Landlords will just steal your stuff if you don't pay rent in The Sims 4: For Rent expansion

Maxis showed off a new gameplay trailer for the upcoming Sims 4: For Rent expansion and somehow the vision of evil landlordship just keeps getting more dire. We'd already found out that the new expansion would add "eviction anxiety," burglary, and neglectful landlords, but it looks like you can be even more actively evil than that.

Presumably you can be a property owner who has some concept of decency, but The Sims 4 is really set on showing off the horrors of renting. I think they accurately clocked the player base on this one⁠—Live Mode people are fiends. So for those of you who love to sew chaos and misery, rest assured you'll have so many ways to do so. In the new trailer, Maxis shows:

  • Posting a rent demand for past-due payments
  • Threatening eviction
  • Bug infestations
  • Malicious ghosts?
  • Tenant revolts
  • Stealing your tenants' stuff

Seriously, one Sim just pulls out a giant laser and inter-dimensionally repos some fancy-looking vase from a tenant's home. And I thought rent hikes and eviction threats are bad. There are all sorts of juicy Sims storytelling opportunities in all this, but I'll sure be too scared to test any of them.

(Image credit: Maxis, Electronic Arts)

Elsewhere in the trailer, Maxis also explains how denoting each unit in a lot works, which looks like a very handy system. Specifying which rooms belong to which unit and which are common spaces looks simple enough, and that's the part I'll personally be playing with most.

The Sims 4: For Rent launches on December 7 for the usual expansion price of $40. 

Lauren Morton
Associate Editor

Lauren has been writing for PC Gamer since she went hunting for the cryptid Dark Souls fashion police in 2017. She accepted her role as Associate Editor in 2021, now serving as self-appointed chief cozy games and farmlife sim enjoyer. Her career originally began in game development and she remains fascinated by how games tick in the modding and speedrunning scenes. She likes long fantasy books, longer RPGs, can't stop playing co-op survival crafting games, and has spent a number of hours she refuses to count building houses in The Sims games for over 20 years.

Read more
The Sims 3 - A burglar cackles while holding open a bad to steal from a house
The Sims 4 is finally bringing the burglar back to the series after a decade away
The Sims 4 Businesses & Hobbies - A sim focuses on spinning a pottery wheel while a child watches with excitement
The Sims 4 Businesses & Hobbies expansion includes a ton of cross-pack play that I'm pretty psyched for
The Sims 4 - A business owner looks at a customer angrily
How to get disruptive customers to leave in The Sims 4 Businesses & Hobbies
The Sims 4 - stacks of laundry machines in a small laundromat small business next to chairs with laundry
The best part of The Sims 4 Businesses & Hobbies expansion is just coming up with fun small business ideas
The Sims 2 - a sim with white hair and a beard wears stylish sunglasses on the sidewalk
This cheat mod makes The Sims 2 feel like a god game and it turns out I am a cruel, cruel god
Inzoi - A Zoi stands in a neon yellow and pink room wearing polkadot pajamas looking shocked
Inzoi's game director teases plans for ghost Zois getting shackled to the mortal realm, karma-starved and seeking redemption if they die with a bad rep
Latest in The Sims
The Sims 4 - stacks of laundry machines in a small laundromat small business next to chairs with laundry
The best part of The Sims 4 Businesses & Hobbies expansion is just coming up with fun small business ideas
The Sims 4 - A business owner looks at a customer angrily
How to get disruptive customers to leave in The Sims 4 Businesses & Hobbies
The Sims 3 - A burglar cackles while holding open a bad to steal from a house
The Sims 4 is finally bringing the burglar back to the series after a decade away
The Sims 2 - a sim in sunglasses and a moustache frowns
This Sims 2 mod makes all your sims very horny but that's not actually the best part
The Sims 2 - a sim with white hair and a beard wears stylish sunglasses on the sidewalk
This cheat mod makes The Sims 2 feel like a god game and it turns out I am a cruel, cruel god
The Sims 4 Businesses & Hobbies - A sim focuses on spinning a pottery wheel while a child watches with excitement
The Sims 4 Businesses & Hobbies expansion includes a ton of cross-pack play that I'm pretty psyched for
Latest in News
A shirtless man rides a big fish underwater
Ark devs distance themselves from AI-generated trailer: 'we did not know that they were doing it'
Team Fortress Spy being shocked
An FPS studio pulled its game from Steam after it got caught linking to malware disguised as a demo, but the dev insists it was actually the victim of a labyrinthine conspiracy
Neighbors Suburban Warfare screenshot a child aims a slingshot at a man from across a cul-de-sac.
A beta of backyard FPS Neighbors: Suburban Warfare is out now, and the balance discussion is hysterical: nerf trash can lids and children
Grand Theft Auto 6 trailer still - woman in the front seat of a car, looking out the back window while holding a wad of cash
The specter of a GTA 6 delay haunts the games industry: 'Some companies are going to tank' if they guess wrong, says analyst
Screenshot from Wreckfest 2
Wreckfest 2 has hit early access for your car-obliterating combat racing enjoyment
Alma, the handler from Monster Hunter Wilds, closes her eyes and looks a little disappointed.
Monster Hunter director joined an online hunt, carted first: 'I feel bad about that'