The Official Enchanted By Nature’s Gameplay Trailer released today, giving us a more in-depth look at what’s coming in the next Expansion. Take a look at what we learned!
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Recently we got our next Expansion Pack look with Enchanted By Nature’s Gameplay Trailer:
The video is over 6.5 minutes long and it goes into plenty of details about how the new Expansion Pack will play. If you want all the highlights, keep on reading!
Enchanted By Nature’s Gameplay Details
The main focus of the Enchanted By Nature Expansion Pack is, as the title would suggest, living in harmony with Nature. There are a few key ways your sims can do this, up to and including a magical transformation!
Natural Living
Sims who want to live the natural life have all sorts of ways to immerse themselves in it. The new Natural Living Skill will let your sims slowly get more comfortable with outdoor living, allowing them to forage for food, sleep on the ground, and bathe outdoors. A sim with the Nature Nomad Aspiration will gravitate to this kind of lifestyle.
Even if your sim doesn’t want to live outdoors, they can still embrace that outdoor life in several ways. Potted plants are now a thing, requiring water and attention to thrive instead of serving a solely decorative purpose—you can even give your plants names!
Does your sim have a particular penchant for Gardening? They might be interested in the Elixir Enthusiast Aspiration. Grow your sims’ Apothecary Skill and they’ll be able to create a host of charms, potions, and elixirs that can help or hinder other sims which includes curing their Ailments; Mystical sims are able to increase the necessary Skills faster than others. Start your sim in the Naturopath Career, and they can even take ailing clients in their home!
As with most crafted things your sims will need special ingredients to conjure their various wares, some of which are more special than others. Growing The Moody Shrub lets your sims harvest emotions for use in Emotion Potions. Aura Blossoms can be gathered to affect a sim’s Luck or natural Balance, but the plant itself has moods and can choose to cooperate or hinder your sim. Finally, there’s the Lightning Root. Its leaves are vital for several potions and charms but beware, reaping this plant can come at a shocking cost!
Finding Balance
We all have an off-day sometimes but if your sims aren’t careful, they could have something far more lingering. Sims who are out of balance with nature and let things go too extreme can end up with a number of Ailments that they’ll have to craft or seek out an antidote for—sims can also contract Ailments in other ways, such as from unfriendly Fairies.
Bending your sim’s Luck is an easy way to affect the outcome of their day. Sims with high Luck will have better chances of success when it comes to food (Foraging & Cooking), Socialization, Work, and more. Bad Luck will do the opposite, and put your sim in a bad spot.
Your sims can consume Lucky Liquid to affect their Luck which can be crafted by a Naturopath. They can also create a Freezer Bunny Foot to give the holder good luck, or use a Cowplant Horn to curse the carrier with rotten Luck. For a quicker fix, visit the Glasswood Tree in Sprucederry Grove to summon the Luck-bending Spruce Almighty, AKA Mother Nature’s ex!
Becoming A Fairy
A sim with the Fairy Stories Aspiration, naturally, wishes to become a Fairy. If they’re not created in CAS as one, sims can reach out to Mother Nature for help transforming. Start by planting a Fairy Seedling which will summon her, and she’ll give you a potion to begin on your journey. With Mother Nature’s guidance and a dip in the waters of Everdew your sim will soon become an ethereal Fairy with new powers, Skills to unlock, and Fairy-Specific Needs.
While Fairies retain the Fun, Social, Energy, and Hygiene Needs, their Hunger and Bladder Needs have been replaced with the Emotional Force Need. Fairies are emotional beings and are able to fill their Emotional Force Need in several ways: they can drink Bottled Emotions for a concentrated dose, Absorb the Emotions of sims around them, and some can Regenerate Emotional Force on their own. If a Fairy doesn’t keep their Emotional Force maintained, they will wither away and die.
Abilities
If you’ve played with other Occults you’re likely familiar with Abilities. All Fairies have the ability to shrink, and with their new Woohoo style they can temporarily shrink others for an enchanting romp!
In addition to these powers granted to all Fairies, there are an additional 5 levels of Abilities to unlock in 4 different categories: Manipulation, Emotion, Nature, & Customization. We even got to see a few examples of Fairy Abilities in Enchanted By Nature’s Gameplay Trailer!
Manipulation Spells include Bringing Gnomes to Life and Aging Up other sims.
Emotional Spells include the ability to Sway Other’s Emotions to change how another sim feels.
Nature Spells include instantly Blooming Plants with the help of Fairy Dust.
It’s fascinating to note that much like nature IRL, each of these abilities could be used in positive or negative ways. For instance, Gnomes can help clean your Lot or be sent to harass others, and Fairies can sway a sim’s emotion into a creative inspiration or day-ruining anger. Traits like Disruptive can inform what kind of Fairy your sim will be!
Fairy Dust
In addition to the aforementioned Nature Spell, Fairy Dust has multiple uses. Sprinkling it on plants will enchant them to care for themselves, watering and weeding autonomously without sim intervention. There is a risk however, seeing as enchanted plants are known to attract bothersome Pixies. The dust is also used to animate Gnomes, and sims can use it to enchant crafted items as well.
One Unanswered Question…Who Is This Green Sim?
There’s one thing from Enchanted By Nature’s Gameplay Trailer that I couldn’t quite figure out. Early in the trailer we get a brief glimpse of the sim pictured above. At first glance you might think this sim is another Fairy, but I’m not so sure. While he has a mushroom tattoo on his right bicep there are no other markings on his body that we can see, and he doesn’t appear to have wings.
It’s certainly a possibility that this is a regular sim with a deceptive skin tone. I think, however, that this fellow might be a PlantSim. He’s shown reacting happily and blowing kisses right after we see another sim feed their potted plant. There’s no reason that EA can’t beef up PlantSims and re-introduce them to the game with this new DLC, since they poor things haven’t received much love in the past 8 years. Our next base game update is coming on the 1st of July, and I’m very curious to see what’s coming in that update.
Until then we’ll keep our ears to the ground for any news that might sprout up but in the meantime, happy simming!