The Sims 4 is now well into its nostalgia-fueled "Motherlode season" celebrating the series' 25th anniversary and also revealing the next Sims 4 expansion pack: Businesses & Hobbies. After the Life & Death pack at the end of last year we're apparently in a double word plus ampersand expansion era—who do I have to pander to to get a pun around here?
The new expansion pack is all about the rise and grind lifestyle of turning your hobbies into small business hustles. It now has its first gameplay trailer—after the requisite leaks and trailers that preceded it, of course—so we've got a decent overview of what exactly is coming in this pack.
Businesses & Hobbies release date and trailers
When is the Sims 4 Businesses & Hobbies expansion release date?
The Sims 4: Businesses & Hobbies release date is on March 6, 2025.
There's an unknown reveal for February 25, which is the week before the expansion release. I'd bet that's the drop date for a free game update related to the expansion. As in past expansions, we can probably expect a couple related game features to get added to the base game.
Check out the Businesses & Hobbies gameplay trailer
The first reveal trailer for the Businesses & Hobbies expansion confirmed a lot of the broad details about the new tattooing and pottery skills. It also gives a quick look at the new menus for running small businesses and building multi-purpose lots—more on those below where I'll cover all the details gleaned from the Businesses & Hobbies announcement post.
The gameplay trailer gives a slightly deeper explanation of how small businesses and learning skills works. In particular it goes over the alignment of your small business (dreamer, neutral, or schemer) and how you'll be able to manage employee salaries and tasks.
Businesses & Hobbies gameplay features
Main features
- Own businesses and run them from dual-purpose commercial/residential lots
- New pottery and tattooing skills with custom tattoos
- New skill "mentor" system
Pottery and Tattooing skills
The two new skills fueling your small business aspirations in this pack are tattooing and pottery, both of which look like pretty involved skills that let you go hands-on instead of just letting the skill bar slowly tick up.
With tattooing you'll be able to custom create tattoos in a Create-A-Sim menu. You can pick lots of new pre-made designs but also create your own by layering elements and choosing colors or just drawing directly on your sim's body. It's not far off from how painting custom coats for pets in the Cats & Dogs expansion works. You'll also be able to share and download tattoo designs from the gallery.
As for pottery, it looks like it has a lot in common with the jewelry making skill from the Crystal Creations pack. You'll choose a ceramic shape from a list for your sim to create on a pottery wheel and then choose whether to glaze it with a color or leave it unglazed in the kiln.
New ownable businesses
One pretty neat part of Businesses & Hobbies is how much cross-pack play it's going to support. The ability to run your own shop won't just be restricted to the ones existing in current packs and the new tattooing and pottery skills. You'll also be able to open businesses related to other expansion packs—and some game packs and stuff packs—that you own:
- Pet cafes (Cats and Dogs)
- Dance clubs (Get Together)
- Arcades (Get Together)
- Karaoke bars (City Living)
- Acting school (Get Famous)
- Spas (Spa Day)
- Laundromat (Laundry Day Stuff)
- Bowling Alley (Bowling Night Stuff)
After creating your business, you'll also have a menu where you can set a name and logo as well as entrance fees and the kinds of customers you'd like to attract. You'll also manage your employees, their salaries, and their work tasks.
As you play, leveling up your small business will unlock perks in the three small business alignments: dreamer, neutral, and schemer.
Multi-use lots
The part I'm psyched about, as a Build Mode enjoyer, is that the Businesses & Hobbies expansion is going to expand the multi-unit lot features we got in the For Rent expansion to now handle multi-purpose lots which are both residential and commercial. Instead of creating a new "Small Business Venue Lot" you can instead add a small business on an existing residential zoned lot.
Like in For Rent, you can designate entry permissions by room. In this case it's public, residential, or employees only. That means your enterprising sims can have a private loft with their family built on top of their tattoo parlor, for instance. Oh, here's a freebie idea: building a dance club with the Get Together pack beneath your sim's ground floor home in the style of a speakeasy.
Recent updates
EA says on The Sims Discord that "we are aware of issues impacting For Rent and save files, and are investigating this further," referring to corrupted saves, after players have raised concerns about how the same system used in the Businesses & Hobbies expansion might also ruin their saves. It's asked for reports on impacted save files on the EA forums.
Other gameplay features
- New world: Nordhaven
- New skill: Tattooing
- Custom tattoos that you can draw or design with layers
- Sharing tattoo designs on the gallery
- New skill: Pottery
- Advanced pottery skill Kintsugi
- Become skill mentors and earn Mastery Perks points
- Teaching classes or lectures as a mentor
- "Hobby meetup" events to find sims with similar interests or skill mentors
- Ticket kiosk for controlling whether visitors pay a one time or hourly entrance fee
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