SegmentNextBest Sims 4 Mods: What To Install First, Sorted By What They Change
The Sims 4's mod scene is enormous and most lists of it are shopping catalogues. The more useful question is what part of the game you are unhappy with, because the mods that change the simulation, the ones that change the interface and the ones that only add hair do completely different jobs. This roundup is sorted that way: pick the row that matches your complaint.
Switch Script Mods On First
Two kinds of mod exist. Content packages, such as clothes and hair, work as soon as the file is in the Mods folder. Script mods, which is anything that changes how the game behaves, need a setting: open Game Options, choose Other, and tick both Enable Custom Content and Mods and Script Mods. The game switches that second box off again after some patches, which accounts for most of the mods that mysteriously stop working.
The Two That Change How You Play
MC Command Center is the one most long term players install before anything else. It hands you control over the parts of the simulation the game runs behind your back, from who in town has a job to what the unplayed households are wearing, which turns a world that drifts on its own into one you set the rules for.
The UI Cheats Extension is the other. It replaces typed cheat codes with a right click on the thing you want to change: money, needs, skills, a career level, a relationship. Our cheat codes guide and career cheats guide exist because those strings are fiddly and easy to mistype, and this mod makes most of them unnecessary.
Sorted By What You Want To Fix
| What bothers you | What to install | What it does |
|---|---|---|
| Sims all look the same height | Height Sliders | Changes how tall a Sim is, which the base game does not let you touch |
| Facial hair takes forever | Automatic Beards | Speeds up beard growth and styling in Create a Sim |
| You cannot place clutter properly | OMSP Shelf | Acts as an invisible placeholder surface so decorations go where you want |
| Build and buy mode is slow to search | Better Build/Buy | Widens the search rows and makes debug items findable |
| Sims react to nothing | Meaningful Stories | Gives Sims realistic emotional reactions to the things that happen to them |
| Nothing ever goes wrong | Life's Drama | Adds eleven dramatic scenarios to household life |
| Romance ends too abruptly | Pillow Talk | Extends what Sims do after an intimate encounter |
| Dating is tedious | SimDa Dating App | Organises dates and romantic meetings through the phone |
| Pregnancy is too fast or too slow | Longer or Shorter Pregnancy | Adjusts how long a pregnancy lasts |
| Pregnancy is too predictable | Risky WooHoo | Puts a chance of pregnancy on encounters that normally carry none |
| Careers are too generic | Gamer Trait and Lot Traits | Adds traits for Sims and for the lots they live on |
| The hair choices are thin | Ebonix's Hairs, JohnnySims' Men's Season | Two large hair collections, one covering all ages and one modern men's styles |
| The clothes are dated | Happylifesims' 1920s Styles, Belaoallure's Street Fashion | Period styling and modern streetwear respectively |
Our full roundup also covers a mature category, including mods that remove the censor blur and add adult interactions. They install exactly like everything else on this page and need the same script mods setting; whether they belong in your game is a matter of taste rather than of technique.
Mods We Cover In Depth
Three mods have a page of their own here rather than a row in the table. The UI Cheats Extension is the cheating one. Basemental Drugs is the largest of the mature gameplay overhauls and adds an entire system the base game has no equivalent for. Realistic Pregnancy rebuilds pregnancy in more detail than the sliders above manage.
A Word On Keeping A Mod List Working
Mods break on patch days, and script mods break most. The two habits that save the most grief are keeping mods in their own named folders rather than loose in the Mods directory, so a broken one can be pulled out without hunting, and checking the creator's page after a game update rather than assuming the version you have is current. The UI Cheats Extension is the clearest example, since a mod that hooks into the interface is the first thing an interface patch will break.
Mod Questions
What is the best Sims 4 mod?
MC Command Center if you want the world to behave the way you decide, and the UI Cheats Extension if you want the game's own cheats without the typing. Most long lists are built on top of those two.
Do mods disable achievements?
Cheating does, which is a separate question from modding, and our cheats and careers guide is the page for what each shortcut costs you.
Where do mod files go?
Into the Mods folder inside your Sims 4 documents folder, ideally each in its own subfolder, with script mods enabled in Game Options. Everything else this folder covers is on the Sims 4 hub.