When it comes to gameplay variety in Sims 4, the sky is the limit, even using the basic rules.
Users can play casually to relieve some stress or challenge themselves with a particular end goal. Some self-assigned adventures end up being so much fun for the user that they perfect the rules and share the challenge with others.
These Sims 4 challenges open up new ways to play one of America’s most popular games. The challenges are also great for those who need a more demanding challenge as long as the players follow all the rules. Best of all – these fun challenges are free!
When you search online for “Sims 4 challenges”, you will have an overwhelming amount of options. Which challenge should you try?
Read more about 20 of the best Sims 4 Challenges and pick a challenge for yourself!
Rags To Riches Challenge (R2R Challenge)
Objective: A single Sim must build a middle-class lifestyle out of nothing but an empty lot, hard work, and resourcefulness. Not everyone can keep their sim alive long enough to earn small amounts of money from the land and gradually build a house. Will you succeed, or will you crumble under the weight of the stress? Accomplish each stage before moving on to the next one.
Build a home with a kitchen, dining room, living room, three bedrooms, two bathrooms, and a study with a computer, pool, and garden.
Reach Level 5 Handiness and Level 3 Logic before building.
Deduct §500 before building as fees for permits/noise.
Reach Level 7 Handiness and Level 5 Gardening before building your garden.
Deduct §500 before creating your garden as a landscaping fee.
Get married, have kids, and become grandparents.
You cannot get married until the construction of your home is complete.
Spouses must not enter the marriage with money.
Max all toddler skills.
Children must max a skill to Level 10 or get perfect grades and reach Level 5 in a skill.
Teens must reach Level 5 in two skills and work a part-time job or max out two skills to Level 10
Parents must pay for each child’s wedding.
Succeed at your career.
Complete building a house before getting a job or starting a business. You will have to get creative as to how to make all of their money up until this point.
Deduct §10000 as payment for your college degree (career path).
Reach Level 10 in Your career (career path).
Achieve the Entrepreneurial Reward Trait (business path).
Have a home valued at §100,000 and §200,000 in savings. You can make the challenge more difficult as desired.
Gameplay Rules:
Start a single sim on an empty lot with §0. With cheats enabled, use the code “money 0” to bring your money to zero.
You cannot use cheats after you reset your finances!
Only family members can contribute to the household finances.
You must go through each stage in consecutive order.
Results: You complete the challenge when you fail to meet requirements, break the rules, or your main character dies. After your main character dies, assess the household finances to determine if you reached your goal.
Runaway Teen Challenge
Objective: Your runaway teen sim must make it on their own after leaving their home in this rags to riches challenge. The runaway starts with diminished educational and professional opportunities, making the challenge especially difficult. If the teen runaway can manage to establish a home, they might just prove everyone else wrong.
Gameplay Rules:
Start with a teen Sim on an empty lot with §0.
Your Sim can’t use electronics.
Your teen cannot go to school.
You must build a home before you can get a job.
You must deduct §10 every time you travel to use public facilities.
Results: If you can get through the struggles of being a teen runaway, can you build a respectable home for yourself before you die?
Live the Farm Life Challenge
Objective: Make the most out of farm life with the Cottage Living expansion pack by challenging yourself to start life as a humble teenager on a barren farm and fertilize your future through gradual advancements until you become a successful farmer. Can you turn your humble beginnings into rural royalty in this rags to riches challenge?
Gameplay Rules:
Download the Cottage Living expansion pack.
Create a teen character with the country caretaker aspiration. You must select Animal Enthusiast as one of the character’s three traits. Do not include likes/dislikes.
Start your character on an empty lot with the Simple Living and Wild Foxes challenges. You will need to remove the off the grid challenge.
Start your character with §0.
You cannot sell inventory items.
Go through each of the three main goals in order before progressing to the next one:
Building the Farm
Reach Level 3 in Logic and Handiness.
Pay §500 before building walls.
Obtain a toilet, bed, shower, sink, stove, chair, counter, and fridge.
Working the Land
Pay §3000 to obtain your biology degree.
Live on your lot while in school.
Take four classes at a time.
You can’t earn money while in school.
Pay §500 before you build a crop garden and buy livestock.
Buy a pond.
Obtain a living room, kitchen, 2 bedrooms, dining room, 2 bathrooms, and an office.
A Family Farm
You must be married before having children.
You cannot have a child until you have §5000.
Reach Level 3 in the Parenting Skill.
Have grandchildren.
Results: You must end with a house worth at least §100,000 and §200,000 in savings.
Apocalypse Challenge
Objective: Your sim graduated from the Wonder Child project ready to contribute to the new world after the apocalypse (also see the wonder child challenge).
The post-apocalyptic world needs professionals more than ever, so you will need to progress through your career with the restrictions placed on you by the new state of the world. Characters must remove the restrictions on all career paths to get the world back to normal.
Gameplay Rules for the Apocalypse Challenge:
Begin the challenge without a career.
Do not use cheat codes.
No adoptions.
You must stay in your original lot throughout the challenge.
You must play on normal lifespans and refrain from speeding up the aging process. The next generation can contribute toward the challenge.
Remove the restrictions placed on each career to complete the challenge. You are free to remove the restrictions in the order of your choice.
Tech Guru (Startup) – You can only buy items with the worst stats in its category.
Tech Guru (eSport gamer) – You can only use your computer and phone for work-related purposes. You cannot buy a television or electronic notebook.
Business (Investor) – You can’t sell inventory, books, songs, or jingles. However, you can self-publish books.
Business (Management) – You either work hard or work very hard. You can’t ever miss school or work. You can’t retire.
Culinary (Chef) – You can only cook on grills and firepits.
Culinary (Mixologist) – You can’t drink or brush your teeth with the water or bottle feed your baby.
Astronaut (Space Ranger) – Your sim must remain within four walls with the exception of the mailbox and rocketships.
Astronaut (Interstellar Smuggler) – You cannot utilize career reward objects. You also can’t upgrade items.
Painter (Master of the Real) – Painters and writers cannot incorporate emotion into their creations, meaning no writing emotional books or using the emotional aura when painting.
Painter (Patron of the Arts) – You cannot sell sim creations or self-publish a book.
Writer (Author) – You cannot visit library lots. You also can’t buy books from your computer or bookshelf.
Writer (Journalist) – You cannot buy a tub or shower.
Secret Agent (Diamond Agent) – Your sim must stay at your lot. You cannot venture away from your home long enough to create a loading screen. You can only go to work.
Secret Agent (Villain) – You must pick an 8×8 space on your lot to claim as yours. You cannot use your property outside of this space.
Entertainer (Musician) – You cannot buy a stereo. You can only practice on instruments.
Entertainer (Comedian) – No dates, no parties at home, and no inviting other sims over. Only one sim per generation can join the household. Sims also can’t use mirrors to practice.
Criminal (Boss) – You must reset your funds to zero every week when bills are due.
Criminal (Oracle) – You cannot move items on your property. No importing sims into the neighborhood or combining funds with a new spouse. You’ll get a one-time opportunity to use the “kaching” cheat code once you complete the career path and lift the restrictions.
Athlete (Professional Athlete) – You cannot purchase reward points.
Athlete (Bodybuilder) – You cannot move items larger than 1×1. You cannot utilize any items from the family inventory regardless of size.
Results: It’s an accomplishment in and of itself to complete each career with the restrictions in place. If you manage to complete the apocalypse challenge, take note of how many days it took you to complete the entire challenge. Can you complete the challenge in fewer days if you go through the careers in a different order or make different household decisions?
Happy Sim Challenge
Objective: Do your best to die of old age without experiencing a single negative emotion (Uncomfortable, Sad, Angry, Dazed, Bored, Tense, Scared, or Embarrassed).
Gameplay Rules:
Move a young adult sim (no occult characters) to an affordable lot.
You can only edit your lot before you start gameplay. No additional edits to your lot after the game begins.
Do not use cheat codes.
No playing as another household or editing other lots.
While the game stops once you experience a negative emotion, negative moodlets are acceptable.
Your sim cannot die from any other cause than old age.
Results: You beat the challenge if you can take a sim character through life without ever experiencing a negative emotion. Since you will probably find this difficult, start by seeing how long you can go before your Sim experiences a negative emotion.
Alien Adoption Challenge
Objective: The alien adoption challenge creates an interspecies culture clash between a human parent and their adopted alien baby or alien child. Assign a young alien as the adopted alien child of a human adult. The adult must successfully raise the alien to adulthood without ever playing as the alien. Connect with the adopted child to earn trust and obedience. Otherwise, the child may decide to go rogue.
Gameplay Rules:
Download the Parenthood, Get to Work, and City Living expansion packs.
Create a mortal young adult Sim (no aliens, vampires, etc…).
Create an alien toddler with randomized traits then assign the young adult as the toddler’s parent.
Raise the adopted child as the parent sim without ever controlling the alien Sim.
Visit space with your adopted child before they turn into a young adult.
Results: You win if you can get the child to be a young adult safely. You can use your relationship with your adopted alien child and their success during childhood to gauge your results.
Homeless Challenge
Objective: In the homeless challenge, homeless sims start the game without a job, a home, or a spouse. Will the Sim end up alone in the mental hospital, or will they have a happy little life? Like many of the rags to riches challenges, you’ll have to get creative when your homeless sim needs funds in the homeless challenge.
Gameplay Rules:
You cannot use cheats.
You must wear homeless looking attire.
You will start on an empty lot with §0.
You must earn §5000 before you can build a house.
You cannot move out of the original lot.
You cannot get married.
You cannot buy new items. You can only use objects you find living off the land, such as seeds.
Results: You have successfully completed the homeless challenge when you save up 5000. If you want to continue the challenge, keep playing to see what kind of life you can build for yourself starting as a homeless person.
Black Widow Challenge
Objective: Become the ultimate black widow by marrying (then killing) 10 husbands as a single character and living off your husbands. The black widow challenge is perfect for those players who want to use a female sim in one of the most fun challenges that only requires one sim.
Gameplay Rules:
Create a young adult female sim with the Love aspiration. You may also want to consider the big happy family aspiration, but that’s not a requirement.
Stop aging on all households (except for your own).
No mods or cheats.
You cannot have a job. You can only obtain money through marriage.
You must max out your Charisma and Cooking skills.
You cannot repair broken items.
Results: If you manage to kill 10 husbands before you die, you win! You get extra points for having children.
Sims 4 Legacy Challenges
In a Sims 4 legacy challenge, you see how successful you can be after several generations of sims put their unique mark on the family legacy. The original legacy challenge simply takes you through ten generations with the goal of leaving a successful household once the tenth family leader dies. To keep things interesting, there are numerous different variations of the original legacy challenge that keep it spicy.
In every legacy challenge, you will play as the head of household (HOH) through several generations of one sim family. As part of the legacy challenge, you will need to establish some of the rules, such as how you will choose to pass power from one generation to the next.
Zodiac Challenge
Objective: Go through twelve generations of a single family with each main character representing one of the zodiac signs in this out-of-this-world legacy challenge. Are the stars aligned in your favor in the zodiac challenge?
Gameplay Rules:
No cheating (cosmetic mods are ok).
You must play as the legacy family the entire time.
You cannot leave your original lot.
Player-created Sims and Sims who moved away from the legacy plot cannot be moved to the plot.
You can’t save your sim from dying.
You can use a birthday cake to speed up aging (but only a birthday cake).
Create your first generation young adult Aquarius Sim in CAS and match with astrologically compatible mates to create heirs. The heir must have two traits that match the next zodiac sign in succession.
Results: Successfully play through twelve generations then calculate your legacy’s worth. If your character dies without heirs that follow the rules, the game ends there.
Decades Challenge
Objective: In this legacy challenge, create a legacy family through history with characters and gameplay that represents each decade from the 1890s to the 2010s. In the decade challenge, you’ll need to be careful not to let the traumas and limitations of the past hinder success down the line.
Gameplay Rules: Follow the appropriate rules for the decade challenge and style for each decade without cheat codes:
1890s – Reconstruction
No queer or interracial relationships.
You must try for a baby during each intimate encounter with your spouse.
No electricity or indoor toilets. Bathtubs are allowed (showers are not allowed).
Male heirs only.
Girls can only receive the creativity bonus.
Sims can only make money through gardening, painting, or woodworking.
Women must care for the children and clean.
Wooden, old-fashioned furniture, appliances, and decorations.
1900s – 20th Century Sims
You can now use indoor plumbing, upholstery, wallpaper, and electricity but not showers.
Photographs are now available for purchase.
Males can get jobs (Business, Culinary, and Entertainer only)
1910s – War Years
Send male children to war. Randomly select who lives and dies via a dice role.
Once males arrive to adulthood, they must develop a characteristic related to the trauma of war (gloomy, hot-headed, clumsy, insane, lazy, squeamish, mean, noncommittal).
Males cannot start a career until they progress from young adulthood to adulthood.
Carpets and painted walls are now allowed.
Men can work as a manager, a chef, a musician, or a painter.
1920s – Women’s Rights
Women can now become heirs.
Women can work as painters or musicians before they have children. They must quit their career once they become mothers.
Men can now work as a criminal boss or a mixologist.
1930s – Great Depression
Every character with a career must lose their job and scavenge for two weeks of game time.
No one can work in the business career.
Don’t pay bills until the electricity gets cut off.
Every sim that becomes an adult must have a trait that showcases the trauma of the decade (gloomy, noncommittal, mean).
1940s – WWII
Once male children reach adulthood, they go off to war. Randomly determine who lives and who dies.
Male children must pick the gloomy, hot-headed, clumsy, insane, lazy, squeamish, mean, or noncommittal trait.
Men cannot work until they graduate from young adulthood to adulthood.
Women must work as a body builder, a master of the real, a mixologist, or an entertainer.
All households must have a victory garden.
Every sim receives one hot meal a day and must use their garden to satisfy additional hunger pains.
Every household must have a person listen to the radio for 60 minutes every day.
1950s – Korean War
The first male child gets drafted, and the first female child becomes a volunteer nurse. These characters must choose one of the war-time traits from WWI and WWII.
You can now buy a shower.
You can buy the most basic TV and watch it during specific times.
You can buy the most basic computer, but you can only use it for writing.
Professional athlete and writer careers are now available.
You can buy popart decorations.
1960s – Revolution
You can now have woohoo without trying for a baby.
You can get into an interracial or queer relationship.
Mothers can take maternity leave.
You can buy better TVs (not including flatscreen televisions).
1970s – End of the Vietnam War
The first two children (male and female) go to war and receive the survivor trait.
Tier II computers can be purchased and used for writing and gaming.
Flower children born in this decade must have one of the following traits:
Active
Self-assured
Loves outdoors
Outgoing
1980s – Materialistic Sims
One adult in the family must follow an investment career.
Sims can go camping.
TV restrictions are reduced.
Sims born in this decade must have one of the following traits:
Self-assured
Foodie
Ambitious
Materialistic
Snob
1990s – Internet
All restrictions on computers are removed.
You can now use your cellphone.
Build a safe house and stay there for three days before your oldest child becomes a teenager.
2000s – Climate Change
You can now follow any career path.
Flatscreens are now available.
Males can take paternity leave.
2010s – Modern Age
You can now customize sexual orientation and gender to the full extent.
Gay marriage is allowed!
Results: After the limited resources and trauma ancestor sims experienced, can you make it through the 2010s? Congratulations if you make it through the entire legacy challenge! Assess your household’s value to measure your success.
History Challenge
Objective: Go through seven time periods in history to progress your legacy family to the final modern era. While similar to the decade challenge, you will travel through much larger spaces in time starting with the Stone Age instead of the 1910s in this legacy challenge.
Gameplay Rules:
Start with two ancestors. To get the most out of the experience, dress your ancestors according to the theme (Stone Age). Download CAS clothing mods if you want more options than are available in the base game.
You can pick the traits of your first two ancestors, but you must randomize the traits of all descendants.
No cheats.
You can welcome Ghost Sims into the household.
Complete the goals and face the challenges (and benefits) associated with each era:
Stone Age
Roman/Greek Empire
European Emergence
Medieval Times
Tudor Era
Stuart Era
Georgian Era
Modern Era
Results: When you reach the modern era, you complete the challenge. The more successful and happy your modern era sims are once your main character in the modern era dies, the more points you have.
Bloodline challenge
Objective: In this legacy challenge, you will create a ruler who must fight off ten generations of dueling biological and adopted descendants before they can take control of the household. Will anyone in your bloodline remain in power with you at the end of the bloodline challenge?
Gameplay Rules:
Create your ruler. You can pick the aspiration, traits, and career you want, but it’s highly recommended to embrace the theme with clothing and decorations.
Move your ruler into a large plot. This will be the hub of your kingdom and where you build your castle.
You must keep your ruler alive and head of the household for ten generations of two different bloodlines.
An heir becomes eligible once they produce an heir of their own (biological or adopted).
You can use youth potions the day before your birthday.
You can only use cheats to dispose of your heirs. No cheat codes to obtain items or simoleons.
Before you can kill or banish an heir, you must complete the requirements for each generation.
Generation One
Grow a cow plant.
Become a parent to both a biological child and an adopted child, creating two different bloodlines.
Reach Level 2 in your career.
Max two skills.
Generation Two
Kill heirs.
Max four skills.
Reach Level Four in your career.
Build a park.
Generation Three
Kill heirs.
Max six skills.
Reach Level 6 in your career.
Build a library.
Generation Four
Kill heirs.
Max eight skills.
Reach Level 8 in your career.
Build a bar.
Generation Five
Kill heirs.
Max 10 skills.
Reach Level 10 in your career.
Build a gym.
Generation Six
Kill heirs.
Max 12 skills.
Reach Level 2 in a second career.
Build a museum.
Generation Seven
Kill heirs.
Max 14 skills.
Reach Level 4 in your second career.
Build a night club.
Generation Eight
Kill heirs.
Max 16 skills.
Reach Level 6 in your second career.
Build a lounge
Generation Nine
Kill heirs.
Max 18 skills.
Reach Level 8 in your second career.
Build houses in the remaining lots in the neighborhood.
Generation Ten
Kill heirs.
Max all skills in the base game.
Reach Level 10 in your second career.
Results: Outliving 10 generations is an accomplishment in itself. You lose the challenge if the ruler dies before 10 generations come and go. If you do survive, you can use the following point system for a more detailed assessment of your results:
+5 points per completed skill
+10 points per completed aspiration.
+20 points per completed career.
+50 points per completed collection.
+10 points for additional completed skills.
Subtract 10 points every time the power gets turned off.
Subtract 20 points every time the water gets turned off.
Subtract 30 points every time a child gets taken away.
Subtract 40 points if the ruler ages.
If you feel confident in your abilities, adjust the difficulty by changing the lifespan from long (easy), normal (medium), and short (hard).
100 Baby Challenge
Objective: Have 100 biological children in as few generations as possible.
Gameplay Rules:
No using cheat codes!
No mating with the same Sim more than once.
Mates cannot contribute to the household.
Your matriarch cannot get an outside job (although they may freelance from home), making finances especially tight in the beginning.
Teenagers can work to contribute to the household finances.
Matriarchs cannot marry until they become an elder.
Once a matriarch becomes an elder, the youngest daughter takes over as the new matriarch.
All children must receive randomly selected traits, no matter what they are.
You cannot allow any child to die or get taken away.
Adopted children do not count toward your total.
You cannot hire nannies (although all other services are available for hire).
No using items that prolong a sim’s life.
Results: The game ends once you reach 100 babies, break the rules, or fail to produce a new matriarch. If you die or break the rules, count all offspring that made it to the age of a young adult. If you reach 100 babies, all ages count toward the total. Determine how many generations it took you to reach 100 babies to compare your results with other players.
Other Challenges
There are numerous other sims challenges for those who want more options outside of the options mentioned in this article.
Some of the additional challenges you may want to consider include;
Big brother challenge
Berry challenge
Asylum Challenge
Experience challenge
Whimsy stories legacy challenge
Conclusion
Sims 4 Challenges are a great way to get even more out of Sims 4. Other players will be performing the popular challenges, increasing the social aspect of the game when you share your experiences with the rest of the Sims community. Don’t forget to thank creators for your favorite Sims 4 challenges. If you want more challenges, you’ll be able to find the right challenge for you with a little more research.
Frequently Asked Questions
How Do I Make the Sims 4 More Interesting (For Free)?
EA provides official Sims 4 expansion packs. When you reach your video game budget, Sims players can get creative with the content in the basic game by trying to complete a player challenge. Share your challenges and suggestions with other players online to help others out.
What Are the Most Fun Sims 4 Challenges?
Every player prefers different challenges. Start with easier, shorter challenges and gradually increase the intensity to find your comfort zone. Eventually, you may be able to take part in a legacy challenge, such as the not-so-berry challenge.
How Do I Make Money as a Poor Sim Without a Job?
Many challenges start players out without very much. In these situations, you’ll need to double-check the rules of your particular challenge. You can find seeds in the dirt and sell them. You can also sometimes sell items from your inventory. Spend sparingly since you’ll need every penny.
Dane started off gaming at the tender age of 3 with the first Atari console. His favorite video game genres are turn-based RPGs (can I get a shout out for Tactics Ogre?) and fighting games. Read more...
