Gaming

The Trials And Tribulations Of Famous ‘Sims’ Families

Not even your Uncle Mark can match the messy drama of the famous Sims families.

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Sure, The Sims might let you create facsimiles of your own families and friends, but not even your Uncle Mark can match the messy drama of the famous Sims families.

Over the years, the series has shown that Sims have plenty of family secrets and dramas of their own – from illegitimate children to star-crossed lovers and property tycoons, each Sim town contains more than its fair share of Shakespearian tragedies and outrageous fortunes.

From the famous Goths to the ghostly Specters, there’s a lot to gossip about. Let’s get into it.

The Goths

The Sims Goth family

If you’ve played The Sims, you probably know the wealthy Goths: this eerie family who bare more than a passing resemblance to The Addams Family have been in every main game since the 2000 original.

The austere, rich Mortimer lives in a huge mansion with his glamourous witchy wife Bella, who is always in a red ball gown, and their geeky daughter Cassandra, and a little later on, son Alexander.

When Bella is abducted by aliens, Mortimer moves on with a gold digger, Dina Caliente – and Cassandra, all grown up, is about to marry a man who’s making woo woo with Dina on the side. But the aliens bring back Bella in the nick of time and they all carry on as normal. Well, normal as can be.

But with this family, there’s always something from the past haunting them – quite literally, given the Goths take their backyard family plot and its ghosts with them whenever they move house.

Dive deeper and you’ll find centuries of unresolved family drama featuring fatal house fires and spooky legends: rumour has it, one beautiful Goth, Morgana, drove men to insanity with her looks alone. The Goths are entrancing, but not a family to mess with.

The Montys And The Capps

Never was a story more woe-filled than this of Juliette and Romeo. These two young Sims in love are torn asunder by their feuding families, who have literally killed each other in the past. You might think that true love would bring an end to the rivalry between the wealthy families – and maybe, if you worked really hard while playing, some family members might come around.

But even in later games, the Montys and the Capps remained mortal enemies, suggesting that Juliette and Romeo’s romance was doomed.

The Pleasants

The Sims Pleasant family

All is not as it seems with The Pleasants: while this picket-fenced family might appear picture perfect, there’s a lot of drama below the surface. Daniel and Mary-Sue are happily married with twin girls, but Daniel’s also happily committing adultery with their maid – typical, we know.

After a terrible day at work, Mary-Sue came home early to find Daniel and the maid macking on, and the cracks in the facade only continued from there. We fully support her moving on and finding happiness elsewhere.

The Specters

The Sims Specter family

Olive Specter’s life is entangled with death: no, literally. Not only has she seen a lot of people die, but she and the Grim Reaper had a little fling back in the day, resulting in one very odd child, Nervous Subject.

Maybe a little put off by the similarities between father and son, Olive neglected Nervous, and he was taken away by child services and given to the Beakers, a family super into scientific experiments.

He lives on the other side of town, while Olive’s niece Ophelia lives with her. Despite her mothering faults, Nervous is the sole heir in her will, which will be sure to cause a lot of drama down the line.

The Landgraabs

The Sims Landgraab family

There are a lot of wealthy families in The Sims, but none quite as infuriatingly rich as The Landgraabs, who descend from an ‘adventurer’ who settled towns and sold off land. And they’re proof that more money means more problems.

Meanwhile, Nancy Landgraab is making even more money with some criminal deals – while married to a secret agent. Their son, Malcolm, is borderline evil, too, but it’s another Landgraab, Christina, who is the oddest of them all.  In The Sims 3, Christina loved herself so much she cloned herself three times to make a family.

And while her clones are accepted by the family, another has been excommunicated for a far worse crime: pursuing a career as a stand-up comedian. Johnny Zest now goes by his stage name, and hopes no one realises he’s a Landgraab in disguise.

The Curiouses

The Sims Curious family

Curiosity didn’t kill the cat: it resulted in a half-Sim, half-alien baby. Glarn Curious was abducted by aliens and came back home pregnant, merging together not just two family trees, but two species. And then Glarn’s alien daughter’s half-sister went and married her alien abductor. Some families are beyond this world complicated.

The Sims 4 now available on Origin, Steam, PlayStation4 and XBox One. Click here to find out more on editions available on all platforms.

(Lead image: The Sims / Facebook. All other images courtesy of EA Games)