Everything You Need to Know About The Sims 4 Adventure Awaits
Adventure Awaits is the latest expansion pack for The Sims 4, promising to deepen the gameplay experience, especially around vacations, childhood, and outdoor/adventure mechanics. The expansion pack is currently priced at $39.99/ £35 and has been released on October 2, 2025.
While earlier Sims packs added bits of travel or camping, this one gives those ideas of a full expansion: a getaway system, custom venues, a deeper childhood gameplay overhaul, and new skills and activities for all ages.
The expansion introduces a new region called Gibbi Point, which is subdivided into three neighborhoods: Wanderwood Wilds, Crystal Valley and Jellyfish Junction.
These areas tie into getaway destinations and contain unique lots and features you’ll want to explore.
Each location has it’s own festivals you can attend. Wanderwood Wilds has its ‘Round the Fire’ Festival, Crystal Valley has it’s ‘Sunrise, Sunset’ Festival and Jellyfish Junction has their ‘Fitness’ Fest and ‘Glow & Flow’ Festival which are all tailored based on each locations activities and aesthetics.
The Getaway System & Custom Venues
Some of the most talked-about new systems:
Getaways: Plan trips for your Sims (or groups of them) using the new “Getaway Planner.” Choose destinations, duration, which Sims to bring, and schedule daily activities.
Rules & Challenges: You can apply rules to make a getaway more competitive (e.g. elimination challenges based on skill or relationship goals).
Custom Venues: Build your own getaway lots. Decide what activities they can host, decorate however you like, and even share your designs via Gallery.
Itineraries & Scheduling: You can set detailed itineraries, activities assigned to times of day or days of the week. Some Getaways can recur weekly.
It’s more robust and flexible than just “vacation mode”, you can create serious, narrative-driven escapes or chill retreats.
Childhood Deep Dive & Imaginary Friends Return
One of the major focus in Adventure Awaits is expanding how child Sims are played and remembered. Kids will experience Formative Moments during their youth (e.g. Social, Inquisitive, Adventure, Independence). These affect how their adult selves develop. They’ll also gain Childhood Sentiments (long-term emotional ties to people or events that can evolve over time).
There will be new child activities & traits. Classic games such as Hide & Seek and Rock, Paper, Scissors return. A new scrappy trait (for competitive kids) is added. There’s a new childhood Aspiration called “Cool Kid on the Block.” Children can use modular playgrounds, where you can build and mix playground pieces how you like.
One of the return features that longtime Sims players will notice is Imaginary Friends. Children can start with ImagineMe Dolls (4 personality types: Goofball, Creative, Competitive, Evil).
Through certain conditions (e.g. creativity gains, emotional need, forming friendship), the doll can “turn into” an invisible magical friend just the child can see. Later, a teen Sim can offer to make their Imaginary Friend real, turning the friend into a full Sim in the household.
If you choose not to make them real, the doll can remain in toy form, and occasionally Sims can still emotionally “visit” it.
New Skills & Outdoor Activities
To support the adventure/outdoor theme, Adventure Awaits introduces several new skills such as: Archery, Diving, Entomology, and Papercraft.
And new objects and activities such as diving boards, waterslides, kayaking gear, spin bikes, free weights, and a blender for smoothies and protein shakes, and explorer toys where you can catch and raise butterflies, make paper crafts, etc.
My Positives
I enjoy that there’s possible depth for childhood gameplay which is great for fans who felt kids lacked meaningful mechanics, this expansion touches that.
The customizability and creativity seems to be a 10/10 with the custom venues and planning rules, players have more tools to tell stories or set up fun retreats.
The outdoor/adventure flavor is refreshing with the new skills and activities that make the world feel a bit more active and dynamic.
I am a super nostalgic person and active sims 3 player so seeing that they added imaginary friends back is great to see. It seems they’ve evolved them.
There also seems to be a strong integration, many features seem designed to work together (e.g. Getaways + child mechanics + new skills) rather than being solo add-ons and there’s a blend with the other expansions or game packs such as the Sims 4 Outdoor Retreat.
If you’d like to check out the trailer for this brand new expansion pack. Click the video up there!
Although, I am a bit excited for this pack and can appreciate the great qualities it has to offer, if you want more of a personalized constructive opinion on how I feel about this new pack and if I think it’s worth it, check out my other post. Until next time, happy simming!