I was a late arrival to The Sims 4. It took me until 2020 (in the height of the pandemic) to finally make the switch after 16 years of The Sims 2. It then took me quite some time to navigate the sheer size of the game - it had grown quite a bit since its launch in 2014!

One thing I learnt pretty quickly, though, was that Mods and Custom Content (CC) are a HUGE part of The Sims 4. They are particularly useful in filling in some of the gaps still prevalent in the game in 2023. Don’t get me wrong, I LOVE The Sims 4, but playing it vanilla without any mods can at times be frustrating.

Speaking from experience, it is an incredibly daunting experience to face the prospect of modding the game for the first time (it took me the best part of a year to slowly grow my collection). I’ve therefore brought together lists of all the Mods + CC I use - both so I can have it all tidily in one place for my own sanity, but also for the benefit of anyone else who might find this useful.

I always try to keep this information up to date, including maintaining links as things inevitably need updating following the release of official EA patches. I’ve split things up into categories, so hopefully it all makes sense. When I say some things are essential, I do of course exaggerate. They are pretty important for my gameplay style, though. For information, I play rotationally and Wants-based.