Environment

"Decorations and landscaping around the lot will affect the environment. Sims like bright, clean spaces with plenty of color and light. A well kept house and yard will surely fulfill this need."

- The Sims 2

Environment (in The Sims 2 and The Sims Stories), also known as Room (in The Sims and console games of The Sims 2 and The Sims 2 Pets), is an often overlooked motive that determines how happy a Sim is with the environment around him or her. It is a combined rating that analyzes the design and content of the room that the Sim is currently standing in. Different factors can affect this motive; for example, Sims don't like small rooms, or rooms with not enough light or windows, nor do they like dead fish in the aquarium, dead plants, walls with no texture on them, foundations with no floor texture on them, dirty plates, puddles, ash piles, or dirty or broken objects. Certain purchases will improve the room rating, such as expensive fireplaces, sculptures, landscaping, or paintings.

Although this need does not exist in The Sims 3 and The Sims Medieval, object catalogues inexplicably still mention the environment need.

The Sims and The Sims Bustin' Out
This meter is known as room in The Sims, and both child and adult Sims have it. If Unleashed is installed, pets also have it.

This meter is absent from The Sims Bustin' Out for handheld and replaced with the homesick meter, although the icon for the room motive is still used. This motive can be replenished by staying at home, and depletes by leaving home.

The Urbz: Sims in the City
Room is not present in The Urbz: Sims in the City, but some objects have stats for room.

In The Urbz: Sims in the City for Handheld, there is a homesick meter similar to the one in Bustin' Out for handheld.

The Sims 2 and The Sims Stories
In The Sims 2, it is renamed environment, and does not appear until a Sim becomes a teen (though strangely, in The Sims 2, babies have the environment motive when their motives are viewed with testingcheatsenabled enabled). In The Sims 2: Pets, environment is replaced with scratch (for cats) and chew (for dogs). PlantSims do not have an environment motive.

If a Sim wakes up to an alarm clock, or noise caused by a neighbor through a shared wall, their environment bar will become completely red, until the noise is gone. If they can't, their mood will drastically decrease, but it quickly recovers once they finally turn it off. An accident or fire causing Sims to panic will also drain all of their environment bar.

If there are too many plates of spoiled food around a Sim, and a Sim's environment bar is low, he or she may die by flies.

Broken objects, dirty objects, trash, dirty dishes, spoiled food, dimness and puddles also decrease a Sim's environment need.

Since it depends on a Sim's surroundings, environment is not affected by the maxmotives cheat, or by motive-affecting items.

The Sims 2 console games
In The Sims 2 and The Sims 2 Pets, the motive is room, which is same as The Urbz: Sims in the City. However, in The Sims 2 Castaway, the motive is environment.

The Sims 3 and later games
The environment need has been removed in The Sims 3, The Sims Medieval and The Sims 4.

In The Sims 3 and The Sims 4, objects still have an environment rating, and Sims who are standing in a room with a high environment rating will get a "Decorated" or "Nicely Decorated" moodlet. Sims in a room with trash, puddles, spoiled food, and dirty objects will get the "Dirty Surroundings", "Filthy Surroundings" or "Vile Surroundings" moodlets based on how dirty the room is.

In The Sims 4, decorative objects provide a moodlet that gives the Sims inside a happy moodlet, and multiple decorations stack the moodlets and make the Sims happier. Conversely, spoiled food, puddles, trash, and damaged items give nearby Sims uncomfortable moodlets.

In patch 95 of The Sims 4, all architectural elements such as wall patterns, floor patterns, fences, and columns will have impact on environment either positive or negative. This feature can be disabled in the gameplay option menu.

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