Rumours have been fluttering around about parts of The Sims Motherlode Season since it was first teased as an early part of the The Sims 25th Anniversary Celebrations.
Details were incredibly light, started off by the Behind The Scenes video that announced the anniversary. The video outlined major milestones over the next few months, starting with the Iconic Kits (Comfy Gamer, Secret Sanctuary, Casanova Cave) drop on the 16th of January through until a teased (and purely teased) event on the 25th of February. Slightly to the left of that tease was a simple cube stating: “February 6th, The Sims 4, Motherlode Season.”
Now, that’s not much to go on. However, as many of you will already know, Motherlode is a famed The Sims cheat, currently netting you a tidy 50,000 simoleons in The Sims 4 when typed into the cheat console. As such, it’s pretty safe to assume that the expansion pack is about making money, and from there, it can be safely assumed that its about work, jobs, careers and… well, working.
After the tease, people were quick to scrabble for meaning, however we didn’t have to wait long for regular leaker @anadius to emerge with more information, which you can see below.
Now, expansion packs often come with early purchase bonus content, however it being named ‘Set Up Shop’ leans into something special. It can be taken as meaning to open up a business, but more critically it’s often used to mean to repurpose an existing space for a new reason… such as starting to us your kitchen as a hairdressing salon, or to take over an apartment and run a dark kitchen out of it.
That, of course, is not confirmation that we’ll be able to run certain hobbies as work-from-home jobs, but that would certainly be a welcome feature and an interesting twist in a world now dominated by work-from home. Also, with more playable jobs out there than ever — including last year’s Life & Death Expansion allowing you to be a Reaper — it could be time for Maxis to redefine ‘working hours’.
Teaser Trailer Time
The next confirmation of content came with a Tattoo-Related teaser that appeared on the 5th of February, during the 25-hour celebration stream, along with the official account changing out its featured banner for this post’s featured image: Freezer Bunny running from a rolling simoleon.
Hip Hop music plays while a Sim lays down in a parlour that has tattoos on the wall? It tells a pretty plain story about tattooing coming to The Sims, and also that you’ll likely be able to operate (and visit) a tattoo business. For me, this feels like a perfect fit for the creativity statistic, and it’s also a shop type that doesn’t need much space or many tools to be thoroughly functional — meaning that it could possibly be run out of a small, or house, lot.
The final Motherlode Season Tease
Finally, on the 5th a timeline teaser appeared that fully confirmed that it was seasonal content. Notably the 25th of February remained a tease, however we received some additional dates including the launch date of 6th of March and dates for first looks and deep dives on the 6th and 18th of February respectively.
Critically, and something that a lot of people have missed, there are more clues on the artwork behind the images which could give us clues about some of the hobbies and businesses coming in the update.
- Pottery-Making (Top Left)
- Caligraphy/Writing (Top)
- ‘Start Your Business Now’ (Top)
- ‘Crime’ ‘No suspicious ~~’ and ‘Get Rich Quick’ (Right)
- Mechanics/Repairs ‘Workshop’ and people stargazing through a telescope (Bottom Right)
- A cluttered sink and a mostly hidden poster showing a white and red spiral (like a lollipop, or perhaps an archery target) (Bottom)
- Sewing (An elderly Sim and string) (Left)
We’ll make sure to keep updating this post as we find out more information, we’re expecting there to be a lot of details released during the reveal on the 6th of February.
