The Sims 4 Life & Death cheats
A comprehensive list of every new trait, career, and skill cheat introduced in The Sims 4 Life & Death, as well as cheats for the brand-new gameplay mechanics of grief, ghost mastery, and the bucket list.
Image credit:EA / Maxis
The Sims 4 Life & Death expansion pack is a franchise-first, in that it introduces formal funeral events and varied emotional reactions to the death of loved ones into the world of The Sims .
If that sounds like a bit of a downer, it’s really not: the new mechanics have a lot to say about how coming to terms with death can help make life more vibrant and enjoyable. And if that’s still not your cup of tea, playable ghosts have been thoroughly overhauled to make the spooky side of mortality more fun as well.
Naturally, this being The Sims, new gameplay means that there are lots and lots and lots of cheats you can use to adjust the game to your liking. To help you with that, we’ve listed every cheat in The Sims 4 Life & Death .
On this page:
- How to use cheats in The Sims 4 Life & Death
- The Sims 4 Life & Death trait cheats
- The Sims 4 Life & Death skill cheats
- The Sims 4 Life & Death career cheats
- The Sims 4 Life & Death Grief cheats
- The Sims 4 Life & Death Ghost Mastery cheats
- The Sims 4 Life & Death Bucket List cheats
How to use cheats in The Sims 4 Life & Death
As a general rule, before attempting any cheats in The Sims 4, you want to enable testing cheats . While not every cheat in TS4 requires this in order to work, the vast majority do, so we always recommend this as a starting point.
To enable testing cheats, first press Ctrl + Shift + C if you’re playing on PC/Mac, or hold down all four shoulder buttons simultaneously on Xbox/PlayStation.
This will bring up the cheat console, where you need to type testingcheats true . Enter this cheat and you should receive a notification that cheats have been enabled. You can now use any cheats from further down the page by simply typing them in and hitting enter.
If you want to turn testing cheats off again once you’re done, bring up the console again and type testingcheats false . You should receive a notification that cheats have been disabled.
Using console cheats and debug cheats in TS4 is generally very safe – these are tools included in the game by the developers, after all – but there’s always a low risk of something going awry. I recommend backing up your favourite saves often just to be on the safe side.
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Image credit:EA
The Sims 4 Life & Death trait cheats
Life & Death adds a variety of new traits for your Sims, including three new traits that can be applied directly in Create-A-Sim, a new Aspiration Reward trait, a new Career Reward trait, three new Reward Traits for completing gameplay feats, and a new Ghost type to go with the pack’s latest cause of simulated death.
| Trait Name | Description / Notes | Trait Type | Equip with… | Remove with… |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Chased by Death | Sim has a higher chance of death, and receives personal messages from the Grim Reaper after each near-death experience | Create-A-Sim - Lifestyle | traits.equip_trait trait_ChasedByDeath | traits.remove_trait trait_ChasedByDeath |
| Macabre | Sim will never become terrified, experiences positive emotions around morbid subjects, and becomes bored around happiness | Create-A-Sim - Lifestyle | traits.equip_trait trait_Macabre | traits.remove_trait trait_Macabre |
| Skeptical | Sim will deny the existence of ghosts and other occults, and can question their authenticity (even to their faces) | Create-A-Sim - Lifestyle | traits.equip_trait trait_Skeptical | traits.remove_trait trait_Skeptical |
| Burning Soul | Sim benefits from having completed their Soul’s Journey in a previous life | Reward Trait - Gameplay Feat | We’re still working on figuring out how to apply this Reward Trait via cheats! | We’re still working on figuring out how to remove this Reward Trait via cheats! |
| Ghost Whisperer | Sim benefits from having completed the Ghost Historian aspiration | Reward Trait - Aspiration | traits.equip_trait GhostWhisperer | traits.remove_trait GhostWhisperer |
| Grimborn | Sim is the biological child of the Grim Reaper | Reward Trait - Gameplay Feat | traits.equip_trait Grimborn | traits.remove_trait Grimborn |
| Grim Descendant | Sim is the biological grandchild of the Grim Reaper | Reward Trait - Gameplay Feat | traits.equip_trait GrimDescendant | traits.remove_trait GrimDescendant |
| Grim’s Right Hand | Sim has reached Level 10 of the Reaper Career | Reward Trait - Career | We’re still working on figuring out how to apply this Reward Trait via cheats! | We’re still working on figuring out how to remove this Reward Trait via cheats! |
| Death by Murder of Crows | Sim is a ghost who died by Murder of Crows | Cause of Death / Ghost Trait | We’re still working on figuring out how to apply this Death Trait via cheats! | We’re still working on figuring out how to remove this Death Trait via cheats! |
Note: If you started a save before Patch 174, you may want to manually add the Grimborn trait to Nyon Specter using the cheat above, as it was accidentally missed off his Simology panel in the launch version of Life & Death.
The Sims 4 Life & Death skill cheats
Life & Death introduces a new skill to The Sims 4: Thanatology , or the scientific and humanistic study of death.
Thanatology is considered a minor skill for adults since it only has 5 levels, and is mainly used in conjunction with the two new careers introduced in the pack (see below). Raising Thanatology skill also provides some unique interactions with ghosts and voodoo dolls.
To raise a Sim’s Thanatology skill, use the following cheat:
Stats.Set_Skill_Level Minor_Thanatology [X]
Replace [X] with the desired number from 1-5 to instantly raise the active Sim’s Thanatology skill to that level.
The Sims 4 Life & Death career cheats
The Sims 4 Life & Death adds two new careers for your Sims try out: Undertaker , a traditional Sims 4 career with two branching tracks; and Reaper , an active career that allows you to accompany your Sim to work if you choose.
As ever, you can quickly move up and down the ladder in both new careers with cheats:
| Career | Promotion Cheat | Demotion Cheat |
|---|---|---|
| Reaper | Careers.Promote Active_Reaper | Careers.Demote Active_Reaper |
| Undertaker | Careers.Promote Mortician | Careers.Demote Mortician |
Note: Upon reaching Level 5 of the Undertaker career, you’ll be prompted via a pop-up to choose which track to follow: Funeral Director or Mortician . There are no unique cheats once you’ve chosen a branch, but demoting your Sim back to Level 4 and then getting them promoted again will re-trigger the pop-up and allow you to choose again.
Image credit:EA / Maxis
The Sims 4 Life & Death Grief cheats
Grief is a brand-new mechanic added with the Life & Death expansion pack, replacing the short-lived Sad moodlet that all Sims used to get upon the death of a loved one with a more nuanced set of possible reactions.
In practical terms, Grief in TS4 is expressed through one of four temporary traits that are added to a Sim’s personality for a variable number of in-game days, and have different outcomes depending on how they’re resolved in gameplay.
But if you’d like to speedrun the grieving process and side-step the long-term effects, change how your Sim is currently expressing grief, or even force some poor Sim to start grieving without any particular cause, you can use the following cheats:
| Grief Type | Equip with… | Remove with… |
|---|---|---|
| Anger | traits.equip_trait trait_grief_anger | traits.remove_trait trait_grief_anger |
| Blues | traits.equip_trait trait_grief_depression | traits.remove_trait trait_grief_depression |
| Denial | traits.equip_trait trait_grief_denial | traits.remove_trait trait_grief_denial |
| Holding It Together | traits.equip_trait trait_grief_hold | traits.remove_trait trait_grief_hold |
The Sims 4 Life & Death Ghost Mastery cheats
Ghost Mastery is the new, expanded special gameplay for playable ghosts introduced with The Sims 4 Life & Death. Like several other occult types such as vampires, spellcasters, and werewolves, ghosts now have a unique skill tree, allowing them to gain power and abilities as they gradually become more experienced in their supernatural field.
If that all sounds like fun to you, except for the “gradual” part being a bit of a faff, then you can use this cheat to immediately gain Ghost Mastery XP:
Stats.set_stat rankedstatistic_ghostpowers_ghostxp [X]
Replace [X] with any desired number to instantly gain that amount of XP. For your reference, the XP amounts needed to ascend through all five tiers of Ghost Mastery are as follows:
- Tier 1: Wispling = default upon becoming a ghost
- Tier 2: Ethereal Novice = 500XP
- Tier 3: Phantasmal Ascendant = 1,000XP
- Tier 4: Spectral Luminary = 1,600XP
- Tier 5: Transcendent Wraith = 3000XP
This means that to reach Tier 5, you need 6,100XP; however, you can continue to accrue XP after that until you’ve unlocked everything on the skill tree. The total XP cap for Ghost Mastery is currently unknown, but we’ll update this page if we find it!
Note: This cheat will have no effect unless your active Sim is already a ghost.
The Sims 4 Life & Death Bucket List cheats
The Bucket List is a new mechanic introduced in Life & Death that sits alongside a Sim’s Aspiration once they reach the Young Adult life stage. Bucket List objectives will autonomously spawn for a Sim over time based on their personalities and experiences, or you can choose to have them write Bucket List objectives themselves by interacting with a computer and choosing from broad categories. If, upon death, a Sim becomes a playable ghost, their Bucket List will be renamed as their Unfinished Business.
There’s currently no gameplay means by which to officially choose your individual Bucket List or Unfinished Business objectives. But, while we haven’t found any cheats that can be typed into the console that affect the Bucket List either, you can use debug cheats to edit a Sim’s Bucket List objectives!
With testing cheats enabled, Shift + Click on the Sim whose Bucket List you want to edit and follow this route through sub-menus: Pack Cheats > Expansion Packs > EP17 Life & Death > Add Unfinished Business Objective . Choosing a category from here will take you to a pop-up menu from which you can freely select any available objective.
Note: The debug cheat always refers to “Unfinished Business” rather than “Bucket List”, even if the Sim in question is not a ghost (yet).
At the time of writing, you can use this debug cheat to add an objective, but not to remove one. However, you can reset the Bucket List through gameplay if you don’t like one of your Sim’s objectives, although unfortunately this does clear the entire list.
We’ve also got a comprehensive cheats page covering The Sims 4 base game — including those money cheats I know you’re always wondering about!
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