The Sims 4: Werewolves Preview – a better game pack than Twilight
Whether it is because we’re all secret Twilight fans at heart, or because they usually shake up how you play, occult Sims like werewolves, vampires, and fairies have always had a special place in players’ hearts. So it’s no surprise why The Sims 4 community – myself included – is so ready to try their hand at the new game pack from Maxis, The Sims 4: Werewolves.
Despite the mixed reaction from fans at the reveal of what werewolves look like in The Sims 4, the character creator for these new, furry Sims is one of the most exciting features in this new game pack due to the overwhelming amount of possibilities. In fact, I’d even go on to argue that for werewolf character customization, you get to have your hand in everything, right down to the very howl that you let out.
A particularly fascinating feature that we previewed was that it’s possible to link both your human and werewolf forms. This means that you can design your Sim to look exactly how you want them to look, and then switch over to your werewolf form to see how your human form makes your werewolf form look. A long nose as a human? You get a long snout as a werewolf and vice versa. But don’t worry, if you’d prefer to keep everything separate, you can unlink the two forms. This goes for outfits too, with the majority of clothing fitting both your human and werewolf form.
There are a variety of different colours and pelt designs to choose from for your werewolf form, with styles ranging from fairly realistic depictions of fur and fuzz, to downright silly styles that can make you look like a patchy scarecrow or a court jester. But the customisation doesn’t stop there. This time around you can take things further with your werewolf form through the use of a very cool Paint Mode. With Paint Mode, you’re able to draw on different designs using freehand brushes, or stencils that can add things like bowties and scars. What makes this particularly exciting is that this mode comes with a colour wheel, giving you the option to make your werewolf form truly unique., it comes with a color wheel, different paint brushes and stencils that you can use to customize your werewolf in a way that makes them truly unique.
Oh, and did we mention there are scars now for your body and face in CAS? Well, now there is.
Our first foray into werewolves and how they work in-game leads us to the new neighbourhood, Moonwood Mill. Much like the vampire neighbourhood, this area is full of werewolves and occult Sims in general, making it the perfect place for players who are looking to get their wolf on in a place that won’t even blink at seeing you transform in the middle of the night. That said, werewolf Sims are able to leave this area in the same vein as vampires are able to, however if you’d rather they stay in Moonwood Mill there is an option to make werewolves stay only in that neighbourhood. Not everyone like furries barking at their door apparently.
Regardless of your preference when it comes to the presence of werewolves, Moonwood Mill is arguably the best place suited for this particular occult Sim. For one thing, the neighbourhood is made up of two wolf packs – The Wildfangs and The Moonwood Collective. We only got to see a brief glimpse of The Wildfangs, but it does look like you can only choose one pack over the other, and there does seem to be a rivalry between the two groups. Then there’s the fact that the neighbourhood includes two unique hideouts that can only be accessed by werewolves who are in one of the two groups. Sure you can technically create a hideout yourself by building one, but it doesn’t feel as unique and you lose out on the social benefits from being in a pack.
Unfortunately, you can’t create your own pack either, a huge bummer for us as we were already planning on making a pack full of gay werewolves. However… all is not lost. You can become the leader of The Wildfangs or The Moonwood Collective and thus lead it, which comes with its own advantages. If you have the Get Together expansion you’ll technically be able to create your own group, but there are only two ‘true’ packs.
Despite being able to choose what sort of werewolf you are (a lone wolf, or someone part of the pack), the community and your responsibility to it seem to be at the very heart of The Sims 4: Werewolves. To even join a pack you’ll first have to be a werewolf, and then go through a select number of trials in order to prove your worth to your leader. One way that we saw was through sparring, which has a unique animation for werewolves – there are a lot more claws involved, let’s just say that! Once you’ve proven yourself, you’re given tasks that you need to complete. These tasks may seem tedious, but from what we saw in the preview they can also be used to improve your powers and overall werewolf score, similar to how vampires and their power increase works. Nevertheless, if you neglect these tasks, your pack leader won’t be too happy, and there may even be a chance you’ll be kicked out of the pack – so make sure you’re pulling your weight.
Much like vampires, werewolves have their very own powers that give them unique abilities. You’ll need to find out more about these occult creatures in order to improve your ranking and earn different feats, which can be done via exploration or reading up on werewolf lore in tomes. Some of the abilities you can unlock will be familiar, such as immortality, but there are others that let you do things like pee wherever you want (nice?) and bite others to turn them into werewolves, as well.
Abilities aside, there are other social benefits to be had while playing a werewolf. Teen and older werewolves may find a Fated Mate in another werewolf (Fated Mate isn’t possible with any other Sims but other werewolves). Once two Sims are Fated Mates, the following effects are active: Fated Mates get increased romantic relationship loot gains and a chance of a short-term enamoured sentiment. Fated Mates also freeze romantic relationships decay, making the relationship feel more like soulmates. Yet if your Sim has a Fated Mate, romantic social interactions with other Sims has a chance of giving them a Tense Not Meant to Be moodlet. Fated Mates do last forever which…sounds a tad frustrating, but we do love a bit of drama in our playthroughs now don’t we?
You can also woohoo in werewolf form, if anyone was at all interested in the possibility of having puppies. But, again like vampires, children born from werewolves do not get a werewolf form until they become teenagers.
There are a lot of incredible things coming with The Sims 4: Werewolves – including a brand new lunar cycle system – that we can’t wait to check out when the pack launches on July 16 for PC and console.
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