The 25 best Sims games for The Sims 25th anniversary

The Sims franchise turns 25 this week, which is a huge milestone in and of itself, but did you know just how many Sims games there actually are? And I don’t mean how many expansion packs or other bits of DLC are out there (although that does really add up at this point, believe me) – I mean fully stand-alone titles released under The Sims brand.

If you answered “four”, oh my sweet summer child, have you got a lot to learn. Which is why in celebration of The Sims’ 25th anniversary, I’ve put together this list of the 25 best Sims games from across the franchise’s quarter-century of history. Learn and enjoy, and appreciate the fact that I did actually have to cut a few spin-offs and amalgamate a few in-name-only remakes just to keep the numbers down.

25. The Sims 2 Apartment Pets

Platform(s): Nintendo DS

Released: 2008

This kinda-cute idea came about at the very end of The Sims 2‘s life cycle: make a fully standalone Nintendo DS spin-off that mashes together the concepts of a couple of TS2’s popular expansion packs. It’s not exactly a beloved classic, but it does feature some unique pet-centric minigames and a rather sweet story.

24. MySims Sky Heroes

Platforms: Nintendo Wii, PlayStation 3, Xbox 360, Nintendo DS

Released: 2010

The sixth and, sadly, final MySims game was admittedly not the pinnacle of the sub-franchise, and you have to wonder if EA wouldn’t have been better off sticking with the original plan of making it a direct sequel to the excellent MySims Agents (see below). But it is the only Sims game where you can fly a plane, and one of the few to use its story to openly acknowledge the slightly dystopian undercurrent that feels like it’s always just out of sight in the world of The Sims.

23. The Sims Pet Stories

Platform(s): PC, Mac

Released: 2007

The awkward middle child of The Sims Stories trilogy aimed, like its siblings, to bring the wonderful world of The Sims 2 to players whose PCs (or more likely laptops) were too low-spec to wrangle the real deal. One of the scripted storylines featured in this game ends with a wealthy relative generously donating her whole house to a poor cousin so she can stay on her honeymoon cruise forever, and that’s how Pet Stories will likely make you feel: slightly condescended to, but happy that at least you get to sit back and play with pet customisation without setting your entire groin area on fire.

22. The Sims 2 Pets

Platform(s): PlayStation 2, Nintendo GameCube, Nintendo Wii, PlayStation Portable, Game Boy Advance, Nintendo DS

Released: 2006-2007

The only expansion pack in the PC franchise’s history to receive a fully stand-alone remake across most contemporary consoles and handhelds (although an Xbox 360 port remained conspicuous in its absence), The Sims 2 Pets was visibly chasing Nintendogs’ tail in most of its iterations. The pets really are the star of the show here, and fulfilling these fuzzballs’ desires is such a focus that the game might arguably have benefitted from jettisoning the human aspect altogether. (Bonus recommendation: if you’re curious about how that would’ve looked, check out the 2009 Nintendo-exclusive duology SimAnimals and SimAnimals Africa.)

21. The Sims Social

Platform(s): Facebook

Released: 2011 (closed down in 2013)

The Sims Social is the only game on this list that you simply can’t play at all any more, which is actually something of a triumph for game preservation when you think about it. An attempt to take advantage of the Farmville-inspired boom of social media-based games, TSS unfortunately just missed the peak of that trend, and ended up closing up shop after only a couple of years. It’s still fondly remembered by many who played it, however, and is also noteworthy for being the only Sims game – among many to try over the years – to actually get a collaboration with Lady Gaga off the ground.

20. MySims

Platform(s): Nintendo Wii, Nintendo DS, PC, Nintendo Switch

Released: 2007-2008 (remastered in 2024)

The late 2000s to early 2010s saw the teams responsible for developing Sims spin-offs try their hands at pretty much everything. MySims was EA’s attempt to position a Nintendo-first sub-franchise as a serious competitor to Animal Crossing, and in fairness, they didn’t do too badly. MySims itself may be fairly formulaic if you’re familiar with the source material, but it was cute and fun enough to spawn five sequels (which took a shot at being everything from Mario-Party-but-Sims and Mario-Kart-but-Sims, and even dipped a toe into adventure gaming), and recently got the remaster treatment as part of the MySims Cozy Bundle.

19. The Sims Online

Platform(s): PC

Released: 2002 (official servers closed down in 2008)

The Sims Online used assets from the original Sims for PC to create a Second Life-esque social space for players to interact with one another’s avatars in real-time. It went about how you’d expect, and is now best remembered for being an utterly chaotic melting pot of cyber brothels and exquisite trolling. And, as you’d also expect, it was beloved among a certain niche of players.

TSO officially went, well, offline in 2008, although various fan recreations have done fairly well since then. The last, sadly, shut down in December of last year, but there’s a fair chance another will crop up someday, with EA seemingly content to look the other way when and if it does.

18. The Urbz: Sims in the City (console)

Platform(s): PlayStation 2, Xbox, GameCube

Released: 2004

The Urbz: Sims in the City might be the most mid-2000s video game imaginable. The Sims franchise up to that point had been very much a suburban life simulator, presumably because having a home gaming set-up was still seen as quite a middle-class thing. The Urbz flipped that concept on its head and took a romanticised, aspirational view of inner-city living that predicted your likely future employment in the gig economy a good decade ahead of schedule, but eased your fears of disappearing into the urban jungle with a promise that you’d be smooching celebrities at a glitzy rooftop bar within weeks of moving into your dingy first apartment.

The handheld version of Urbz was better received than this home console edition, admittedly; but the handheld version didn’t feature an extended cameo by The Black Eyed Peas, so who really won?

17. The Sims Life Stories

Platform(s): Windows, Mac

Released: 2007

The first Sims Stories spin-off aimed at lower-end PCs didn’t rely on any fancy gimmicks, because it understood that you could create some wonderfully weird stories just by taking advantage of what was already present in a pared-back version of The Sims 2 base game. Players who basically view The Sims as a soap opera generator should feel right at home with these outlandish tales, which start with an evil ex-boyfriend conspiring to steal the inheritance of a beloved aunt, and end with the Grim Reaper forcing a tech billionaire to choose between his fortune and a beautiful woman who’s just been crushed by a falling satellite.

16. The Sims Mobile

Platform(s): iOS, Android

Released: 2018

Despite receiving its final content update in early 2024, The Sims Mobile is still being actively supported with reruns of past seasonal events, and thus remains a popular choice for modern Simmers on-the-go. Made using an art style and assets that will make fans of The Sims 4 feel most at home, TSM’s quests are more character- and story-oriented than those of other mobile entries into the franchise, and it also invites you to admire other players’ creations through light social features.

15. The Sims Castaway Stories

Platform(s): PC, Mac

Released: 2008

The final entry into the Sims Stories trilogy is more open-ended than its predecessors, inviting you to create your own character before playing through a scripted story that could not more obviously have been inspired by the then-recent success of the TV show Lost. Unlike the console riff on the Castaway concept, the paradisiacal island of Castaway Stories is anything but deserted, and the story is really more about finding your feet in a new community than day-to-day survival. The result is, rather endearingly in the end, one of the few PC games in the series to see your Sims do something other than spin ceaselessly on the hamster wheel of capitalism.

14. The Sims 2 (console)

Platform(s): PlayStation 2, Xbox, Nintendo GameCube

Released: 2005

The Sims 2 was the golden era of the whole Sims franchise, and while the home console edition of the game was pretty widely considered its weakest, it is at least interesting enough to merit a look. While the linchpin PC version was pushing the entire life sim genre forward in huge leaps, TS2 was released at the tail-end of a console generation and thus had to cut back on some pretty basic but resource-intensive mechanics from TS1, most notably the ability to have kids. Instead, most pre-made households consisted of a married couple living with a third adult individual who needed to have some convoluted reason to be there that was distinct from all the other unique menages in the game. In most other respects it played pretty much like TS2 for PC, but with added scope for delicious relationship drama.

13. The Sims Freeplay

Platform(s): iOS, Android

Released: 2011

The current reigning champion of Sims mobile games has seen off even the in-house competition provided by The Sims Mobile, and somehow is still receiving regular, substantive content updates after well over a decade. Broadly inspired by The Sims 3, The Sims Freeplay also has something of an echo of SimCity about it, encouraging you to switch between multiple households in the name of uplifting the community and amenities available to your town as a whole. It also plays out in excruciating real-time, but that’s actually good news if you’d prefer The Sims was more of an idle game.

12. MySims Kingdom

Platform(s): Nintendo Wii, Nintendo DS, Nintendo Switch, PC

Released: 2008 (remastered in 2024)

In a surprisingly large departure from the original MySims, its first sequel jettisons much of the Animal Crossing-esque gameplay loop in favour of something more akin to a (very) lite RPG. The Kingdom of the title is every bit the vaguely fantasy-inspired melting pot you’d imagine: a king, a princess, and a wizard task you and your buddies with saving their archipelago nation from economic downturn through magically-enhanced home design. Despite the simple concept, it’s hard to get bored with this story when everyone from cowboys to astronauts to forest elves want your help to revitalise their living spaces.

11. The Sims 2 Castaway

Platform(s): Nintendo Wii, PlayStation 2, PlayStation Portable, Nintendo DS

Released: 2007

It’s my considered opinion that this game is the true spiritual precursor to Animal Crossing: New Horizons, right down to some of the musical riffs sounding eerily similar. Design a boatload (as distinct from the households of the core series) of up to six Sims, fill in the backstories from their old lives, and then see how those professional skills help them fare when their yacht capsises in a storm and leaves them stranded on a desert island with only the local flora and fauna for company. Unlike its PC equivalent, the console edition of Castaway is something of a survival game, in which you build everything from shelter to clothing from the ground up while uncovering the mysteries of a long-lost civilization.

10. The Sims: Console Edition

Platform(s): PlayStation 2, Xbox, Nintendo GameCube

Released: 2003

Why port the then-bestselling PC game of all time directly to home consoles, when instead you can create a similarly-themed game that’s also entirely its own thing? This is the delightfully baffling thought process that presumably led to The Sims: Console Edition, which is almost nothing like The Sims for PC, but did introduce some of the franchise’s most recognisable lore characters, like the evil property tycoon Malcolm Landgraab and “Mom” (an angry NPC wearing a face pack and curlers who yells at you in the tutorial until you get a job). This original console outing was followed so quickly by its better-remembered sequel Bustin’ Out that you might have become convinced it was all just a fever dream, but I promise you, this was quite real once upon a time.

9. The Urbz: Sims in the City (handheld)

Platform(s): GameBoy Advance, Nintendo DS

Released: 2004

The home console edition of the same title already appeared further up this list, but if someone’s reminiscing fondly about The Urbz, it’s more than likely the significantly different GBA version they’re talking about. Sans licensed celebrity cameos, this iteration of The Urbz had to lean heavily on a story that (checks notes) sees your Sim embroiled in a life of organised crime, dodging jail time and assassination attempts and… eventually fighting vampires? I’m starting to regret growing up as a PS2 kid, honestly, this does sound even more awesome.

8. The Sims: Bustin’ Out

Platform(s): PlayStation 2, Xbox, GameCube, Game Boy Advance, N-Gage

Released: 2003-2004

Hot on the heels of The Sims: Console Edition came The Sims: Bustin’ Out, a direct sequel that was less concerned with following in the PC version’s lead, and instead aimed to present gameplay that built on the best aspects from the franchise’s console debut. The slightly eyebrow raising title in fact quite innocently* refers to the way your Sims will need to get out and about in the world more, visiting a variety of locations as they strive to reach the top of all career tracks in an attempt to fight capitalism with capitalism and regain control of the town from the avaricious Malcolm Landgraab.

*Now that I think about it though, there is an NPC in this game called Mona Lott who runs a business called Club Rubb, so…

7. The Sims 2 (handheld)

Platform(s): PlayStation Portable, Nintendo DS, Game Boy Advance

Released: 2005

The handheld editions of The Sims 2 were the absolute pinnacle of that proud Sims tradition of console spin-offs with the same title as a core PC version but a wildly different concept. These three iterations are all so different that they almost don’t deserve to be lumped in together like this, but I fear my audience may have limited patience for a list that’s just 25 different versions of The Sims 2, so it is what it is.

Each handheld version of The Sims 2 is essentially a social sim slash adventure game story mode for Strangetown, one of the neighbourhoods that shipped with TS2’s PC base game. I have spent a not-insignificant portion of my life insisting to baffled friends that they simply have to play the PSP version in particular if they want to know what actually happened to Bella Goth or get to the bottom of the alien storyline. (Usually followed by me needing to explain that yes, The Sims 2 had multiple storylines!)

6. MySims Agents

Platform(s): Nintendo Wii, Nintendo DS

Released: 2009

It continues to frustrate me that one of the best adventure games I’ve ever played is consistently overlooked due to being a kiddified Nintendo exclusive with “Sims” in the title. Look past that and you’ll realise that MySims Agents is a significantly better X-Files game than any of that show’s official adaptations, for a start. It’s weird and funny and surprisingly dark under its sugarcoating, and switches it up often enough that you never get bored.

As with all MySims games, the DS version is an entirely different game that’s not quite as good as the better-known Wii version in terms of either story or gameplay; but there’s really no such thing as a bad iteration on MySims Agents, one of the greatest hidden gems of all time. Recent rumours of a remaster will surely vindicate me.

5. The Sims Medieval

Platform(s): PC, Mac, iOS

Released: 2010-2011

There was a brief moment when I thought that The Sims Medieval was going to be the biggest game, if not on earth, then at least among the significant fandom for Sims spin-offs that existed circa 2010. Simmers love a good historical total conversion, and were so hyped at the idea of a medieval-themed expansion pack for The Sims 3 that splitting that concept out for a stand-alone RPG-lite spin-off must have seemed like a sure-fire winner.

Alas, it turns out that medievalist Sims nerds are more loud than we are numerous, and TSM received just one expansion pack before the experiment was quietly shelved by EA, never to be heard from again. On the plus side, the complete edition is perhaps the best bargain on EA’s digital storefront these days, setting you back a mere tenner.

4. The Sims 3

Platform(s): PC, Mac, PlayStation 3, Xbox 360, Nintendo Wii, Nintendo DS, Nintendo 3DS, N-Gage 2.0, iOS, Android

Released: 2009-2014

I know, I know, it’s sacrilege putting The Sims 3 lowest of all four main PC titles on this list, but look: the last time I attempted to boot up my fully-expanded copy of TS3 was sometime around 2018, and I’m hopeful that my save will finish loading any day now.

Gentle (but honest) roasting aside, The Sims 3 was without a doubt the most ambitious entry into the franchise. I’m convinced that the next big life sim, the one that finally gives The Sims a run for its money, will follow TS3’s lead and feature a highly customisable open world. It was an idea ahead of its time, unfortunately; but the good news is that a decade down the line, the technology has just about caught up to the vision.

3. The Sims 4

Platform(s): PC, Mac, PlayStation 4, Xbox One

Released: 2014-present

The grass is always greener on the other side of the impassable waist-high fence, and the current generation of The Sims is always being negatively compared to whatever came before it. All of which is to say that The Sims 4 continues the trend of being the most controversial main entry into the series, and with the recent announcement that EA plans to continue building onto this framework rather than release a numbered sequel, I wouldn’t expect those criticisms to go away anytime soon.

But while the grass over here might be a tad patchy, it’s not like it’s brown and dead, and we can still have a very nice lawn party with all the advancements that have come so gradually over TS4’s lifespan that we might not even remember we didn’t always have them. I will forever appreciate that The Sims 4 was the first game in the franchise to allow for the in-depth creation of gender non-conforming Sims without the need for a single mod installed. I won’t go chapter-and-verse on all the other things it’s done well over the last decade, but take it from someone who regularly goes back to just about every older game on this list: The Sims 4 is the only truly modern Simming experience, and it truly can’t be beat for quality-of-life.

2. The Sims

Platform(s): PC, Mac, Linux

Released: 2000-2003

It could very well just be the millennial nostalgia talking when I say that I still consider The Sims to be one of the very best games, not just in the franchise it spawned, but that I’ve ever played in my life. The original working title was apparently “virtual dollhouse”, and all I can say is that series creator Will Wright and co. must have spent a lot of time observing the ruthlessness with which little kids play with their dollhouses, because surely nothing else could explain this brutal management sim dressed up in fashionable turn-of-the-millennium clothing.

There’s no ageing in this game, but Sims still die, and they die bad. The death throes of these little computer people are so absolutely harrowing to go back and listen to 25 years later that I’m amazed our parents ever let us play. And these Sims died to everything. Placed a rug in the same room as a lit fireplace? Dead. Failed to guzzle down eight plates of steak and beans daily? Dead. Didn’t do your homework? Off to military school, which is functionally the same as being dead except your family don’t even have the comfort of seeing your ghost wandering around wailing at night. The early days of this franchise were, with hindsight, crueller than the wild west. We shall not look upon their like again.

1. The Sims 2

Platform(s): PC, Mac, Java

Released: 2004-2008

The Sims 2 found a real sweet spot between the absolute carnage of the original, and the overextension-followed-by-overcorrection of its own pair of sequels. TS2 might well be the goldilocks zone of life simulators: its need management loop is challenging but not punishing; it managed to retain the original’s wacky humour while toning down enough of the too-dark s*** that kids need not regularly be driven to tears while playing; and its introduction of meaningful time in the form of ageing allowed for a sense of variety to emerge well before it began to creak under the weight of its own expansion packs.

Add in those lovingly drawn sketches that became the foundation of most of the franchise’s best-remembered lore moments – in the form of suggested storylines to play out as you find your feet in the lightly-gothic soap opera suburb of Pleasantview, the surreal desert community of Strangetown where all conspiracy theories are real, and the triumph of public domain-friendly name-brand recognition that is the Shakespearean-inspired town of Veronaville – and you’ve got all the ingredients needed to showcase a genre-defining franchise as the absolute peak of its powers.