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There’s plenty to do in the overarching Soul’s Journey portion of The Sims 4: Life & Death expansion pack, but you’ll first want to have your Sim create a bucket list to give themselves tangible goals to work toward. This takes inspiration from every aspect of who they are, and gives them life goals.
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Functioning independently of the Aspiration system but based loosely on it in parts, the bucket list is a fun addition to The Sims 4: Life & Death that allows you to make your Sims feel even richer than before. Good luck completing your new life goals!
How To Start A Bucket List
There are a number of ways that your Sim can start their bucket list in the Life & Death expansion, and the sooner they create one, the better, since they’ll have more time to work toward these specific goals once said goals have been clearly defined. When your Sim is first created or born, their bucket list will be empty with four total spaces that each start off as an “Undiscovered Goal.” You’ll need to unlock goals to begin working toward them throughout your Sims’ lifespan.
These bucket list goals are rich ways to work toward the Soul’s Journey, another feature added in the Life & Death pack, adding layers to your Sims and allowing them to explore the world in a more targeted, satisfactory fashion.
If you choose to play without influencing your Sims’ bucket list goals yourself, your Sim will discover bucket list items naturally as they go about their everyday lives, since these goals often align with a Sim’s skills, aspiration, traits, and preferences when discovered naturally.
Sims Can Manually Add Up To Four Goals
If this is all a little too much left to chance for your taste, though, you can also manually choose to establish a bucket list goal for your Sim by interacting with a computer or a physical journal as your Sim. Navigate to the Bucket List section of either of these items, and you’ll be able to create (or restart) a bucket list.
To do this, jump onto a computer on any lot or interact with a notebook item placed in the world. One of the first options in the pie menu will be everything related to this Sim’s bucket list, so click into here to see how you can impact this Sim’s bucket list.
Goals for your bucket list come from eight categories, and while you can manually decide on a category for them, you can’t normally choose specific goals, only a category from which to generate a goal. The goal they choose will be based around this notion – they won’t spring a family-based goal on you if you choose something travel-based. You can have up to four goals at once.
Additionally, the more packs you’re playing with, the more goals you’ll have available, since there are plenty of pack-based goals asking your Sims to explore the world added with a specific pack, pursue a skill added in a pack, and more. You won’t be given anything you don’t have installed, so don’t worry about your Sim wanting to summit Mt. Komorebi if Snowy Escape isn’t installed!
If you’d just like your Sim to have a goal to work on without real preference on what they do, you can ask your Sim to write something themselves by simply asking them to “Write Goal” on the bucket list menu. They’ll choose from any category that fits their Simology, giving them their own say in what they’ll do with their life.
Whether you keep the same category of goals for your Sim’s bucket list to have them focus on one area of their life (such as family or traveling) or choose from a little of everything to round out who your Sim is, the bucket list in The Sims 4: Life & Death is a life-long, meaningful expansion to the satisfaction system.
Once added to your Sim’s bucket list, you can hover over the goal in their bucket list right above their Aspiration, and you’ll see a fun blurb about the goal as well as the short version of what your Sim wants to do to achieve this.
Perfect Goals Allow You To Choose A Bucket List Goal Manually
It’s no easy feat to be able to create a perfect bucket list goal, but if your Sim meets some pack-specific criteria, they’ll be able to add a Perfect Goals to their bucket list. These allow you to manually choose one wish for this Sim’s bucket list. To do this, you’ll need to meet one of the following criteria:
- Sims with the Chased by Death trait are able to write Perfect Goals anytime they’ve got vacancies on their bucket list – their time may be shorter than most.
- Have attended the Afterlife Anonymous group meetings, becoming comfortable with the notion of death and enabling specific goals.
- Have witnessed another Sim die recently enough that they still have a moodlet about the death.
Perfect Goals are a great way to earn a hearty amount of satisfaction for doing things you may already want your Sim to do, so check through the list of goals whenever you’re able to set a Perfect one.
All Sims 4 Bucket List Categories
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Category |
Explanation |
Examples of Possible Goals |
|---|---|---|
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“I Wanna Get Busy!” |
These goals tend to be sexual in nature, naming specific places this Sim wants to Woohoo. The more packs you have installed, the more spots you’ll have to do the deed. |
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“I Wanna Party!” |
These goals are centered around different types of parties and social gatherings, tasking your Sim with throwing the absolute best get-togethers. |
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“I Want Adventure!” |
These goals focus on going to extreme places or doing extreme things. If it’d get your adrenaline pumping in real life, your Sim might want to do it – not for the feint of heart! |
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“I Want Success!” |
These goals often require your Sim to max a skill and revel in its completion, or do something truly noteworthy that not all other Sims will do in their lifetime. |
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“I Want a Great Family!” |
These goals have to do with the overall richness of your family life and relationships with them, deepening family bonds while there’s still time. |
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“I Want to Create!” |
These goals will task your Sim with an artistic pursuit of some kind – and they usually want to be superb at it. |
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“I Want to Travel” |
These goals highlight specific neighborhoods around the world and having your Sim explore them, spending whole days in specific areas. |
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“I Want… Something Else?” |
These goals are for anything that doesn’t fit neatly into one of the other categories. |
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If your Sim has goals you’re not interested in playing out, you have the option to restart their bucket list from scratch by choosing “Scrap Bucket List” from the bucket list menu on a computer. This clears the entire list, though, so you’ll need to weigh the pros and cons of getting rid of everything to remove one single goal.
Once a goal has been chosen, you can check your progress on the Aspiration menu. Here, you can see every level of your Sim’s Soul’s Journey, the first half of which will be completed while they’re alive. You’ll progressively fill the bar as you complete your Sim’s bucket list goals, and the more goals you complete, the more satisfied your Sim is in life.
Progressing your Sims’ bucket lists is the first of several steps in completing the Soul’s Journey, the track of goals that span the entirety of a Sim’s life and into their existence in the great beyond, so be sure to do as much from your Sim’s bucket list in The Sims 4: Life & Death while they’re alive – goals become unfinished business if the Sim dies before they’re completed!
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