Neighborhood Stories bring new gameplay options to the table. The focus is on the Sims outside your active household. The term “Neighbor Sims” refers to most of the NPC Sims in the game.
However, special NPCs such as Grim Reaper are not included in this category.
EA is planning to roll out the Neighborhood Stories update over more than one release. Each release focuses on a particular category of NPCs.
Influence Neighbor Sims connected to your household
This first Neighborhood Stories release focuses on Sims connected to your household. This includes coworkers, friends your Sims have met at the Gym, and so on. All the NPC Sims that came into direct contact with your household are included in this category.
Your Sims need to form at least one friendship outside the household to use the new Neighborhood Stories gameplay options.
Neighbor Sims are going through major life changes. They’re thinking about having a baby or maybe twins or embracing a new career. The best part is that your Sim can influence the choices of Neighbor NPC Sims.
Neighbor Sims have free will
Many Neighbor Sims are doubting their decisions. Many don’t know which path to take. Your Sims can influence their decisions by using specific interactions.
As a matter of fact, the decisions of Neighbor Sims can be divided into three main categories:
- Choices that your Sim can influence
- Things Neighbor Sims autonomously consider
- Decisions that fall into both categories
But ultimately, the final decision belongs to Neighbor Sims. They have free and can initiate life changes themselves. These changes happen without you needing to switch to another household.
Choose how Neighborhood Stories affect your game
If you don’t want Neighbor Sims to autonomously take decisions, you can direct one of your Sims to influence their decisions. Or you can tweak the game settings so that Neighbor Sims that are considering a life change will always call your Sims to ask for advice.
Life changes occur instantly. Rest assured, Neighbor Sims will keep your Sim posted with the latest updates and decisions.
Examples of autonomous or influenced life changes
Autonomous life changes
The following life changes can occur independently of your Sims. However, NPC Sims will almost always check with a Sim in the active household before making a decision.
- Try to get promoted.
- Accept a marriage proposal.
Neighbor Sims consider autonomous life changes depending on dominant Traits and aspirations. Not all Sims will consider every life change possible. You can’t force Sims to consider an autonomous change.
Instead, you need to wait for Neighbor Sims to consider getting promoted or accepting a marriage proposal on their own.
The more friends at higher relationship levels, the higher the chances for life changes to happen.
Autonomous or influenced life changes
Neighbor Sims may think about these life changes independently, or your Sims may suggest they should make certain decisions.
For example, they can:
- Switch to a different career path
- Have a baby with their partner
- Hang out with other Sims
- Deepen Friendly relationships
Influenced life changes
Your Sims can influence the following things guaranteed:
- Reduce the relationship between those two Neighbor Sims by trash-talking one Sim to another
- Convince two grown-up Sims, or two Teen Sims to form a Romantic relationship
- Convince a Sim to dump or divorce their Romantic partner
- Encourage an unemployed Neighbor Sim to start looking for a job
All these gameplay options are available to all Sims 4 players as part of the base game. Everything works with existing saves, there’s no need to start a new game.
The future of Neighborhood Stories
Life changes for all Neighbor Sims
Life-changing interactions will be available for all Neighbor Sims, not just those directly connected to the active household. EA will also add new gameplay settings to tune life changes Neighbor Sims can and cannot have.
Controls will be layered. This means there will be a mix and match of rules down to individual households.
Neighborhood Stories Update
EA added new gameplay options to Neighborhood Stories in March 2022. The life changes in this release include:
- Adult Sims can adopt young Sims into their household (infants and children).
- Sims can become pregnant with their Significant Other. However, Noncommittal Sims and those children will never do this.
- Some Sims may decide to adopt a dog or cat if you have Cats and Dogs installed.
- Join and leave careers on their own. These decisions are heavily influenced by Traits.
- Elder Sims may decide to retire.
- Households can move into and out of lots.
- Sims can die in different kinds of accidents, depending on risk factors that include Traits, Age, and Career.
How to configure Neighborhood Stories
Sims 4 now supports new gameplay controls that let you tune which life changes Neighbor Sims can and cannot have.
By default, Neighborhood Stories is enabled for Other Households and turned off for My Households.
There are three different configurations available:
- Independent configurations for My Households vs. Other Households
- Household-specific configurations if you want more control
- A global enable/disable option
By the way, if Neighborhood Stories is not working as intended, make sure to update all of your mods.
Conclusion
The Sims 4 Neighborhood Stories brings a series of new gameplay options that allow Sims to influence the decisions of Neighbor NPC Sims. You can influence many of their decisions, but some choices remain completely autonomous and can occur independently of your Sims’ will.
What do you think about the new Neighborhood Stories gameplay options? Share your thoughts in the comments below.
Notes:
Neighborhood Stories can sometimes cause error 579bc009. To fix this error code, disable “Join A Career” from Neighborhood Stories, and install the latest graphics driver version.
If Neighborhood Stories won’t work as intended, update your mods and repair your game files.
References:
Post updated in March 2022 to include new additions to Neighborhood Stories.