The first holiday of The Sims 4

The Sims 4: Outdoor Retreat is the first content pack for The Sims 4. You can accompany your sims in a tour to the countryside where they will be able to make fires, collect plants and enjoy all that nature offers. Of course, they can dress up and decorate their environment according to the situation.

Welcome to Granite Falls

The most talked novelty of this expansion pack of The Sims 4 is Granite Falls, a new neighborhood that joins the two existing ones in the main game. This new district will act as a leisure and relaxation place for your sims.

To acclimate Granite Falls EA has created new objects from all the characteristics of a dwelling rooms as well as many outside elements: from plants and trees to decorative garden objects, and places to perform activities of the outdoors, like bonfires or the horseshoe throwing game.

These objects, in addition to appearing on lots of Granite Falls are unlocked in Buy Mode. Thus, you can give your home a rustic air or completely reform the rooms with different rustic styles thanks to pieces of art.

The Sims 4: Outdoor Retreat also includes, as usual, new clothes for your sims of all ages. New clothes in the closet are typical for a trip to the mountain, hiking boots, pants with pockets, sweatshirts… In addition, you get to play with and scare other sims with a funny bear costume.

Unlike what we have seen in one of the free updates, The Sims 4: Outdoor Retreat does not include any new profession. Although the issue had been given for a new career (gardening, tourism…) we limit ourselves to the new skill, phytotherapy, with which the sims can learn potions with many properties.

Enjoy country life

The idea behind The Sims 4: Outdoor Retreat is similar to the expansions of The Sims 2 (Bon Voyage) and The Sims 3 (Around the World): phoning your Sims to go on vacation and for a small fee you can enjoy site accommodation (camping or lodge, it depends on the price) and leisure activities.

Thus we find the housing lots, in which sims can meet their basic needs and a park, which has the same use as the community lots of The Sims 4: activities and meet new sims.

If you’ve played The Sims 4 it will not be difficult to play Outdoor Retreat, it is that there really is no new feature in the game that you should learn. It is ll about performing daily activities, interacting with other sims and exploring the environment in search of collectibles. Anyway, if you still have doubts, you can access the two new tutorials that you’ll find in the help option.

Camping has a new country theme that is well applied to the design of the expansion. All lots of Granite Falls stand out for its lush vegetation and new visual effects typical of nature, like insects flying in a foggy forest.

However, I believe that we are a little more in the countryside if EA had added some wildlife walking around and some other random events with them (for example, bothering us as we make a barbecue). But that has not happened, and Granite Falls is a beautiful landscape but with little life and the good atmosphere is missing that was in the community lots of The Sims 2: Bon Boyage or The Sims 3: Around the World.

What will be your next vacation destination?

Outdoor Retreat is the first expansion pack of The Sims 4 and though the idea is good, some things are completely missing.

For example, although the atmosphere is achieved the sensation of camping is a bit poor. Wild animals and more NPCs to interact with are sorely needed, especially if compared with camping vacation neighbourhoods of previous Sims games.

The new clothes and clothing items are not bad, but there are not so many as you might expect, especially if we consider that EA has given us some in their free monthly updates.

Despite this bittersweet feeling I have put hopes in the future content packs of The Sims 4. What I think EA has done with camping is open a new path, creating the option of bringing sims vacation. So, Granite Falls is the first quarter that we visit but eventually add other thematic areas which in turn will bring more objects, clothes and actions. If added as free download for those who purchased the premium, Outdoor Retreat will be a success.