The Sims 2: Apartment Life is an expansion pack for the 2004 life simulation video game The Sims 2, developed by Maxis and published by Electronic Arts. The eighth and final expansion pack for the game, it was released in August 2008. Apartment Life is a broad-concept expansion pack introducing various features, including the option for Sims to live in apartments, a system of social class and personal reputation, a new pre-made neighborhood, and a magic system in which Sims can become witches and learn spells.
Apartment Life was inspired by player demand both for higher-density living options and for witchcraft, the latter of which had featured in the earlier installment The Sims: Makin' Magic. According to the developers, it was a complex expansion to create; the game had not previously allowed for multiple separate player-controlled families to live in the same area, and the designers researched real-world communities interested in magic while developing the game's magic system, influencing its portrayal.
Reception for Apartment Life was positive, with particular praise for its magic system and social opportunities. The expansion's release late in the game's lifecycle was a focus of many reviewers, who felt it would be overshadowed by the 2009 release of The Sims 3. The variety of concepts included, particularly the choice to introduce magic in an expansion pack not specifically themed around it, drew critical attention and remained the subject of note in the years following its release. Apartment Life disparate themes have influenced several later expansion packs for The Sims 3 and The Sims 4.
Background and development The Sims is a franchise of life simulation games developed by Maxis and published by Electronic Arts. It has sold over 200 million copies amongst all platforms and installments, making it one of the best-selling video game franchises of all time. The Sims 2, sequel to the original, was released on September 14, 2004. It expanded upon the original game's features, introducing elements such as an aspiration system based around short-term and long-term goals; expanded character and neighborhood customization; and the ability for Sims to raise families, age, and progress through generations.
All main entries in the series have had multiple expansion packs, which add further gameplay options. Rather than being relatively simple downloadable content, expansion packs for the first three games in the Sims series substantially expanded upon the base game's life simulation; Kieron Gillen, writing for Eurogamer in 2005, stated the first game's expansions "could have been expanded [...] into games of their own" and argued their complexity was a component in why The Sims had few competitors in its genre. Eight expansion packs were released for The Sims 2 between 2005 and 2008.
The Sims 2: Apartment Life, the eighth and final expansion pack for the game, was announced in early June 2008. It was announced alongside The Sims 2: Apartment Pets, a similarly themed stand-alone game for the Nintendo DS. The series' senior producer Rod Humble stated that both releases were intended to "reflect an aspect of real life that players can relate to". The expansion pack's focus on high-density urban living was remarked upon by early analyses as a differentiation from the base game, which defaulted to a suburban setting. Apartment Life was demonstrated at an EA Games software showcase on August 14, 2008 and released on August 27, 2008.
According to an interview with the developers, the theme for Apartment Life was inspired by long-standing player demand for both apartments and the ability for Sims to cast magic spells. The technical process of making apartments work was reportedly difficult; the game had not previously allowed for multiple separate player-controlled families to live on the same lot, which one developer referred to as an "engineering feat". When developing the game's magical system, the designers researched real-world communities interested in magic. This research influenced how magic worked in the game; in response to a question from a player about whether the voodoo doll from The Sims 2: Bon Voyage would improve a Sim's magic capabilities, a developer replied that such objects were part of a "very different type of magic" to that the game was intended to represent.
Gameplay The Sims 2: Apartment Life is a broad-scope expansion pack. In its official guide, the lawyer and game strategy guide writer Greg Kramer introduced the expansion as focused on communities, positing that the title was chosen because apartments are "a microcosm of what it means to be part of a community" rather than because of any particular focus on apartments themselves. Apartment Life makes various changes to gameplay, including the addition of apartments, the introduction of a social class system, the ability for Sims to become witches, and a number of tweaks to how Sims handle self-care and social interaction. The expansion pack overhauls the system of starting funds, money possessed by newly created Sim families; rather than the previous flat 20,000 simoleon (the in-game currency), families created following the installation of Apartment Life are granted a sliding scale of funds depending on family size and Sim ages. The artificial intelligence of Sims themselves is also tweaked, making Sims more capable of managing their essential motives (Energy, Hunger, and Bladder) and less inclined to enter destructive loops, such as refusing to eat while starving rather than complaining about how hungry they are.
The expansion pack adds apartments, allowing Sims to live in higher-density circumstances than the single-family housing of previous games. Up to four playable families can live in one building; additional apartments can house non-player characters (NPCs). Sims who live in apartments pay rent weekly to an NPC landlord and can socialize with Sims in other apartments. Players are able to move non-playable roommates in with their Sims, who can share an apartment's rent costs with player Sims. Roommates have a restricted version of a playable Sim's capabilities, comparable to pets in The Sims 2: Pets. They lack many characteristics of normal Sims such as being able to age, die, or have children, and rather than normal motives they have a "Roommate Satisfaction" meter, which measures their happiness with a living situation. Should the meter drop sufficiently low, such as if their mood or relationships with other Sims in a household are poor, they can stop paying rent or decide to move out.
Apartment Life introduces a basic system of socioeconomic distinctions to The Sims 2. Lots (households and communal areas) are characterized as "low", "middle", or "high" social class, based on factors such as their property value, the area's density, and the value of nearby buildings. The expansion adds a new type of NPCs called "social group townies", which are six kinds of characters intended to correspond with this new system: the underclass Gearheads, the lower middle class Bohemians, the middle class Jocks, the upper middle class Techs, and the upper class Socialites. Social group townies inhabit areas around their classes, are inclined to certain jobs and hobbies, and have characteristic social interactions; for instance, Bohemians inhabit "low" and "middle" areas, are frequently in the Artist, Dance, or Music careers, and have the special "earthy hug" and "tell story about art" interactions.
Playable Sims are able to build reputations in their neighborhoods based on their interactions with non-playable Sims. Sims who are good friends with non-playable Sims can randomly receive benefits such as higher wages, introductions to potential new friends, and discounts on items; those who make enemies with non-playable Sims can suffer corresponding penalties, such as being demoted at work. As well as individual friendships, reputation is impacted by a Sim's overall interactions with the community. Sims' reputations are improved by acting friendly towards NPC Sims, and decreased by hostility towards them. Sims with positive reputations see benefits such as improved party scores and job performance, while those with negative reputations face repercussions like limited roommate candidates and decreased romantic success.
In line with the introduction of supernatural Sims in previous expansion packs, Apartment Life adds witchcraft to the game. Sims can become witches by befriending a witch NPC, of which there exists one each for good and evil witches, and asking to learn the practice. Witches exist on an alignment scale, being good, neutral, or evil. In an interview with the developers, one stated the scale was set up to permit moral complexity in gameplay. Alignment changes both as Sims cast spells and as they study magic, with the player being able to direct witches to specifically study good, neutral, or evil magic. Witches of different alignments have different distinctive outfits, and good and evil witches are by default less friendly to one another than other Sims. Casting spells requires a sufficient spell level and access to items called reagents, which are expended when a spell is cast. Spells include teleportation, summoning spectral cat assistants, and summoning bees to attack other Sims.
Apartment Life adds a new pre-made neighborhood, Belladonna Cove. Belladonna Cove is the largest pre-made neighborhood in The Sims 2, with 49 lots. Unlike the more suburban or small-town structures of previous neighborhoods, Belladonna Cove is a higher-density urban environment. The neighborhood is structured around the expansion pack's social class feature, with geographically distinct areas of higher and lower socioeconomic status. The centre of the neighborhood features a statue of Bella Goth, a significant character in The Sims 2 backstory. A member of a wealthy family, Goth disappeared under mysterious circumstances in the in-game time between the original game and The Sims 2. Though Goth recurs in later games, often linked to witchcraft or aliens, her whereabouts during The Sims 2 are kept ambiguous in-game. Speculation that Goth is a witch was frequent amongst players, including suggestions she would appear as one in Apartment Life prior to its release.
Soundtrack The soundtracks of all Sims releases from The Sims 2 onwards feature musicians covering their existing songs in Simlish, the game's constructed language. Musicians who featured on the soundtrack for The Sims 2: Apartment Life include Katy Perry, Good Charlotte, Tally Hall, Does It Offend You, Yeah?, and Gabriella Cilmi. Cilmi, then aged sixteen, was the youngest artist to appear on a Sims soundtrack. She stated in an interview that she was a fan of the series, having first played it in 2002. Upon the tracklist's announcement, Mike Fahey of Kotaku negatively compared it to The Sims 2: FreeTime soundtrack, which featured They Might Be Giants, and stated that Good Charlotte were overrepresented on video game soundtracks.
Reception and legacy The Sims 2: Apartment Life received positive reviews on release, with a Metascore of 75, corresponding to a "generally favorable" reception. Reviewers praised the expansion pack's additions, but remarked that its late entry in the series overshadowed its potential; The Sims 3 was due to release in early 2009, and Apartment Life was perceived as an eleventh-hour addition likely to be subjugated by the newer game. Apartment Life was the sixteenth-highest-selling PC game of 2008 and the ninth-highest-selling of the last week of May 2009, just prior to The Sims 3 release. It left the top ten charts following the next game's release that June. Apartment Life has been positively received in retrospect, and later entries in the series have expanded upon its themes.
Contemporary reception