Let's talk about Sims 4 and playing with other people.
There is no official multiplayer in Sims 4. EA has never added it, despite years of player demand. What exists are community workarounds, and most of them are either broken, risky, or both. I spent about six months trying to run a co-op household with a friend using the various mods floating around, and I learned enough to give you a straight answer instead of the usual fan-site hype. The most commonly referenced option is the "Story Progression Multiplayer" mod by Lxxnata, along with variants that use "Sims 4 Multiplayer Mod" by Deefuzzy. These aren't true real-time multiplayer in the way games like Minecraft or Stardew Valley have it. They operate on a turn-based or proxy system where one person hosts and others join through a relay server. Your Sim makes decisions locally, then sends the action to the host, who applies it and broadcasts the state back. This means there's always latency between your click and whatever happens in-game. If you're in London and your friend is in Toronto, you're looking at 100-200ms per action on a good day. Normal for a casual co-op session. Not fine if you expect real-time interaction.
Here's how to actually set one of these up without losing your save. First, download the mod from the creator's official GitLab or Nexus page. I used the Deefuzzy multiplayer mod because it had more consistent updates at the time I was running it. Install it into your Mods folder like any other script mod. Then go into your game options and enable "Script Mods Allowed" under the Other tab. If you skip this step, the mod simply won't load and you'll waste an hour wondering why nothing happened. The host creates a room from the mod's interface. Your friend selects "Join Room" and enters the code. Once connected, you each control your own Sims in the shared household. The game then alternates turns based on a queuing system. One person acts, then the other, then back again. It's clunky but functional for casual play. I hit a specific edge case that took me forever to figure out. When one player's Sim fell asleep during another player's turn, the game would freeze on a desync error. The host's screen would stay on the sleeping Sim indefinitely and the other player couldn't interact with anything. The workaround I found was to make sure every Sim in the household had their needs bar above 30% before starting a session. Low needs trigger autonomous actions, and autonomous actions during someone else's turn are what caused the deadlock. I also disabled "Allow Autonomous" in the game settings for the shared household, which eliminated the problem entirely though it made the Sims feel less natural.
There's a deeper issue most people don't mention. These mods modify core game scripts, which means they break every time EA pushes a patch. The mod authors have to recompile against the new version. If you update Sims 4 before checking whether the multiplayer mod supports your build, you will lose access to the mod until the author releases a fix. During the 1.105 patch cycle in late 2024, the Deefuzzy mod was broken for about three weeks. Three weeks of no multiplayer for anyone relying on it. Another thing nobody talks about is save corruption risk. I've seen multiple reports, including my own experience, where disconnecting during a transfer—say, your internet drops mid-turn—can corrupt the lot data. The lot loads fine but certain objects become non-interactive or the Sims get stuck in a loop. The fix is usually reloading a backup save from before the session started, so keep those. If you've never made a habit of backing up saves, now's the time. Place a copy in a separate folder before every multiplayer session. Takes thirty seconds and saved me twice.
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Alternatives worth considering
If multiplayer is the actual goal here, you might be better off playing a different game. The Sims 3 had a working multiplayer mod for years. The Sims 4 itself is not designed for this and never will be from EA. That's just the state of things. Some people try cloud streaming solutions like Parsec to share their screen and let a friend control their Sim in real time. This works, but it's not true multiplayer—it's one person playing while another watches and gives instructions. It feels more like co-directing than co-op, and my friend and I tried it for about a week before giving up because it was frustrating for both of us. The bottom line: the Sims 4 Gameplay Review Multiplayer scene is functional but fragile. It works for short sessions with patient players who understand the limitations. It will not replace actual multiplayer games. The mods are community-maintained, they break with patches, and they carry a small but real risk to your saves. If you go into it knowing all that, it can be a fun way to share the game with someone far away. If you expect seamless co-op, you will be disappointed.
