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Is The Sims 4 free?

A crowd of Sims attends an in-game musical festival.
EA

The Sims 4 has been a staple in the cozy life simulation genre for years now, bringing plenty of laughs and hijinks as players manage the daily lives of their in-game pals. With so much to love in this fourth mainline entry in the long-running franchise, it’s perfectly normal to want to dive right in and get into the fun. We’ll tell you below whether The Sims 4 is free or if you’ll need to open your wallet to start playing.

Is The Sims 4 free?

Although The Sims 4 launched as a paid game way back in 2014, it has since become entirely free to download and play.

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However, while you can certainly play the game and enjoy it without ever spending any money, the free-to-play model is supported by a variety of DLCs. These range from full-blown expansion packs full of new items, areas, and gameplay features to smaller game packs that focus more on expanding existing features and providing minor storylines.

It can get extremely pricey for those looking to own all of the expansion packs and game packs in The Sims 4. As a matter of fact, you can expect to spend at least $1,000 to purchase everything currently available, and there’s no doubt plenty more DLC on the way that will cost a pretty penny, too.

Yeah, ouch.

Regardless of whether you opt to purchase all of the expansions, you can download The Sims 4 now on PlayStation 4, Xbox One, or PC. And yes, it’s backward compatible on PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series consoles, too.

Billy Givens
Billy Givens is a freelance writer with over a decade of experience writing gaming, film, and tech content. He started as a…
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