Sims can die in a lot of ways. Drowning, electrocution, falling, getting attacked by a killer rabbit or chicken, getting struck by a meteorite while stargazing… the list goes on.
Once a Sim becomes a ghost, though, you’ve got several ways to figure out exactly what took them out.
This is your most reliable option, hands down.
Invite the ghost into your active household.
Open their Simology panel.
Look at their traits. Every ghost has a hidden “Died by ___” trait that tells you exactly how they died.
If you found an urn on your lot:
Leave the urn out and wait 2 to 4 days for the ghost to start haunting.
Build up your friendship with the ghost.
Invite them into your household and check their Simology panel like above.
If the Sim who died was related to one of your playable Sims, you don’t even need to invite the ghost anywhere.
Open the Simology panel of a living relative.
Switch to the family tree view.
Deceased Sims show up with a ghost icon next to their portrait.
Hover over that icon, and it’ll often show you their cause of death.
Method 3: Ask the Ghost How They Died
If the ghost is still hanging around, you can just ask them directly. Interact with the ghost and pick the “Ask Them What Happened” social interaction to find out exactly what killed them.
Method 4: Check the Mailbox
Click on your mailbox and select “Check Recent Neighborhood Stories.” This pulls up a log of recent events happening around the neighborhood, including deaths.
Keep in mind not every death gets a detailed callout this way (dying of old age, for example, doesn’t get its own notification). But for a lot of accident-related deaths, you’ll see what happened right there in the notification text.
If you’ve got the Life and Death expansion pack, there’s a career-based way to dig into deaths directly. The Reaper career has a “Death Determination” job where your Grimtern gets sent to a scene with a deceased Sim and has to investigate the cause of death. T
hink inspecting objects, checking for burn or lightning marks, spotting suspicious stains, that kind of thing, before reaping their soul. It’s a genuinely fun, hands-on way to see how the game categorizes different deaths, totally separate from the ghost-based methods above.
Even without checking anyone’s Simology panel, a lot of ghosts show physical or behavioral clues that give away how they died:
Meteorite – a small burn mark on the chest
Electrocution – visible sparks inside the ghost’s body; these ghosts can also zap other Sims with an electric shock
Drowning – leaves puddles of water around them
Fire – can start fires at will
Starvation – eats unusually large amounts of food
Vampire death by sunlight – a small sun graphic inside the ghost
Old age / Overexertion – prefers to take things slow and easy
Sauna dehydration (Spa Day) – appears dehydrated
Rabid Rodent Fever – appears as an oversized ghostly hamster
Eaten by the Mother Plant – has plant spores floating around them
Spellcaster magic overexertion – light beams and magic sparkles around the ghost
Crushed by a broken Murphy bed – Z’s floating out of their chest
Some deaths are tied to strong emotions, and the ghost can pass that same emotion on to nearby Sims:
Died of laughter – nearby Sims become playful or happy
Died of anger – nearby Sims become angry
Died of embarrassment – nearby Sims feel embarrassed too
Quick Tip
If you’re deliberately trying to trigger certain deaths (say, running the Cursed lot challenge), electrocution is especially common. Broken household appliances are risky to repair and love to shock Sims to death.