The Sims 4 Burglar Mod: Become An Expert Criminal!

Burglars used to be the scourge of sim suburbia, but have been noticeably absent in The Sims 4. Bring them back with a Burglar Mod by Carl’s Guides!

If you’ve played The Sims franchise for a while, you know at least one of these sounds. You hear it late at night when your sims are sleeping and you freeze up immediately, hoping you remembered to place a security alarm and frantically looking over the lot to see what big-ticket items are at risk for being swiped. Yes, you’ve been visited by a Burglar!

Burglary was something that could happen to your sims in the previous iterations of the games, but The Sims 4 chose to omit this occurrence. This was most likely due to the fact that it was originally meant to be a multiplayer online game. These days The Sims 4 is far removed from it’s MMO-slated past, yet the Burglar remains a mere legend, no longer terrorizing the citizens of Simlandia.

Until now!

“Burglary” In The Sims 4

Although we saw the return of breaking-and-entering with the For Rent Expansion Pack it’s very different from the break-ins of yesteryear. For starters, the main goal of breaking in as part of this EP isn’t to steal things (although Kleptomaniac sims can certainly do so). When you break into a property as part of For Rent, the main motivation your sim has is to gather “dirt” on their victim neighbor because sims take nosiness to the extreme, apparently.

Additionally, sims who successfully break in this way get the leisure of a 2-hour window (in game) where they don’t have to worry about anybody coming home, and because police officers aren’t a Base Game NPC the worst your sim has to worry about if they get caught is being beat up by the homeowner. They can even win the fight!

A Burglar Mod To Bring Back The Anxiety Of The Old Days

Sims players have a bit of Stockholm Syndrome when it comes to Burglars and although they are a source of stress, we still miss them. There is a way to bring them back, though, thanks to a simmer you probably have heard of. Carl’s Guides is a great resource for all sorts of information on The Sims 4 and he’s also made his way into the world of modding with a few great overhaul mods.

Today we’re going to touch on the Burglar mod features available in Carl’s Gameplay Overhaul Mod v1.57. This mod is quite extensive and makes tons of changes to how The Sims 4 plays (with many of the features able to be toggled on or off) and you should definitely check out the download page to learn more about what the full mod does. For now though, let’s steal some stuff!

More on SNOOTYSIMS: Turn the tables and become the Burglar yourself with another Burglar mod!

The Burglary Mechanic

This mod works a lot like the Burglars of old, so if you’re familiar with them then you probably already know what to expect here. Between 10 pm and 4 am if your sims are sleeping, there’s a chance a Burglar will spawn in (a musical sting will inform you that they’ve arrived). You can also force a Burglar to spawn in with the cheat Carl.Burglar if you don’t want to wait. The Burglar will try to swipe valuable objects, taking more than one if they need to get their simoleons’ worth (they seem to really like chairs). You can fight back, however!

When a Burglar shows up your sims will awaken and they have the opportunity to Fight them for your Stuff, but if you lose, the Burglar will punish you by taking more things! Large dogs have a 35% chance of attacking the Burglar and scaring them off, with smaller dogs having a reduced chance to do the same. There are 20 different ways Burglars can be stopped, with lots of special options just for Occult sims. It’s up to you to discover them all!

If you want the ultimate in Burglar protection, purchase the Stop! Thief! Burglar Alarm Model X in Electronics→Alarms for §1,500. The alarm will have a chance of scaring Burglars off and if you have Get To Work a Detective will show up to haul them away. You can decrease the chances of a Burglar showing up with the new Good Neighborhood Lot Trait or increase the chances with the Bad Neighborhood Lot Trait.

Known Bugs For The Burglar Mod

There are a few bugs I discovered while testing this mod along with one that was reported on the Burglar Mod’s download page. Luckily Carl’s Guides routinely updates the mod so hopefully these issues will be addressed in an upcoming update:

Detective Issues

• One user of the Burglar mod reports that the Detective has an incorrect tooltip and instead shows the Burglar’s.
• In my testing I was unable to get a Detective to spawn in when I placed the alarm regardless of whether it was inside or outside of the home. At the time this was the only mod I had installed. I’m unsure if this is a bug or due to me spawning in Burglars with the included cheat.

Burglar Issues

• Burglars’ appearances have a shiny metallic overlay on the extremities. This is usually caused by a conflict with CC clothing but since this was the only custom content I had installed at the time I’m unsure as to the cause. Deleting the cache didn’t make a difference. This is purely cosmetic and won’t affect the functionality of the mod.
• Either I got the bravest Burglars in town or the alarm isn’t as scary as we thought—Burglars would sometimes express anxiety about the alarm going off but in my testing it was never enough to get them to run off.

Final Thoughts

If you’re the kind of Sims 4 player that misses/loves the chaos that came with older Sims games a Burglar might just be the inconvenience you need the most. Bring back the stress of a nightly visit from an unscrupulous individual, and put your expensive goodies and chairs at risk. And if you try this mod be sure to let us know if you experienced the bugs outlined here so we can better recommend the mod to other readers. Do you miss the Burglars of prior Sims games? What about other NPCs? Let us know in the comments!

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