A new Expansion Pack for The Sims 4 entitled High School Years has been officially announced, and will center around new teen activities and more depth for the adolescent life stage. Although not officially spoken of by EA until now, many players have long suspected the game's next Expansion would center around high school ever since a Sims 4 leak occurred earlier this month. The news of the new release has excited many fans, as it will be the first full Expansion Pack - the game's most comprehensive form of DLC - released for the game in nearly a year.
Many Sims 4 players have bemoaned the state of teenagers in the game since release due to the life stage's lack of depth. In almost every way, in-game teens look and act just as adult Sims do, save for the fact they must attend school. However, players don't actually see Sims attend school, they simply disappear in the morning and rematerialize in the afternoon with homework. EA has dropped hints over the past week about the High School Years Expansion Pack, dropping academia-related imagery into the latest roadmap for the game and posting a teaser video of Sims 4 creators discussing their teen years.
The new High School Years DLC was announced on The Sims YouTube channel today with a new trailer and a post on the EA website that demonstrated many new teen features. A new town called Copperdale will debut with the pack, the home of Copperdale High. The Expansion Pack will offer in-school activities like class, exams, and cafeteria lunch as well as extracurriculars like football, cheerleading, and clubs, and special events like prom and graduation. The post says players will explore the "challenges and joys of young love" and express themselves with pranks and room decor, including a special collaboration with site Depop. A base game update July 15 will also introduce body hair for all players. The Expansion Pack will release July 28.
This new Expansion Pack announcement is exciting for many different reasons. Fans have been eagerly awaiting the Expansion Pack release since July 2021, with many becoming increasingly frustrated at the amount of smaller Kit DLC releases for The Sims 4 in lieu of more in-depth content. The announcement proves that developers are still working on Expansion Packs, and have been listening to fans that want more family gameplay and depth for teen Sims. This new release shows great potential, offering expansive new ways for fans to play with the teen life stage. From the looks of the trailer, it appears there will be a myriad of new storytelling opportunities for players to explore and challenges to overcome, whether it's getting a date for prom, sneaking out, or simply doing their best to cope with the day-to-day drama of school.
Of course, it's important for fans to manage their expectations about the game, at least to an extent - it's not unheard of for a promising Sims 4 DLC to not live up to the hopes of fans, or to even be released in a nearly unusable state, like the My Wedding Stories Game Pack, which was extremely broken upon release. However, the latest Sims 4 roadmap points to a strong summer for Simmers full of DLC releases, and this new DLC is the obvious standout from its Kit cohorts. While the finer details of The Sims 4 High School Years are not yet known, the upcoming Expansion Pack has the potential to become a new fan-favorite for many players.
Source: EA, The Sims/YouTube