The Sims 4 is a wonderful sandbox game that enables players to live out the lives they've always dreamed of (or do some really dark and terrible things they’d never think of doing in real life). With the freedom this simulation game offers, players can become celebrities, rockstars, scientists, vampires... you name it.
After playing through almost everything the game has to offer, some players become bored. To give themselves a challenge, they seek out fan-made tasks and restrictions they can impose on their next sim/playthrough. Here are some difficult runs players can try in The Sims 4.
Updated November 13th, 2020, By Helen Ashcroft: After six years of The Sims 4, there are more DLC packs available than ever before. This has had an effect not just on the game itself but also on the challenges created for it.
The new content adds new ways to play and for those who enjoy a challenge, it's no different. Packs can add new rules, twists, and even increase the difficulty levels. For example, the off-the-grid lot trait introduced with Island Living means no cheating in those desert island scenarios!
With this in mind, we're taking another look at these challenges and making sure you can find the most recent rules in order to join in the fun. We've also taken another look at the difficulty ranking since for every challenge made easier, another just got more difficult.
15 Going Broke Challenge
If you are the opposite of a hoarder then the going broke challenge is for you. This challenge by Etothepi is harder than you'd think but still relatively easy. It simply requires you to start out with a lot of money then spend it all, quick.
You'll need to amass bills you can't pay, get fired from jobs and generally be irresponsible. There are many ways to burn money fast in the game at this point making this a fun challenge.
14 Astronaut Challenge
The astronaut challenge is a unique challenge idea that sees you take a sim and achieve their dreams of becoming an astronaut. It's a short challenge that's pretty unique and has different difficulty levels.
Amazingamphy's challenge may not be difficult but it's enjoyable, fun and a little bit unique. It's also quite obscure so you likely won't have seen others attempting it.
13 The Black Widow Challenge
This dark challenge by Simalot has the player create a young female sim who seduces an individual and marries them. Once married, they are to seduce someone new and beginning cheating on their spouse. After intentionally getting caught cheating, the player must dispose of the spouse, inherit everything and marry the lover, repeating the cycle until ten husbands lie in their graves (and the Black Widow sim lives out the remainder of her normal lifespan in luxury).
A less dark version is the Gold Digger Challenge by SnazzyTazzy, which has the player marry old sims and simply wait for their spouse to expire of old age. Both challenges are relatively easy, although elder Sims can sometimes stick around for longer than you expect!
12 Big Brother Challenge
The Big Brother Challenge has been around for years but this version adapts the rules for The Sims 4. It seems a household of sims compete against each other in challenges based on skill building. Relationships are also taken into account.
The challenge is short but fun and can be surprising since skills and relationships don't all generate at the same level for every sim.
11 The Island Challenge
The original Island Challenge was created by Simproved but its rules are difficult to find. Luckily LilyParkerSims has recreated and slightly adjusted them.
You start with two sims on an island and their lives and goals are decided by the roll of dice each day. Events can be good or bad and the challenge is in adjusting to them in order to have a full household of sims skilled in fishing, fitness, and gardening.
The difficulty will very much vary depending on dice rolls but the challenge can end up incredibly short or long, depending how lucky you are.
10 Wolf Pack Challenge
This challenge was created by Lilsimsie with help from Hatsy and StephOSims. The premise is that you control six dogs who will accompany you as you try and build your dream home before the evil racoon that terrorizes you all dies.
If that sounds random that's because it is. The challenge is also a lot of fun but can be very frustrating. Money is quite easy to make but looking after six dogs at the same time adds a new dimension of chaos. The Racoon adds an unpredictable element and an adjustable timer to the challenge.
9 The 100 Heartbreak Challenge
The 100 Heartbreak Challenge by KissableBlake requires the player to engage in a relationship with 100 different individuals, breaking all of their hearts along the way, within a single sim's lifespan.
Unlike the 100 Babies challenge, one night stands aren’t going to cut it. Each individual requires more of an investment. It’s a super difficult challenge as every relationship will require some time investment and you aren't allowed to get Sims pregnant to slow down the aging process!
8 The Achievement Challenge
Most Sims 4 players are familiar with the Legacy Challenge, which has a player stick with a single family and play through ten generations in the same house. The challenge has many variations and the Achievement Challenge by MintyMango is one of them. It requires players to play through a ten generation legacy while hitting different achievements per generation.
It sounds doable on the surface but many of the achievements require a large amount of work on careers, skills, and aspirations. The challenge currently has rules that span from base game to Seasons and you can choose which aspiration you do for each generation meaning the challenge can be tailored to your interests making you more likely to succeed.
7 Alien Takeover Challenge
The Alien Takeover Challenge by LilMissSimmer sounds much simpler than it is. All you need to do is populate a world with aliens. Simple right? Well, the challenge comes in the fact that you cannot be discovered.
The rules are relatively straight forward but filling Willow Creek with aliene babies before you either die or have someone who knows you are an alien leave your lot will give you a lot of challenging moments.
6 The 100 Baby Challenge
The 100 Baby Challenge by Snarky Witch sounds like a nightmarish sort of Reality TV show. In this challenge, made famous by Kelsey Impicciche, players must create a single young female sim and have her give birth to 100 babies (from 100 different fathers) in a normal lifespan.
As if the difficulty of seducing 100 men wasn’t enough, the player must then raise the 100 babies entirely on their own. Thankfully, the children grow up and leave the nest and households have limits, so the player will never have to contend with more than seven children at once.
Still, the logistics of managing a continual stream of infants, toddlers, children, and teenagers as a single parent are an absolute nightmare, especially when you can't hire a nanny!
5 Rosebud Challenge
In the Rosebud Challenge by Euphorial Queen, players must start with a basic house and no money. From there, in true rags-to-riches fashion, they have a lifetime to reach a net worth of $1 million.
Some variations allow the player to drink life potions to remain young, have a genie grant a wish for extended life or become a vampire. Many claim it’s possible to accomplish this in a normal lifespan with just one sim, and while that used to be difficult there are so many ways to make money at this point that it's likely to be possible.
4 The Vampire Coven Challenge
The Vampire Coven Challenge by AnonymousMiss has the player take control of a vampire sim, with the goal of building a vampire coven. As fledglings are brought on vampires must maintain purity in the coven and grow the generations.
To make this endeavor even harder, there are rankings for coven members and rules to follow in order to advance through the ranks.
3 The Master Of All Challenge
The Master of All Challenge by Minicupcake requires players to have a single sim master every skill in the game before they die of old age. There are lots of variations and restrictions, but some leniency is required. After all, it’s simply not possible to do this in a normal sim lifespan, especially now.
Becoming a vampire is a common approach, as are life extenders like Potions of Youth or the Cow Plant. However, with almost every new pack comes new skills so this task is now an enormous feat. The sheer volume of skills and time required to max them out gives this a place near the top of the list.
2 The Sims 4 History Challenge By Snowie Simmer
The Sims 4 History Challenge is an interesting legacy challenge that borrows heavily from the progression of civilizations in other earlier challenges. The player starts out with a pair of sims with no home and little resources in a world with everything bulldozed. Each age has its own set of restrictions as well as goals to be met before progression to the next age.
Over time, players will move through the Stone Age, Early Civilization, Middle Ages, Renaissance Sim Frontier, Industrial Revolution Roaring 20's, and finally, Modern Day. Each age has certain restrictions or requirements that can make this task immensely difficult to complete, especially in the early stages, where modern conveniences cannot be used. This has led to many players to give up out of frustration.
1 The 100 Generations Challenge
This gargantuan task is similar to most legacy challenges but has the player stick with the family for a whopping 100 generations. Some variations require different tasks and goals to be accomplished but the main idea is just to be patient enough to continue playing.
To put the difficulty of this challenge into perspective, a player can feasibly complete 2-3 sim days in one real-life hour. Each new generation starts after roughly 45 sim days, which takes 15 - 22.5 real-life hours. So, for 100 generations, you’re looking at 1,500 – 2,250 hours, which would take roughly one hour of play every day for 4-6 years.
While there may be some rules out there, the main things to note are that there is an in-game achievement for those who manage this extraordinary feat but entering Create A Sim or Moving home will reset the in-game generation counter.