, scattered pickaxe and a lantern, which might seem rather normal at a first glance... that is, until players take a closer look at the mine's entrance. What'll stare back at them is a pair of creepy eyes, which is certainly the last thing that players would expect when they look inside this abandoned mine.