Vampires - The Sims 4 Guide - IGN (2024)

Vampires were introduced to The Sims 4 with the Vampires Game Pack, and they add a dark side of living in suburban SimCity. They are a fully optional feature of the game and are not required to play, though it's a certainty you'll run into a vampire or two roaming about the neighborhood.

Creating a Vampire

Any Sim young adult or older may be turned into a vampire, which will be covered a bit later on this page. However, if you're eager to get into playing as a vampire right away, you can make one outright in a new family in Create A Sim. To do this, simply click the "Add a New Sim" button at the button, then select "Add Occult Sim," then "Add Vampire."

When creating a vampire this way, you can select what age you would like the Sim to be. Vampires don't manifest their unique powers until they become Teenagers, so if you make a Child or a Toddler, they'll act as normal Sims even if they are vampires. You can quickly and easily tell if a Sim is a vampire by the presence of a vampire symbol above their traits.

During creation, vampires have an additional option you can edit called their "Dark Form." To edit their dark form, click their picture in the bottom-left corner. You'll see an alternate version of their head above their normal form. You can also see buttons that will quickly allow you to copy parts of the Sim from their normal form to their dark form, though not the other way. If you make a mistake, you can undo a copy.

A vampire's dark form automatically appears while the Sim is using any of its Vampire Powers or feeding. Dark forms can also be toggled on at will during normal gameplay. Oddly enough, other Sims don't react negatively to seeing a vampire's dark form, though they do get a little scared when they watch vampires using their powers, especially feeding!

Note that a vampire's dark form is in name only. You can use the new facial details to make the Sim's default face all scarred and gross, and then make their dark form a conventionally and traditionally attractive appearance. Alternatively, you can make a Sim's normal and dark forms completely identical. Details are up to you, and it's cosmetic only.

Turning a Sim

If you'd rather convert a Sim already in the world into a vampire, you need to have a different vampire turn them. Turns are always consensual in The Sims 4; no human Sim can be turned without the player giving the order. However, the order can be given from either the turner or the turnee.

If you are controlling the human Sim, your first task will be to befriend a vampire. The NPCs who come shipped with the game generally have normal-human appearances unless they're in their dark form, so it may be tricky to see one just wandering the street. However, you can simply travel to Forgotten Hollow and knock on a random door. Any of the Sims who live in Forgotten Hollow, and the Sims who wander its streets, are generally vampires.

After meeting a vampire for the first time, you simply need to befriend them as you would any other Sim. You're aiming to increase the friendship bar however, rather than the Romance bar (unless you're intentionally going for that too!). The Sims treats turning as pedantic social interaction, and some vampires will happily turn you once the Sims hit around 25% to 50% on the bar. After that, the command is listed in the Friendly category.

If you're going the other way and playing as a vampire who wants to turn a human Sim, the process is similar. Simply meet your subject and befriend them however you wish. The difference here is that the relationship threshold can be lower if you're controlling a high-level vampire, and all vampires need the Vampire Creation Vampire Power to execute the turn.

If you are a human asking to be turned, the vampire does not need the Vampire Creation power to do so. In the screenshot above, the Sims shown are married to each other and are under human control. The woman is a vampire who does not possess the Vampire Creation power. However, because the human man is asking to be turned, the interaction is available. If control was switched to the woman, she would not be able to turn him due to not yet having the power.

Assuming you've met the criteria (such as if the woman above bought the power), simply select the Vampire… > Turn Into Vampire command. The only thing stopping you at that point would be a lack of Vampire Energy to use the power.

Children use a basic phenotype to determine if they'll be a vampire upon birth. If both Sims are vampires when they conceive a child, the child is guaranteed to be a vampire too. If only one parent is a vampire, it'll be a coin flip whether the child will be too. If a child is human, they cannot be turned until they hit their Teenage years.

Vampire Interface

Vampires have a different Needs Panel than their human counterparts. For comparison, here are the two types of panels side by side.

Vampire Sims effectively rename two of their meters, while the Bladder meter is dropped entirely. Given that Vampire Sims never need to eat regular food, they also never need to visit bathrooms. Vampires can still be sick though and may use toilets for vomiting or pregnancy tests.

Vampire Energy drains so slowly that it's unlikely you'll notice its decline during normal activities. However, a vampire's energy meter will be consumed when using any Vampire Power, and it will be significantly drained when the vampire is out in the sun. (Note: if a vampire is indoors, they will be safe even if the room has windows.) Unless the vampire is in the sun, it is not lethal for the energy meter to drain entirely. Vampires regain energy slowly by sleeping (though they'll gain it much faster if they sleep in a coffin), or they can use a self-interaction called Vampire… > Dark Meditation that basically serves as a quick, impromptu nap that restores about 20% of their energy.

The thirst meter represents how much they crave blood. Vampires can recover their thirst in many ways, from compelling targets to hold still while they feast, to politely asking permission to drink. Compelling a target to take a deep drink results in the biggest gain, but it knocks out the victim and hits both with a relationship penalty. Vampires may also create plasma packs from fish or frogs if they've reached a high enough Vampiric Lore Skill level, directly consume plasma fruits, or eat food made from plasma fruits. "Fresh" plasma from a living human Sim is the most efficient of these methods.

The thirst meter, unlike a human Sim's hunger meter, cannot lead to death. However, vampires are sensitive to their thirst meters getting too low, generally drawing high "Uncomfortable" Emotion penalties that will stop all other activities from happening. If a vampire's thirst meter goes critical, they may go into a frenzy and attack the nearest human they see even if they're under manual control.

The purple meter across the bottom of the panel serves as their experience points or knowledge level toward getting a new power point. This fills as the Sim reads vampire books or uses any power, while the little book button icon leads to the power selection panel. More details of this system are on the Vampire Powers page.

General Information on Vampires

Vampires come with a host of advantages over their human counterparts. They are stronger and easily win fights, helping out Sims who are in the Criminal Career track or Sims with Deviance Aspirations. They also rarely need to sleep, so while they don't inherently have higher Skill gain rates than humans, they can work on skills much, much longer and therefore get promoted or simply earn more money faster.

Vampires are immune to normal disease, though female Sims will still suffer morning sickness when they become pregnant. Vampires also never age once they hit Young Adulthood unless you force them to age up. Ergo, vampires will never die of old age.

However, vampires are not completely immortal. They can still die from downing, fires, electrocution, or other accidents. Further, vampires will die if they run out of vampire energy while standing out in the sun. If a vampire is caught in the sun's rays at low energy, it will be incredibly difficult to resist the process. Even in Forgotten Hollow, vampires will start to sizzle and smoke from 6am to 6pm. There will be no other visual cues, though they will gain a debuff moodlet almost certain to make them switch to the Uncomfortable Emotion.

Depending on the weaknesses you've selected for your Vampire Powers, this can make playing as a vampire incredibly difficult if you're trying to hold down a conventional Career. At maximum weakness to the sun, vampires will suffer extreme damage just from the walk to and from the curb when they go to and come from work. However, this challenge is still viable if you build your house's front door as close to the curb as possible.

Vampires become exponentially more difficult to control the more you have in a single family. To most effectively manage vampire thirst, a vampire should live with a human Sim they can reliably drink from. Having a family of vampires that all need their thirsts managed is difficult; while they'll all live despite low thirst meters, low thirst meters also means they'll likely be unable to work on their skills due to their constant discomfort. You'll want to take advantage of buyable plasma packs and plasma fruits to help control them if there are no humans nearby.