Sims 4 has recently released the new Highschool Years expansion pack. With that, there have been some changes to the base pack of the game. The new additions have been pretty exciting thus far but one of the top additions is Wants and Fears. Reminiscent of the wants and fears of Sims 2, this addition has dormant players even come back to the game just to check it out. And so, the questions to be asked now are, what are wants and fears? And how do they affect gameplay? In this guide, we answer both of these questions. Here is your Sims 4 guide on wants and fears.
Table of Contents
What are Wants and Fears in Sims 4?
Here is everything that you need to know about Wants and Fears in Sims 4.
Wants
Wants are similar to whims in the game. Similar, not the same. This is because wants are more in tune with the Sim’s personality and aspirations rather than just being random. Whims often annoyed most players as they would pop up for no reason and had no lasting effects on the game. Wants on the other hand are of three types. These are long-term, short-term, and reactionary. Your sim can only have three wants at a time and these are usually one of the three categories.
Long-term wants are going to stay for a while even if they don’t take too long to fulfill. Short-term wants are quick and easy to do and change fairly often. Lastly, reactionary wants are completely based on the whims and fancy of the sim. This want is usually a combination of your Sim’s personality and their environment. If your needs are low, your reactionary wants will be all about fulfilling them.
There are rewards for completing wants as well. These rewards come as Satisfaction points in the game. You can then spend these points in the rewards store. But ignoring a want has no real repercussions other than developing a Fear of Unfulfilled Dreams. And you can’t just click them away like Whims but they do change often to keep things interesting.
On the other hand, there are wants that you may actually want to complete. However, at the moment, just don’t have the time to do. You can easily pin these wants so that they don’t get rolled away. This will ensure that these wants don’t go away until you complete them.
Fears
Fears are significantly more important in this addition. Now, you can either avoid the cause of this fear or just face it head on. You don’t start the game with a fear but develop it as you play. For example, if your Sim faces a fire that went out of hand at some point, they may get a fear of fires in the game.
You can explore these fears in the info panel of your Sim. Hover over the trait to find out why your sim is going through this fear and how you can overcome it. Dependent on your traits, you will either get certain fears or be free of others. For example, vampires don’t develop a fear of the dark. However, sims that are more anxious will fear all kinds of things like public speaking.
Fears appear next to wants in a more jagged pop up cloud unlike the soft cloud that wants are in. You can find out what the fear is focused on and then overcome it immediately. Using these fears, you can create more innovative storylines in the game.
List of Fears
Here are all of the fears that you will face when playing Sims 4:
| Fear | Possible Triggers | Overcome By |
| Being Judged | Caused by Mean interactions done to your Sim | Figure out differences with other Sims |
| Being Cheated On | Bad WooHoo with partner or insufficient interaction with sim’s partner | Talk about relationship Fears with your partner |
| Crowded Places | Being on a crowded lot | Be funny when in a crowded place |
| Cowplant | Getting swallowed by a Cowplant | Milking a Cowplant while confident |
| Death | Witnessing the death of a loved one | Discuss Fear of Death with other Sims or give a Death Flower to the Grim Reaper |
| Dead End Job | Not gaining a promotion in a long time | Click on your Sim and select regain passion before going to work |
| Failure | Crafting poor quality objects or having poor work performance | Show off something that you’ve crafted or ask for a performance review while at work |
| Fire | Experiencing a fire | Extinguishing a fire |
| Ghosts | Going through a scary ghost encounter | Fighting a Ghost |
| Swimming | Going through a scary experience while swimming | Confidently swimming for an hour |
| The Dark | Going through a scary encounter at night | Feel confident when outside at night |
| Unfulfilled Dreams | Not completing any Wants for a long time | Fulfill a want, and then discussing Fears with other Sims |
This was your guide on everything there is to know about wants and fears in Sims 4. If you found this guide helpful, check out this guide on the best Sims 4 custom content.