The Grim Reaper has long been a part of The Sims. Who among us who grew up playing PC games didn’t gasp the first time he showed up while one of our Sims was drowning in the pool? Or if you were being really transgressive, you could have your Sim “Woohoo” with the Grim Reaper. As death is a part of life, so it is a part of Sims, and even more so in the new Sims 4 Life & Death expansion pack, which allows players to apprentice under the Grim Reaper himself.
According to a release from developer Electronic Arts, which is introducing a new “Reaper Profession” in the expansion back which allows Sims “with an affinity for the afterlife” to “become Grimterns and work their way up to Reaper as they make a career out of facilitating the next phase of life for Sims. Work with Grim at the Netherworld Department of Death (N.W.D.D.) and even head off into the ‘field.’” Talented Grimterms will even be allowed to “determine which souls they’ll reap and which they’ll return to life”—imagine having that kind of godly power!
The Sims has always been about having godly power over a universe of computerized citizens, but this expansion is particularly existential. Sure, there’s some cutesy spooky season like new neighborhoods filled with ghosts and tarot readings and moon festivals. But “Life & Death” also offers the option for Sims to make Wills for when they die and four new “Grief Types”: Denial, Holding It Together, Anger, and Blues. Sims can now go to grief counseling and throw funerals and give eulogies and set up memorial displays for lost loved ones. There are new Macabre, Chased by Death, and Skeptic traits for individual Sims. Plus there’s a new death type, “Death by Murder of Crows.” It’s all pretty freakin’ metal for any computer game let alone The Sims, but then those Sims are always pushing boundaries. The Sims 4 Life & Death expansion pack is available for preorder now and launches on October 31.