Sims 4 gets embalming, grim reaping, reincarnation, and naked moon rituals in new Life & Death expansion

Following a few early teases last month, EA has formally unveiled The Sims 4’s spooky new Life & Death expansion, which arrives on 31st October, adding everything from new neighbourhoods where the boundaries between the living and the dead are especially thin to a new grim reaper career and the ability for ghosts to WooHoo in objects small and large.

Life & Death looks to be a particularly busy expansion, touching not only on what happens to the living when a loved one is lost – think Wills and more elaborate funerals – but what Sims experience after shuffling off this mortal coil. That includes spectral romances, ghostly powers, the ability to helpfully haunt their old homes as part of the family, even reincarnation.

Living Sims looking to make the most of their time on earth can create a bucket list as part of the expansion (which players can populate manually based on specific categories or expand automatically based on a Sims traits), and Sims who don’t manage to tick everything off in life can work through that list beyond the veil as Unfinished Business – earning the chance for an especially powerful rebirth, carrying over previously earn skills and traits.

The living, meanwhile, can also plan elaborate Funeral events for their loved ones, specifying the likes of dress code, time and location, even activities that’ll play out during the ceremony. Sims might give a lighthearted eulogy, for instance, serve food, light candles, or plant something in the deceased’s memory. Players can even select specific memorial portraits, urns, tombstones, or decorate gravesites however they choose.