Life Slows Down in a Fantastic Way in The Sims 4: Cottage Living

The Sims 4: Cottage Living Preview

The Sims 4 just keeps on getting better with every expansion, letting us live our Simlish life to the fullest. The eleventh DLC entry to the series, The Sims 4: Cottage Living, gives us a fresh look at country life and a taste of farm life.

Farming Sims from Stardew Valley to the Story of Seasons series are incredibly popular due to the laid-back nature of the games and there’s just something so satisfying about planting and harvesting crops. Now add the Sims zaniness, we’ve got not only a decent farming system but also that Sims pizazz we all know and love. 

Cottage Living brings us the new world of Henford-on-Bagley, a beautiful UK-inspired city consisting of three picturesque neighborhoods and 12 lots. The neighborhoods consist of The Bramblewood, a beautiful forest area that homes many wild birds, rabbits, and foxes. Old New Henford that houses lush estates and a community garden, with a funny little backstory on how the name came to be. And lastly, we have Finchwick, a bustling close-knit community filled with historical buildings and where the weekly village fair takes place, all nestled next to the River Bagley. 

With farming being the main focus of this expansion, I think we were pretty spoiled with what EA had to give us. During the preview event, it was mentioned a few times how they had wanted all of the animals to have a cute factor, and boy, did they ever achieve that. There’s nothing cuter than petting your cow or llama or giving your chickens big hugs.

Cows can be milked, eggs can be gathered from your hens, and with one of the new lot challenges, being Simple Living, we can use these ingredients in combination with others, to prepare all of our meals from scratch. Cause there’s nothing better than having the freshest ingredients! We’ll have to plant our own plants, scavenge around town and buy ingredients from the market in order to make old meals and also the 10 new recipes that come with this expansion. 

To get your animal farm started, you can purchase your animal sheds and chicken coops right from build mode. Your coops can hold up to 8 hens or roosters while the animal shed can only house one animal at a time, but luckily we can have as many sheds or coops as we want so there’s no need to fret about which adorable creature we want to take care of. With your shed, you’ll be able to purchase your animals, rename the shed and when it comes a time, you can trade your animals for ingredients, sell them or send them away in exchange for meat. 

The other new lot challenge, Wild Foxes, will have an added challenge of having foxes showing up more often to potentially steal your eggs from the coop or fighting bunnies. You can equip your chicken coop with a fancy Fox-Be-Gone alarm that requires upgradeable parts that can be obtained by helping the villagers of the town. You’ll also need these parts to give your coop and animal shed other upgrades such as an auto feeder and a life extender to ensure they are living their best life possible with you. 

Farming vegetables work the same way as they did before; however, we can now start farming oversized crops. The new produce work great in recipes and also as contenders in the Finchwick Fair where sometimes, bigger is indeed better. Along with the oversized crops, we can now also can farm goods to keep everything nice and fresh for later tasting, teach children how to cook and help around the farm,  as well as going on fun picnics. We also can’t forget to mention that we can use the wool that we shear from our Llamas as trade items for cute clothes for our beloved animals and also for hand-stitched crafts. 

I was a tad disappointed seeing how many new clothing and accessories we get in Create-A-Sim but quality over quantity as the items we did get are well-fitting to the theme and some are incredibly cute (I’m looking at you, cherry printed dress). I would have liked to have seen more clothing choices and more hair options, especially for the males and youngsters, but what we have isn’t bad either. 

I know a lot of Simsters may not be happy about the lack of horses, but we continue to cross our fingers and hope we can get them soon. But for now, Henford-on-Bagley has a lot to offer from the new town, the rustic yet elegant build items, and new gameplay features with taking care of the animals.

This expansion releases on July 22nd and if you purchase by September 2nd, you can get bonus items such as a Gnome riding a chicken, an adorable bike with a basket, and Bramblewoods’ lit tree.

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