Comparison between The Sims 3 and The Sims 4

The Sims 4 has some features new to the series; at the same time, many features have been lost since The Sims 3.

New features

 * Create a Sim: Hands-on interface.
 * Directly pull and stretch the heads of Sims and even their bodies.
 * Body parts can be enlarged or shortened
 * New Walkstyles
 * Better Genetics
 * Create Parent, Sibling and Child
 * Genetically created sims resemble the Sims created from
 * Enthinic looking presets of faces and hair
 * Butt slider
 * Build mode: Improved and easier
 * Moving and rotating rooms and houses.
 * Saving rooms (for sharing, copying or moving to another lot).
 * Enlarging objects (objects can be scaled using SHIFT-'[' and SHIFT-']'. It's useful for decorative objects).
 * Objects on walls, and windows, can be placed at any height.
 * Curved fences/railings. (The size of the curved section can be adjusted. They can be elliptical. They must be multiples of 90 degrees. The minimum size for a 90 degree curve is 2x2. Curves can define the edge of a floor (with or without a railing), but only when convex (a floor tile on the outside of the curve is not rendered correctly) ).
 * Players can easily adjust the height of a floor at any time (including after building floors above it), but (unlike Sims 3) there are only 3 supported heights and the height of a floor must be same for the whole lot.
 * Roofs on the same lot can have different patterns.
 * Columns (pillars) automatically scale to the height of the floor/storey (but when placed on the ground with a building that has a foundation, the pillar is the height of the ground floor only, so there is a gap above it equivalent to the height of the foundation).
 * The Gallery
 * Traveling across worlds / neighborhoods without losing relationships, inventory or any other data
 * Emotions: each emotion allows unique interactions
 * Multitasking
 * Sims can resurrect other Sims from a book called "The Book Of Life" in which Sims themselves can create.
 * Museums
 * Comedy clubs
 * Ability to change a Sim's aspiration without the use of special objects or game rewards
 * Ability to edit in CAS at any time
 * Merging of the Aspiration and Trait systems
 * Multi-level lifetime goals

New Objects

 * Rocket ships
 * Monkey bar
 * Gaming Rig

CAS

 * Pants are tucked in under boots
 * Headwears and hairpieces are now separate

Little features

 * Breastfeeding
 * Delete and move objects Sims are using without the  cheat
 * Sims can wear any hat with any hairstyles without changing the other
 * Music from stereos now speeds up when the game's speed is changed. Television shows still remain in normal speed.

Returned features from previous expansion packs

 * Cowplant (University)
 * Voodoo doll (Bon Voyage)
 * Nightclubs
 * Violin (FreeTime)
 * Grand pianos
 * Cupcake machine
 * Breast slider (Late Night)

CAS

 * Create A Style no longer possible (clothes and objects are available in pre-defined colours only).
 * Teens and proceeding life stages are all the same height
 * No opacity slider for makeup

Life stages

 * Toddlers

NPCs

 * Repairman
 * Firefighter
 * Police
 * Burglar
 * Gardener
 * Butler
 * Social worker
 * Nanny

Objects

 * Dishwasher and Trash compactor
 * Pool
 * Newspaper
 * Cars (they exist only as animated ambient decorations - Sims can't own them or travel in them)
 * Alarm clock

Cheats

 * constrainfloorelevation

Build Mode

 * No more basements (Came in World Adventures patch)
 * Changing ground/floor elevation (the lot is completely flat).
 * Players can't have foundations on one area without having them on every wall in the lot.
 * The Sims 4 has a maximum of three floors, but the foundation is no longer counted as a floor. (In The Sims 3 it started out with 3 floors but after a few patches there are five floors)
 * Spiral staircases (Came in Generations Patch)


 * Steps can't have different railings on each side (nor a railing on one side only, except when that side is against a wall).
 * Create A Style (objects are available in pre-defined colors only).

Editing World

 * Players can't place new lots (nor change the size of existing ones), nor decorations in the world.
 * Players can't rotate and/or reposition (when placing a lot into a larger one) a lot when placing it.
 * Worlds are much smaller - about 25 lots per world (but Sims can move freely between them during a game, and there are two worlds in the base game).
 * The maximum lot size is reduced from 64x64 to 50x50 (and there are only about 2 50x50 lots per world). (The sizes of lots in the base game worlds are 15x20, 20x30, 30x40 and 50x50).

Live Mode

 * No more open world
 * Players get a loading screen when moving a played Sim to another lot or neighborhood (region of about 5 lots), but not on moving between the current lot and the open space of its neighborhood.
 * When Sims in the same household are on different lots, there are limited actions available for those not on the current lot, and players can switch to the lot of another Sim but that will cause a loading screen.
 * No more Story progression. Sims the player don't control directly will die eventually, but they won't get married or have children on their own.
 * Doors cannot be locked (a free upgrade for the Sims 3 allowed doors to be locked so that no sims or only specified sims could go through them).