In The Sims 4, kids usually end up with a mix of both parents’ looks. Sometimes they come out looking almost exactly like one parent, which is super cute.
Curious how the game decides all that? Keep reading to see how genetics work in The Sims 4.
How Genes Work in The Sims 4
In The Sims 4, genes get passed down in a pretty straightforward way. The game takes traits like hair color, skin tone, and eye color from both parents and mixes them up for the kids.
This usually results in a nice blend of traits from both parents.
Basically, the game randomly selects traits from each parent and passes them on to the kids.
Sometimes, kids end up looking a lot like one parent, usually the mother. This happens about 30 percent of the time, while the other 70 percent are a mix of both parents.
No Recessive Genes
In The Sims 4, kids mostly look like their parents, with a tiny 5 percent chance for random hair or skin color. Traits from grandparents or older generations don’t come back.
There are no recessive genes in The Sims 4.
Eye, Skin, and Hair Color
In The Sims 4, eye color usually comes from one parent, while skin tone is a mix of both. The child’s traits are largely influenced by the mother’s traits.
The child’s gender does not determine which traits are passed on. A male child can inherit traits from his mother and vice versa.
Kids often get their eye color from one parent, usually the mother, though there are exceptions.
Skin tone usually ends up somewhere in the middle of the parents’, but sometimes it matches one of them exactly, although this is rare.
Hair color is a bit different.
There’s a 50-50 chance of getting either parent’s hair color. If a Sim inherits a parent’s hair texture, they’re likely to get their color too.
Unnatural hair colors, like purple, aren’t passed down.
How Do Genes Work Between Human and Occult Sims?
When a human Sim and an occult Sim have a baby in The Sims 4, the game basically rolls the dice.
The kid can come out human, occult, or sometimes get a mix of features depending on the type of occult.
There’s always a chance the baby ends up taking after the supernatural parent, which can make for some pretty cool family trees.
Genes don’t pass directly from one generation to the next. They come from the parents only.
For example, if a werewolf and a human have a baby, it’s basically a 50/50 shot. The kid might be born a full werewolf, or they might be human but carry the Dormant Wolf trait.
Let’s image this scenario.
Harry is a human Sim, even though his mom was a vampire and his dad was human. So if Harry has a baby with another human Sim, the kid will always be human too.
In cases like this, the game only looks at the parents’ current life states. It doesn’t dig back into their family history for old occult genes.
The Sims 2 Genetics Were the Best
Did you know genetics didn’t show up in the series until The Sims 2? In the original Sims game, babies basically got random traits like their eye color, hair color, and body type.
The Sims 2 introduced a realistic genetics system where traits could show up again many generations later, just like how real-life recessive genes work.
For example, if you dyed your Sim’s hair after creating them, their kids would still inherit the original hair color gene.
The Sims 4 gives us tons of customization, but its genetics system is way simpler.
Instead of pulling traits from grandparents or great-grandparents, The Sims 4 mostly sticks to whatever the parents have.
The worst in The Sims 4 has to be the chins. If you’re playing legacy challenges, you’ll notice how each generation keeps losing its chin shape. Having to fix it in CAS often felt like cheating.
Anyway, that’s how genetics works in The Sims 4.
Happy Simming!