There are many ways you can learn about someone nonverbally, one of which is the way they walk. Their posture, stride, and facial expressions all communicate little details about them, without saying a word.
The Sims 4 allows us to set walkstyles for our sims which give us an opportunity to express something about them in a subtle way. Players get the option of choosing from 10 different walkstyles: Perky, Snooty☺️, Swagger, Feminine, Tough, Goofy, Sluggish, Bouncy, Creepy, and the neutral Default walk. Unfortunately that’s not really many to choose from especially if you have a lot of sims in your worlds, and even more so if you only use a portion of the available styles. After a while it gets less interesting when you see everybody walking in the same few ways over and over again.
I’ve found a couple of walkstyle mods to remedy the situation that I’m excited to share with you today. Based on my testing (as of the time of this writing) they don’t seem to conflict with one another so you can combine them for even more options!
Walk (& Swim) In Style! by abidoang
Abidoang is a YouTuber and mod maker who brings our first walkstyle mod, Walk-In-Style. Despite only having 10 options in CAS for walkstyles, there are many others tucked into the game that we only sometimes, or never, get access to. This mod opens those options up to us, along with new swim styles.
I counted around 100 walkstyle options in this mod, if you have all of the relevant Packs. With Island Living installed you have over 10 swim style choices as well, and 17 walking animations for use in specific circumstances such as screenshots or machinima.
Abidoang has made a helpful preview video about the walkstyle mod that really shows off what you can do:
You can see the update history and download the mod at this link. It’s the perfect mod if you’re looking to access all the walkstyles that the vanilla game has to offer!
New Walkstyle Mod by Cepzid
Unlike the last mod, this walkstyle mod by Cepzid introduces completely new walk animations to the Sims 4.
You Will Need:
In order for this mod to function correctly, you will first need to download the XML injector by Scumbumbo. These files will need to be installed directly to your mods folder, not any subfolders! Without these files the walkstyle mod will not work.
New Walkstyles
Cepzid has taken walking animations from some other games and made them available to our sims, including a couple from the Sims 3. A lot of them are good neutral walk poses for sims that you don’t want having an overly flamboyant pace but also don’t want all of them using the same default walkstyle. There are a few monster-like walks for more variety in your Occult sims, and some really cartoonishly styled walks good for celebrities, dramatic sims, or specific situations.
Also included are a few styles that need props (like swords or blasters) but unfortunately there aren’t any specific accessories suggested by the mod for use with these styles. You can trial-and-error it with your own CC findings or use these walkstyles for screenshots and edit in the needed props afterwards.
Admittedly, some of the walkstyles don’t fit in as well as others, and of the 20 included you may find yourself only using a percentage (I personally like about half of them), but even one single new useful walkstyle is welcome! You can see all the styles included in the video below:
If you’d like to download the mod, make sure to get the XML injector first and then head over to Cepzid’s Patreon post for the mod files.
Bonus Walkstyle Mods by Bienchen
Unlike our previous entries which add walkstyles, this selection of mods decreases the walkstyles available by disabling certain ones in the game. In some cases, Bienchen took emotional walkstyles and tweaked them to only appear in the most extreme throes of their respective emotion. So for example, sims won’t use the extremely intimidating Angry walkstyle unless they’re feeling very angry. Other times the mod will completely disable a walkstyle, such as the Goofy and Sleepy walkstyles which are far too theatrical for many players’ tastes. All in all there are nearly a dozen different mods to choose from which you can find here.
I have not done any testing myself, but due to the juxtaposing nature of these mods compared to the previous entries it’s safe to assume there will be a certain degree of conflict if you try combining them. Do so at your own risk!
In Closing
If you want to convey something about who your sims are with little effort, choosing a walkstyle that matches their personality is an easy way to do it. Whether it’s for a screenshot or a video that you’re making, or just for variety in your own game, showing off the way they walk can tell us a lot about a sim without any extra work on our part. If you’ve been bored with the limited selection of walkstyles in CAS, or sick of specific styles popping up over and over again, we’ve got a mod for you. I hope you get a lot of use out of these mods! Happy simming!
Your Author: Hi! I'm Nicole
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