The Sims 4′s Upcoming Alien Hijinks Are Optional

Yesterday, the developers of The Sims 4 announced a new expansion coming Feb. 26 called Strangerville, which includes a storyline that seems to be about alien possession. Simmers responded with a lot of questions, and the developers addressed them on Twitter—here’s a breakdown of what we know.

The Sims 4 has three different tiers of expansions. There’s stuff packs, which usually just have a handful of themed items, like Cool Kitchen Stuff, which gave you cool stuff for your kitchens. Game packs are larger and usually come with a new mechanic of some kind, like Jungle Adventure, which gave players a new world to vacation in and an archaeology skill. Then there are expansion packs, which fundamentally change gameplay systems and radically alter the world, like Seasons, which gave the game seasons.

Strangerville is a game pack, and the trailer mostly centers around the whole alien possession thing.

Although that storyline seems interesting, Simmers are interested in the nuts and bolts of Strangerville. Designer Aaron Houts and community manager Kate Olmstead have given more details about the pack on Twitter.

Strangerville isn’t going to be a vacation world like Selvadorada from Jungle Adventure, both Olmstead and Houts said. Your Sims can actually live there, and the new location will have a whopping 11 lots you can build on. Houts recommends you live in the town to get the full experience. “Don’t go crazy with what you imagine this might be, but there are some cool details that you’ll get if you actually live there,” he wrote.

The pack also comes with the new Military career, which Olmstead said is “fully playable,” like the Gardening career. There will also be a “secret lot,” which is less a lot that’s hard to find and more a lot with lots of secrets in it, according to Olmstead and Houts

If extraterrestrial activity isn’t your thing, don’t worry. Houts has said that you can opt out of most of the Strangerville content

“If you never engage with the story, it has a very small presence in the world and I don’t think it’ll bother people,” he said. “If you move into Strangerville and just want to live a normal life, you can do that without us trying to force you into the story or remind you that it’s there.”

As someone who had a crush on both Dana Scully and Fox Mulder, I’m pretty pumped for Strangerville. If the mysterious town doesn’t wet your whistle, you should also know that Olmstead said that the laptops seen in the trailer will also come with the pack. Finally!