It's been 5 years since the launch of The Sims 4, the latest major title in The Sims franchise. Just as in previous titles, players can create their "sims" in whatever likeness they desire and control every single detail of their lives.
The base game provides players with the very basics, they can make their sim, and build a home but it lacks many things. That's where add-ons like stuff packs come in, to make the game even better! But not every stuff pack is made equally, some are very good and others aren't. Here are the 5 best and the 5 worst Sims 4 stuff packs.
Updated March 10th, 2020 By Helen Ashcroft: Since these Stuff Packs were rated we've seen the DLC format make a rise once more. After a long hiatus, they are well and truly back. We now have Tiny Living Stuff and the community is currently voting on a further pack with an arts and crafts theme.
It seems that the time is right to turn our minds back to the humble Stuff Pack and add some more of the best and worst of the packs to this list.
16 The Best: Tiny Living Stuff
Tiny Living Stuff was as unexpected as it was amazing. The pack adds not only a range of versatile clothing and furniture but also a brand new lot type, tiny living residential. These small houses can come and 3 sizes, up to 32, up to 64, and up to 100 tiles.
The different sizes of lots have extra bonuses and the new space-saving furniture means you can live your best tiny house life.
15 The Worst: Backyard Stuff
Unless you are desperate for a slip 'n' slide and an annoying windchime then this pack is best skipped. While the summer-themed furniture and clothing are nice and bright, there's nothing different or unique enough in this pack.
When the game has so many Stuff Packs content needs to stand out to be noticed and Backyard Stuff quite simply doesn't. It may be vibrant but it isn't standing out.
14 The Best: Toddler Stuff
Toddlers were added to The Sims 4 as a free update and as such the base game items for them are pretty limited. While you can get by, anyone who wants to play with families and toddlers should invest in this pack.
Toddler Stuff has everything you could want for your adorable tots. Cute clothing, tiny toys, and an adorable playground set make this a great pack. Just don't look too closely at the textures on the ball pit.
13 The Worst: Perfect Patio Stuff
The main selling point of Perfect Patio Stuff was the hot tub. Now, thanks to the 20th-anniversary giveaway, we all have a hot tub, for free. This unexpected gift has made this outdoor-themed pack virtually useless.
It also contains a few chairs, a BBQ and some nice swimwear but nothing else really sells the pack like the hot tub, that we all now have. Maxis shot themselves in the foot with this one.
12 The Best: Cool Kitchen Stuff
Kitchens are a staple in every home (except maybe a vampiric residence) and the base game selection of units and appliances quite frankly leaves a lot to be desired. This pack comes to the rescue with a selection of appliances and some new cabinets.
While the cabinets may not be to everyone's taste the appliances in this pack are simple, elegant and match almost anything. They also come with a variety of swatches. If you have a kitchen, you need Cool Kitchen Stuff.
11 The Worst: Romantic Garden Stuff
The Romantic Garden Stuff Pack is beautiful but has very limited use. It contains a range of over the top garden ornaments and frankly not much else. While you can create an ornate landscape, the items are best suited to a park. Even the signature items, the wishing well and fountain, are far too big for most lots.
The pack does also contain some nice clothing items but its main focus is the furniture and plants which have little application in most games.
10 The Best: Fitness Stuff
One of the best ways to keep sims in shape (and keep an active sim happy) is to have them work out. In the Sims 4 what a sim eats and how active they are, directly impacts their weight and muscles.
Workout machines were available with the base game, but Fitness Stuff adds a few more exercise options, including a climbing game that will grant sims the hidden rock climbing skill. Create-a-sim (or CAS) is full of new stylish activewear pieces and it also comes with earbuds that can either be purchased or even gifted to sims for free.
9 The Worst: Luxury Party
Luxury Party was the first stuff pack to be released by The Sims 4. As the name implies it included different 'luxury' items like a table-top fountain that could be used for drinks or fondue.
While it does add a few things in build and buy, it's CAS items are also some of the more lackluster ones. Most of the clothing pieces are... garish at the very least, and completely unusable outside of Sims going to some sort of fancy cocktail party. It isn't the worst of the worst but it's still at the bottom of the barrel.
8 The Best: Movie Hangout Stuff
Movie Hangout is the 5th stuff pack for the series and came out in January of 2016. Movie Hangout introduced movies to the Sims 4. They run for about an hour in-game and can grant sims different moodlets depending on how they feel about the movie. It also unlocks special dialogue options for sims to discuss the movie with one another.
The pack comes with two projectors so if players want their sims to host a movie night outdoors they can. And no movie night would be complete without popcorn, which can be made in the popcorn maker that also comes with the pack.
7 The Worst: Spooky Stuff
Spooky Stuff is the 4th stuff pack in the franchise and came out in September of 2015. Sims of every age group (except for babies and toddlers, as toddlers weren't added yet), got a few Halloween-inspired CAS items and its build and buy was full of things like fake cobwebs, and spooky decorations for a costume party.
Spooky Stuff came out 3 years before Seasons, making the clearly Halloween themed items seasonally inappropriate. And though several of the items are themed after supernaturals from the Sims franchise, they come off more cartoony than the supernaturals actually are.
6 The Best: Vintage Glamour
Vintage Glamour is the 9th stuff back for The Sims 4 and came out in December of 2016. With it came a lot of vintage build and buy items and new Old Hollywood inspired items in create-a-sim.
One of the new items is a vanity, that allows sims to apply makeup on in-game. There are a number of different styles to choose from, and even kids can use the vanity, though half the time they make a mess.
One of the main selling points of Vintage Glamour is the ability to hire a butler who can do just about anything you ask them to do, from maintaining the house to entertaining your other sims.
5 The Worst: Bowling Night Stuff
Bowling Night Stuff came out in March of 2017 and is the 10th stuff pack in the series. With it came... bowling stuff. CAS was filled with items like bowling shirts and shoes and Rockabilly inspired looks and fashion.
It also came with the bowling skill and tons of build and buy items for players to create their own bowling hangouts. With the way Bowling Night Stuff was advertised, it was assumed that bowling would be an interactive event, where sims would actually bowl together. Disappointingly it isn't, Sims don't react at all to anyone else's bowling but their own.
4 The Best: Kids Room Stuff
In the early days of The Sims 4, the child life stage was underwhelming compared to some of the other life stages. There were a few kids could do, but there wasn't much variety to kids, gameplay-wise. But that all changed when Kids Room Stuff dropped in June of 2016.
The entire stuff pack is dedicated to kids, giving them a ton of new items in CAS and a wide variety of build and buy items, including a new game. Kids Room Stuff gives the child life stage more depth and lets players give their child sims more personality.
3 The Worst: Moschino Stuff
The Moschino Stuff Pack is the latest stuff pack released for the Sims 4 and was apart of The Sims collaboration with real-life fashion brand Moschino. With it came CAS items inspired by Moschino's Capsule Collection, a new freelance photography career and build and buy items to create a studio.
It isn't the first time that the Sims Team had a collab with a fashion brand, though this time around the community was left underwhelmed. It was advertised as a fashion pack, so it's a little disappointing how few CAS items were included.
2 The Best: Laundry Day Stuff
Back in April of 2017, the SimGurus launched a poll asking the community what they wanted to see for a stuff pack. They proposed many different ideas and the idea that won, in the end, was a laundry stuff pack.
Despite being centered around laundry of all things, it's easily the best Stuff Pack so far. It came with a ton of Boho-inspired CAS items, and home items to live more eco-friendly. It brought back washing machines, and other laundry related items.
This is the first stuff pack that the Sims community had an active part in creating, making Laundry Day truly a stuff pack made by Simmers for Simmers.
1 The Worst: My First Pet Stuff
My First Pet Stuff is the 14th stuff pack in The Sims 4. It included many pet-themed items as well as several new small pets like hamsters and rats. A lot of the items in the pack need the Cats & Dogs expansion pack in order to be functional. Which is why it's the worst stuff pack.
It's a precedent that has never happened in The Sims franchise before and hopefully it won't happen again. Even the small pets, which was a major selling point of the pack, fell short, as they didn't have the same depth to them as the pets in Cats & Dogs had, and were more or less just another object sims interacted with.