The Sims 4: City Living (DLC) (Xbox One)

City Living is the third expansion pack for The Sims 4, and it does exactly what it says on the tin: it moves your Sims out of the cul-de-sac and into a dense, fictional metropolis called San Myshuno. Apartment living, street food stalls, rooftop bars, and culture-specific festivals replace the manicured lawns of the base game. If your Sims have been feeling a little too comfortable, this pack introduces rent, noisy neighbors, and apartment quirks like 'Maintenance Issues' and 'Haunted' trait tiles that keep things genuinely unpredictable. From a systems perspective, City Living adds three new careers: Politician, Social Media Influencer, and Critic. These are active careers if you want them to be, meaning you can follow your Sim to work and make on-the-job decisions rather than just watching a progress bar. The pack also introduces new social traits tied to urban life, including City Native and Worldly Knowledge, which interact with the new Charisma and Mischief skill trees in ways that reward players who think about build synergies rather than just dressing their Sims in new outfits. The street festivals - the Spice Festival, Humor and Hijinks, Flea Market, and others - cycle through San Myshuno's neighborhoods and provide timed objectives that give the mid-game a structure it sometimes lacks. Where the pack stumbles is in the apartment system itself. The 'editable apartment' promise is partially hollow: you can redecorate your unit, but shared spaces and building exteriors are locked. For players who treat The Sims 4 as a construction sandbox first and a life simulator second, that limitation is real and frustrating. The AI behavior of neighbors is also thin. They knock on doors, occasionally leave passive-aggressive notes, but rarely create the emergent drama the concept promises. If you are coming to City Living specifically for chaotic neighbor storylines, you will be writing most of that narrative yourself. For newcomers to The Sims 4 DLC ecosystem, City Living is generally considered one of the stronger expansion packs and a reasonable starting point after the base game. San Myshuno is a fully realized world with distinct neighborhoods - the Arts Quarter, Uptown, the Spice Market, and the Fashion District each have different ambient moods and festival rotations. The content density is higher than several later packs. If you are building a Sim who is career-focused, socially ambitious, or you just want a change of scenery from suburban lots, the urban setting earns its place in your rotation. Bottom line: City Living is a solid expansion that adds meaningful career depth and a genuinely different environmental context, even if the apartment sandbox limitations leave construction-focused players wanting more.

Diego · Scout Team

Strategy & simulation

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