For 40 euros, you can immerse yourself in western life with the new Horse Ranch expansion, breed and ride horses and start your nectar empire. Read here for whom this DLC is worthwhile.
There is hardly an expansion theme that Sim fans all over the world have wanted more for The Sims 4 than horses. Many missed the hoofed animals that were so beloved in the Sims 3 expansion “Simply Animal” and had already hoped for riding action in the Sims 4 expansion pack “Country Life” – in vain!
With “Horse Ranch”, released on 20 July, the developer team is not only focusing on horses, but also on life in a western environment and the organisation of a ranch.
The good news first: You are allowed to breed animal offspring, which can even receive particularly good characteristics! The bad news: If you were hoping for wild unicorns, you’ll be left out in the cold. You can only make your own unicorns visually with a horse accessory.
We took a closer look at what else awaits you in the expansion pack and whether the purchase is worthwhile for you, and took an in-depth look at horse breeding, nectar production, western life and cowboy dances.
Table of Contents
There’s a horse in the hall
First things first: the horses! In typical sim fashion, the Create-A-Sim editor offers you a wide range of design options for your own horses, plus fun accessories such as flowers, hats and blankets.
If you prefer something a little more conventional, select one of the 35 possible horse breeds, give the animal three of the eleven possible personality traits and only edit the details on the head, tail, mane, coat pattern and hoof colour.
If you want to recreate your favourite real horse, use the paint mode and brushes with matching patterns and colours.
Alternatively adopt a horse in the game or rescue an animal with a much more difficult character. You can decide for yourself how much of a challenge you want your horses to be, as some personality traits will cause more difficulties than others.
Aggressive horses, for example, are rarely cuddly, timid ones shy away at the slightest provocation and can throw inexperienced riders off! But if your Sims are patient and attentive, horses will soon begin to trust them.
And then you experience the great strength of this expansion: the facial expressions and behaviour of the horses are really lifelike and are simply fun to watch.
Foals stalk awkwardly on their long legs, adult horses prance restlessly on the spot and always move their ears to match their focus of attention and nuzzle their head against the neck of another animal they get on well with or nibble lovingly on the croup of their partner animal.
The animations are particularly cute when parents take care of a young foal or a Sim manages to calm down a frightened animal. It’s a shame that horses, like dogs and cats, count as members of the family; as usual, the limit is eight creatures per household.
Fixing our sights on the trophy
Once you’ve built a stable for your brand new mount with a place to sleep, a hay rack and a water trough, it’s time for training On leisurely to strenuous rides in the surrounding area, your Sims learn how to sit safely in the saddle while the horse slowly but steadily becomes more persistent.
Each interaction with the animal not only increases the friendship between Sim and horse, but also gets the horse used to interacting with people and unlocks new interaction possibilities thanks to increasing character ability.
Jumping and skill training is done with hurdles and barrels as obstacles, but you can also hire ranch hands to do the work or let the horses practice on their own.
Provided you have sufficient skills, you can register for tournaments via the neighbourhood community board and slowly work your way up to the master class. Even in beginner areas, a victory earns you a small tournament prize, but you are not allowed to watch.
Tournaments take place in a “Rabbithole”, so your Sims and their horses disappear from the game world for the duration of the tournament and only return after the tournament is over.
This also applies to the communal assignments, which are also available at the community table and last for four in-game hours each, with which your Sims can earn a moderate amount of money and slightly increase the skills queried in the process.
Here “Horse Ranch” unnecessarily gives away a lot of potential: After all, there have always been events in previous packs in which fans could influence the possible outcome through skills, decisions or available items. Why not here as well?
Goat’s Milk and Line Dancing
You can easily build a nice ranch thanks to a mountain of fancy western decorations and new clothes and hairstyles. Sufficient residential plots, but also prefabricated families for very different play experiences are available for this.
With cute mini goats and sheep in small format, you don’t just get cute petting animals on your ranch. Their products – multi-coloured wool and milk – correspond to the yield of cows and llamas in the expansion pack “Country Life”.
However, you should not acquire too many animals, as their care quickly becomes time-consuming. The new ranch hands as well as other rentable support like butlers, nannies or gardeners can be very helpful – but they don’t have to be. There are also crazy ranch hands who would rather bum around in front of the TV than feed the sheep …
The nectar production already known from the Sims 3 DLC “Travel Adventure” lets your Sims crush all kinds of fruits and other resources in a wine vat with their bare feet.
From the resulting sludge, you can press various types of nectar, the effect of which you can enhance by letting the filled nectar bottles mature on the shelf – the child-friendly Sims version of alcohol.
With this stuff, shy Sims drink themselves some courage or motivation at a ranch feast with authentic food from the grill for the cowboy dance with friends: In typical western style, your Sims can line dance in groups on the dance floor or strum their western guitar for friends.
The new neighbourhood offers everything that budding cowgirls and boys could wish for: A secluded prairie landscape with a bathing lake and many horse training obstacles, a western-style town and a residential area where those who like to connect will find enough nice neighbours and beautiful riding trails.
However, there are still a few annoying bugs: Sometimes getting on the horse doesn’t work, horses simply stand stock-still after training so that riding Sims can’t get off, they hang up in the animation for interactions and so on. As so often in the last two years, you can’t get by without a bit of patience and plenty of game restarts.
Editor’s verdict
Maybe as a person who couldn’t really understand the horse hype of some others even as a child, I’m not necessarily the best choice for reviewing a Sims 4 pack with a focus on horses.
After all, I don’t start squealing enthusiastically when even one horse flickers across the screen in the trailer. But maybe that’s exactly why I’m the right person for a review, because it takes a lot more than that to get me excited.
And the horses do indeed excite me: they seem extremely realistic, watching their interactions with Sims and other animals is really a lot of fun. Especially when it comes to depicting the emotions of the horses, the development team has done a really good job.
If you have been waiting for horses for years and can’t wait to start your own stud farm with breeding and lots of play around the animals, this is exactly your addon. It is also a good buy for animal fans, the mini goats and sheep are also really cute.
If you generally play without CCs and want to add a new style of decoration to your selection, there is enough new stuff with the western theme and a nice prairie/canyon neighbourhood for more variety.
Apart from that, however, the content is a little tight – because there is not much more to come. This is not really improved by some minor interweaving with other packs, such as wool use for embroidery or new life milestones.
The nectar production is nice, but there is anyway in almost every pack some possibility to give the Sims a boost or strange effects – in addition, the skill level increases at a snail’s pace.
There are no mystical creatures at all, and not much to do apart from horse breeding, training and horse shows. I would have liked to see much more content, especially in the tournaments and the exploration of the wild landscape in the new neighbourhood – so my impression remains rather ambivalent. Horses wow, rest poo … no, rest okay.
