The Sims 4 has built its success on constant evolution, with expansions that explore everything from paranormal activity to celebrity lifestyles. While it often returns to its suburban roots, the game has never shied away from the weird or whimsical. As a franchise, The Sims thrives on the unconventional. One standout example is actually not part of The Sims 4, but rather from The Sims 3 era. The Sims: Medieval, a high-fantasy spin-off, remains a fan-favorite despite its age and remains a clear example that the franchise can thrive just as well in castles and candlelight as it does in cul-de-sacs.
Now, with The Sims 4 embracing weirder and more experimental content, most recently with its Life and Death expansion, there’s no better time to bring back the spirit of Medieval. While it doesn’t need to return as a standalone game, a fully integrated Expansion Pack could offer a modern take on the fan-favorite concept. With players hungry for new ways to play and the gaming industry experiencing a renaissance of medieval-inspired storytelling, revisiting this era in both Sims timeline history and world history is more relevant than ever.
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The Sims 4 Should Bring Back The Sims: Medieval in an Expansion Pack that Honors the Spin-Off
Indeed, The Sims: Medieval was a bold experiment. Released in 2011, it reimagined the life-sim formula in a high fantasy setting filled with monarchs, sorcerers, jesters, and plague doctors. Instead of simply managing careers and woohoo-ing, players were tasked with completing quests, making kingdom-altering decisions, and navigating a world where morality, ambition, and magic often collided.
Though it lacked some of the open-ended freedom of the mainline series, The Sims: Medieval made up for it with character classes, narrative variety, and medieval-flavored drama. There was something uniquely compelling about the way it blended life simulation with light RPG mechanics. For players who loved storytelling, fantasy, and roleplaying, it was the perfect spin-off title, and a Sims: Medieval comeback is overdue, since it offered a type of gameplay that still hasn’t been fully replicated by Maxis since.
The Sims: Medieval Deserves a Second Life
The original Sims: Medieval might have been a one-off, but it remains one of the most distinct titles in the entire franchise. It dared to explore what The Sims could be when removed from modernity, and the result was a memorable cult favorite with lasting influence. The Sims 4 now has the tools, audience, and creative momentum to revisit that world with greater ambition and polish. As Maxis announces more The Sims spin-offs, the time is now for Medieval.
By introducing a medieval expansion, Maxis could honor that legacy while offering longtime players a new way to engage with their Sims. Whether a Sim is reenacting Shakespearean tragedies, building political dynasties, or just sending a mischievous Sim to the gallows, a return to medieval life could be just the thing to make The Sims 4 feel new again.
How Medieval Themes Could Work in The Sims 4
Integrating The Sims: Medieval into The Sims 4 doesn’t mean completely abandoning the current game’s suburban life sim roots. Instead, an Expansion Pack could offer a themed world, similar to how Snowy Escape or Island Living introduce destination-based lifestyles, where players can roleplay medieval life in parallel to modern save files.
The Sims 4 could offer a world filled with castles and cobblestone roads, where a Sim can train to become a knight, brew potions as a court alchemist (tying in beautifully with Sims' Realms of Magic), or serve the kingdom by making music in the streets as a bard. Traits, aspirations, and careers could be adapted to this aesthetic, offering careers like scribe, royal jester, or dungeon keeper. A system of monarchy and political drama could be integrated via social events or town council systems, allowing new storytelling layers to emerge. This wouldn’t erase The Sims 4’s current sandbox, only deepen it.
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The Sims 4 is Leaning Towards Weirdness—And That’s Great
The Sims 4 recently launched its latest piece of DLC to critical acclaim. The Expansion Pack, called Life and Death, is far from The Sims 4's most conventional of DLCs. Focused on death, the paranormal, and grieving, Life and Death goes places where a surprising number of players are willing to follow. Chock-full of strange skills like thanatology (the literal interdisciplinary study of dying), cemeteries, and ghosts, these spooky elements were not too much to handle.
In fact, they stand out in a game that often focuses on the mundane aspects of daily living. Life and Death is a perfect example of how The Sims 4 thrives when developer Maxis isn’t afraid to step outside the box when it comes to originality and the unconventional.
The Sims as a franchise clearly stands out when it’s not afraid to break away from the norm. Of course, Seasons and Growing Together are so popular that they are arguably must-have Expansion Packs for The Sims 4, but offering players an opportunity to remix their playstyles from time to time brings life back to a game that is well over a decade old. The Sims: Medieval fits perfectly into the category of “need to spice things up a bit” Expansion Packs, hypothetically granting players even more diversified ways to play at life.
Players Are Already Making Medieval Content Happen
The Sims 4 modding and builder communities have long made it clear: there’s demand for a return to castles, cloaks, and courtly intrigue. Whether it’s through custom builds, storytelling challenges, or full gameplay overhauls, players have already laid the groundwork for what a medieval Expansion Pack could be. Some creators have gone as far as designing entire challenge maps based on feudal hierarchy or designing royal family legacies complete with drama, betrayal, and dynasties.
Just as The Sims 4's Cottage Living tapped into the cozy cottagecore boom, a medieval expansion would tap into something that’s already thriving and offer players official tools to elevate their storytelling even further.
The Medieval Boom in Gaming is Huge
From Baldur’s Gate 3 to Kingdom Come: Deliverance 2, medieval- and renaissance-inspired games are dominating the charts and capturing hearts. In fact, The Sims 4 has made references to BG3 recently. These titles show that audiences are hungry for worlds that blend gritty realism with high-stakes fantasy or political drama.
If Maxis brought a medieval world to The Sims 4, it wouldn’t be a niche experiment—it would be in conversation with some of the biggest titles of this era. There’s never been a better time to ride the wave of the genre’s popularity and give players the royal treatment they’ve been begging for.
The Sims 4
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OpenCritic Reviews
- Top Critic Avg: 70 /100 Critics Rec: 26%
- Released
- September 2, 2014
- ESRB
- T for Teen: Crude Humor, Sexual Themes, Violence
- Developer(s)
- Maxis
- Publisher(s)
- Electronic Arts
WHERE TO PLAY
- Engine
- Proprietary Engine
- Cross-Platform Play
- Xbox, PlayStation, and computer versions of Sims 4 are all separate games incompatible with each other
- Cross Save
- no
- Franchise
- The Sims
- Steam Deck Compatibility
- yes
- Genre(s)
- Simulation
- OpenCritic Rating
- Fair
- How Long To Beat
- N/A
- X|S Optimized
- No
- File Size Xbox Series
- 22 GB (November 2023)
