Best References To Past Games In The Sims 4: Life & Death

Key Takeaways

• Life & Death DLC introduces various callbacks to earlier Sims games, connecting current content to the series’ roots.
• The pack features familiar characters like Waylon Warez and Lolita Goth, offering new adventures and lore.
• You can explore mausoleums, collect secret Goopy Bottles, and customize grave markers for a more immersive experience.

Life & Death is shaping up to be one of the best DLCs The Sims 4 has seen. While there’s plenty of new content in store, the pack doesn’t shy away from its roots, and several callbacks to earlier Sims games can be seen throughout Ravenwood.

Sometimes, Sims that previously were only mentioned in flavor text make an appearance in either flesh or spirit. Other times, you’ll get a fun piece of art or a disturbing bit of flavor text. Here are some of the most interesting callbacks to previous games we’ve seen in Life & Death.

8 Waylon’s Haunt

Hey, We Found Waylon!

In The Sims 3: Late Night, Waylon’s Haunt was a seedy dive bar in the metropolitan world of Bridgeport. Located in the city’s industrial slums, Waylon’s Haunt provided cheap drinks, bad company, and a backdrop for your Sims’ bar fights. Waylon himself, however, was nowhere to be found.

Life and Death finally introduces us to Waylon Warez, a shady ghost merchant who can hook you up with a number of different curious items. Given Bridgeport’s status as a port city brimming with commerce and industry, and given the bar’s haunting namesake, it’s easy to speculate on a connection.

7 Lolita Goth

Surprisingly, Not A Gothic Lolita

Lolita Goth first appeared as a deceased ancestor of the Goth family in The Sims 3. Her name is a reference to the gothic lolita mode of Japanese street fashion, but little was known about Lolita herself. She’s mentioned again in Life & Death, with crumbs of lore dropped via the Ravenwood Rumors.

Supposedly, Zelmira Gomes is related to the Goth family, although which of their parents they inherited this connection from is up in the air. Unsurprisingly, Lady Ravendancer Goth is also related to Lolita, and the latter is implied to be an extremely distant relation.

6 Secret Goopy Bottles

What Did They Do To Goopy?

Well, this is certainly one of the more disturbing Easter eggs. Goopy Gilscarbo was a townie from The Sims 2 who quickly became a fan favorite, probably due to his weird name and unfashionable design. In the Sims 4 base game, he shares a name with the pasta dish goopy carbonara.

The Secret Goopy Bottles are a clutter item that can be bought for 85 Simoleons. The flavor text says these bottles are filled with a rancid brown goop, but never specifies just what that goop could be made of. We can only assume the worst.

5 Mausoleums And Crypts

Beware The Mausoleum Bear

Crypts in The Sims 4: Life & Death function in mostly the same way mausoleums did in The Sims 3. They mostly exist to store unused grave markers, but you can go inside and explore the catacombs if you want a dose of chance card-based adventure.

While the adventure that awaits you in Ravenwood’s crypt is a bit more fleshed out than The Sims 3, there are still plenty of parallels: both games contain the possibility of an encounter with a ravenous crypt-beast. The outside of the crypt even looks a little bit like the Specter Family Mausoleum from the Sims 3 base game.

4 Sims 2 Gravestone

Tombstones Of Life And Death

For too long, grave markers in The Sims have caused issues for builders. This is mostly because grave markers only came in one style, limiting your ability to create a cemetery that truly matched your aesthetic vision. Life & Death fixes this issue by providing both traditional and unconventional options.

The plain gravestone matches the default markers used in The Sims 2, in a nice call back to the series’ roots. Rather fittingly, the same model was also used for a cheat object in The Sims 2 known as the ‘Tombstone of Life and Death’, so the devs absolutely knew what they were doing here.

3 Tarot Card Art

Praise The Watcher!

Tarot cards play a huge role in The Sims 4: Life & Death, and the dev team went all out when working on the art for the major arcana. Many cards are references to older games, such as the Plantsim baby featured in the artwork for the Sun arcana.

Most of the Easter eggs in the game’s tarot deck, however, are references to The Sims Medieval. Justice and the Magician have a distinctly medieval vibe, the Emperor resembles Admiral Ravenscar, and the Chariot is none other than Lord Demetrius Landgraab.

2 The Specter Family

Noticing A Pattern?

By now, pretty much everyone knows about Olive Specter and her son Nyon (also known as Nervous Subject, if you’re a fan of The Sims 2). Both Sims are favorites with the fandom, but Ravenwood’s cemetery holds a few more secrets about the family.

Several of the graves you can find are those of Olive’s deceased partners. Earl E. DeMise, Rigger Mortis, Hugh Thanasia, and Ichabod Specter all first appeared in The Sims 2, and served pretty much the same purpose as corpses. The jury’s still out over whether Layne Coffin, Olive’s current beau, will meet the same fate.

1 Lady Ravendancer Goth

Slowly, The Goth Clan’s Lore Grows

The Goth family is pretty expansive, with Mortimer and Bella being just the tip of the iceberg. Lady Ravendancer Goth first appeared in a bit of flavor text for Lady Ravendancer Goth’s Book o’ Spells, an exclusive item from the Sims 3 store. Paranormal Stuff for The Sims 4 gave us a crystal ball, but Ravendancer herself was still relegated to background lore.

In The Sims 4: Life & Death, Lady Ravendancer Goth can now be met as an NPC in Ravenwood. You’ll need a tarot card to summon her, so start collecting right away (or lay down the 8,000 satisfaction points for a full set). After all these years, it’s great to finally meet her in the flesh (sort of).