Being able to join your Sim as they go about their workday is the selling point of The Sims 4: Get To Work expansion. Of the three careers added in that pack, the Detective Career might be the most involved and the most enjoyable to play through.

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You don't have to join your Sim when they go to work, but you'll need to go a few times if you want them to make any progression in the career. As a detective, your Sim will need to solve cases and bust bad guys and you can't expect a Sim's AI to be able to handle that alone.

Updated August 29, 2023 by Gabrielle Castania: Since there's no "right" order in which to buy the game's DLC, The Sims 4 stays popular regardless of how old it may be. Players are still seeking info about The Sims 4 Detective career, so we've updated our guide to keep everything in line with our current standards. Good luck, detective!

Detective Career Overview

Follow Your Sim To Work Or Send Them Alone

One of the interactive careers introduced in Get to Work, the Detective career is The Sims 4's take on a police career, allowing you to watch your Sim work their way up the ranks to reach the top brass.

When you join your Sim and travel along to the police station, you'll realize that the game really streamlines the world of being a detective. You will get a menu in the top-left of your screen with various tasks that you must complete in order to raise your job performance.

These tasks range from simply socializing with your colleagues to undertaking actual detective work. As you get promoted up the ladder, you'll get to do more things such as arresting suspects and solving cases.

Remember that you can hover your mouse over any task to receive hints and tips about how to complete it.

• Make sure your workday is varied! You'll have tasks that involve desk work, processing criminals, and listening to the rants of civilians - try to get as many tasks done in one area at once to save time.
• Going on Patrol might seem useful as it raises performance with little effort, but it's time-consuming. Only do this when it's a promotion requirement.
• When you have tasks that require socialization, such as "Get Witness Report," the correct option should appear immediately when clicking on a target.
• If you manage to be Focused while at work, you become more efficient at your job. To enable this, try placing items with Focusing auras around your office.

If you find yourself running out of time to complete all of your allotted tasks, you can extend the workday by clicking the button next to the timer. This button can also be used to leave work early if you're particularly expedient with your daily tasks.

How To Explore Crime Scenes

In order to go to a Crime Scene, click on the Crime Map in the office. Once you're at the Crime Scene, you will be presented with a new list of objectives that will let you gain clues for your current case and progress your performance bar.

• Click the ground to search for clues. These might be suspicious items or pieces of graffiti.
• When you have found clues, you should take samples and take photographs of them to get as much evidence as possible.
• You will also have to question witnesses. Look around for them, as they can sometimes be hard to find. You will know if a Sim is a potential witness if you get the option to interview them on your first click.

Once you have completed all of the tasks at the Crime Scene, you can click on your Sim and return to the office. There, you should file the Crime Scene Evidence at your computer.

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Solving A Case

Solving a case is the end result after lots of police work that involves searching crime scenes, pondering clues on the Crime Board, and finally Issuing an APB. This can only be done when you have enough evidence collected and will take you to a location where the suspect can be found.

When out and about, you need to use your phone's notebook feature to keep track of all of your clues. These will be things like the suspect's hair color and gender - these will lead you to your suspect.

Talk to people to find out things about them, and when you think you have your target identified, arrest them.

Once arrested and taken to the station, you need to interrogate your suspect. You can take a few different methods (Good Cop, Bad Cop, etc.) but rely on evidence, and you should make them crack eventually - assuming you caught the right Sim of course!

If you can extract a confession from a guilty Sim, you'll have solved your first case. Congratulations!

Detective Career Structure

Progressing through the Detective Career is spelled out quite simply for you in the career menu. The first few ranks of the career are varied, but it quickly becomes focused on solving cases. The table below details each rank of the Detective Career and their promotion requirements.

Detective Career Rewards

As you progress through the Detective Career, you will earn a ton of rewards. In addition to cash bonuses, you can acquire new clothes and new items.

To wear your new clothes, you can edit your outfits with a wardrobe or a mirror. The item rewards are inserted directly into your household inventory, but you can buy extras once you've acquired one.

The table below details what you'll get and when.

Along with cash rewards, you'll slowly but surely unlock everything you need to build your own jail if you aren't using Build/Buy cheats to access them early.

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