Realm Of Magic had already added a few additional complications to the basic system introduced in Vampires, but Werewolves is definitely the deepest yet. Like vampires and spellcasters, werewolves have their own unique abilities tree with various lupine perks and behaviours they can unlock as they earn XP. I got much the same impression of iteration and improvement from the core werewolf gameplay. The Wildfangs' clubhouse is a shell building, with the real party taking place around the nearby bonfire. As in Realm Of Magic, ambient NPCs introduce unique interactions, and there's a bit more to do and see than just harvest collectables, even if there's nothing entirely original to this pack in those spaces between. Moonwood Mill may not have more actual lots than Forgotten Hollow or Glimmerbrook, but there's less empty space in the world surrounding them. I got the impression that the dev team had built on the ideas behind the worlds in those previous game packs, drawing lessons from what worked and what didn't without changing the overall scope of what an occult-themed world offers. Amenities include a werewolf sparring ground, a swimmable lake, a hill summit, two werewolf clubhouses, and a network of tunnels werewolves can explore for a spot of text-based choose-your-own-adventuring. Still, the out-of-bounds areas of the town are quite well fleshed-out compared to worlds of a similar size added in older add-ons, particularly the other supernatural packs. Moonwood Mill is on the smaller side, with just one neighbourhood containing five buildable lots. Editable areas are sparse on most maps in The Sims 4, but Moonwood Mill is at least an interesting world to explore. For research purposes, naturally I moved him into the new world added with the pack, which is called Moonwood Mill. Now that Sim!Scott was all dressed up and ready to go, it was time to take him for a spin in Live Mode. And if they look like attendees at a furry convention, so what? No need to yuck anyone's yum. It makes werewolves in The Sims 4 visually distinct from their counterparts in the second and third games, and leans more heavily into actual animal transformation as opposed to the (dare I say it) slightly generic beastman vibes given off in the older games. Now, I know that the werewolf designs in this game weren't universally well-received, but I really love the cartoonish art style the Sims team have gone with this time around. Finally, the colour wheel has returned to Create-A-Sim! In an extremely limited context. In other words, werewolves are now the most deeply customisable humanoids in The Sims 4. A stand-out feature, for example, is the option to fully customise your werewolf's pelt, with three layers of coat colours allowing you to combine as many hair colour swatches, as well as the option to simply airbrush over their coat with a series of pre-set stencils or even by drawing freehand. Most interestingly, Beast Form editing allows you to fully mould your werewolf's appearance using a suite of unique options, some of which have clearly taken notes from the Cats & Dogs expansion. Werewolves, like many other occult life states in The Sims 4, have two parallel forms for you to edit: their normal human appearance and their transformed appearance (known, in werewolves' case, as Beast Form). That said, I made sure to have a proper poke around at all the new features, and my fellow CAS fans are in for quite a treat. I have been known to lose entire days to my efforts in Create-A-Sim, but on this occasion I'll admit to being a tiny bit impatient to jump into Live Mode. (A brief required disclaimer here: my screenshots for this article were taken from the preview build, and so might not align completely with the released version.) Beast! Human form! So naturally, as soon as I got my hands on the preview for Werewolves, I set about recreating Scott from the ground up. My Monster Prom Sims have all been looking amazing lately, except for poor sweet Scott Howl, who was stuck as a vanilla human with as much facial hair as I could give him (not much, sadly). A good 75% of my time in The Sims is spent re-creating characters from other media I enjoy, and since much other media I enjoy has some heavy supernatural themes going on, you can imagine my ongoing distress at the lack of lycanthropes. Like many Sims 4 players, I've had werewolves high up on my new features wishlist for a while.
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