The Sims 4: High School Years
OpenCritic Rating
Top Critic Average
Critics Recommend
The Sims 4: High School Years Trailers
The Sims 4 High School Years: Student Guide to Copperdale High
The Sims 4 High School Years: Official Reveal Trailer
Critic Reviews for The Sims 4: High School Years
The Sims 4 High School Years is executed well when looking at what’s on the surface, and the features included with the expansion have undoubtedly fleshed out the teen life state to keep things interesting for a while. However, elements that could be taken much further — such as a funfair full of rabbit holes and a classroom that includes situations that are just tied to pop-ups — keep it from truly flourishing as an Expansion Pack.
Teen Sims have become a whole lot more engaging and satisfying to control here, in large part thanks to a variety of features and moving parts that help to capture the teen experience. With an impressive range of clothing and furniture targeted towards teens included as well, the expansion succeeds in turning this previously-overlooked life stage into one that feels unique and worthwhile to play.
The Sims 4 High School Years truly excels when it comes to building personalities for teen Sims, and wonderfully captures teen moments like asking your crush to prom or starting drama online. Although somewhat dampened by its large amount of useless set pieces, the world of Copperdale is quite beautiful and the perfect setting for high school. The lack of depth and functionality in some elements of The Sims 4 High School Years Expansion Pack is particularly disappointing because of how deep other features of the game go, but the title does an excellent job overall of encapsulating most of the key parts of adolescence.
Ultimately, there’s a lot to love in The Sims 4: High School Years. It feels as though the Sims community has been waiting a long time to finally be able to accompany their teenage Sims to school – and we think it’s been worth the wait. Provided you’ve not been affected by a bug, this is a fantastic, well-rounded expansion, bringing a beautiful new neighbourhood, plenty of new items and a whole new experience to The Sims 4. All the stress of high school, without ever stepping outside of your front door. Ah, bliss.
The Sims 4: High School Years pack is mostly average with the world feeling quite empty. It makes a good addition to other packs, but if you have to choose to buy just one expansion, then others would offer more in terms of gameplay.
Electronics Arts has said an update toward the end of this week will be deployed to fix these bugs and others. It’s certainly not an ideal rollout for a highly anticipated expansion pack like High School Years, but once that fix rolls out, the expansion is well worth a look.
