Burglars were a staple of previous Sims games, but when The Sims 4 launched, this striped bandit was missing. Now, after a long wait, we have burglars once more! In a free update, burglars have been added back into the game, bringing all the chaos of thievery with them!
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In this guide, we are going to take a look at all you need to know about burglars in The Sims 4. While they are a new feature, they function pretty similarly to past burglars; if you aren’t feeling up to their antics, you can even disable burglar visits for your game.
Since this is part of a free update, you don’t need to purchase any expansion.
When Do Burglars Come?
Burglar visits seem to be random; if you don’t use any cheats, then it’s impossible to guarantee that a burglar will come at a certain time. Due to this unpredictability, this is why alarms are necessary. We’ll go over these later, but alarms are essentially systems that immediately notify you if a burglar is on the lot.
This will only happen at night though. You don’t have to worry about burglars coming when the sun is out. Most Sims sleep during the night, so you should be able to catch a burglar in the act. If you do happen to have a household of nightshift workers, then you will have to deal with burglars appearing when the house is empty.
Cheat In A Burglar
At this point, you know the drill. Press “Ctrl/Command + Shift + C” (PC or Mac) or all four shoulder buttons (console) to open up the command console. From here, type in “testingcheats on”.
Once this has been input, head to the mailbox on your lot and shift-click it. On Xbox, this is done by holding B and then clicking with A. On PlayStation, you can do this by holding O and clicking with X.
When the mailbox has been successfully shift-clicked on, you will see the option to “Schedule Burglar Visit (Debug)”. By clicking on this, you’ll guarantee that a burglar will visit the following night. Remember, burglars only come at night; we used this cheat at 8 am, but had to wait until later (around midnight) to actually see the cheat in action.
How To Increase Burglar Chances
Without using cheats, you can boost the chances of a burglar visit with a new lot challenge. From the Build/Buy mode, head over to the lot information. On the Traits and Challenges tab, select the trophy icon, and you will see the following challenge.
How To Prevent Burglars From Stealing
In real life, you’ll use security systems and alarms to protect your home. Things are pretty much the same in The Sims 4. In the Build/Buy Mode, you can find an alarm that will wake the household when a burglar trespasses into your house.
The alarm itself is called Alertz Burglar Alarm, and will only cost you $85. Rather than buying one alarm for the entire house, you’ll need a separate one for each door leading outside. This also applies to lots with more than one building. Overall, just place an alarm near every door that a burglar could enter from.
When a burglar enters a lot, Build/Buy mode will be disabled! You aren’t able to quickly buy an alarm at this point. If someone is home, you should act quickly, but if everyone is working, then you’ll have to watch a burglar steal from you.
When a burglar enters the lot, the alarm will sound, waking up everyone who is currently there (if they are asleep). The sound of the alarm should be enough to scare the burglar away, but you can also put up a fight for good measure.
How To Deal With Burglars
A burglar has made their way onto your lot; what now? If you don’t have an alarm system, get your Sims out of bed! When clicking on the burglar, you’ll see three options listed below.
- Fight!
- Call Police Station
- Confront the Burglar
Upon first seeing a burglar for the first time, we went with a physically strong Sim to go fight them. Our Sim came out victorious and won the fight; this caused the burglar to get scared and run off. Calling the police station is fine, but the burglar may end up stealing anyway. The police response time isn’t instant, so you’ll have to still witness the burglar stealing.
Confronting the burglar isn’t the most effective method of stopping the burglar. We suggest either fighting them or calling the police.
How To Turn Off Burglar Visits
If you don’t really like burglars, you’re in luck! From the settings menu, you can head over to the gameplay section and disable burglar visits from occurring. This isn’t permanent though; if you later decide that you want burglars, you can go back in and enable them.
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