The Best Sims 3 Mods Ever Ranked!

Between Pokemon and Anime lie a whole host of other fandoms that I can't help falling for and in many ways, Sims 3 offers something unique that no other Sims game provides to players - it's one of the coolest gaming experiences ever! Many have moved onto playing the Sims 4 since it has so many modern updates, but I am a Sims 3 gamer through and through for its charm, all the memories and unique quirks. There are so many fun mods to try too to spice up your game, you could spend your whole life inside this game! Check out these this list of the best Sims 3 mods that you can add to your game for the best Sims gaming experience ever, the Sims 3 must have mods 2020 - 2021 and beyond!

25. Ultra-Plain Eyes

 These Ultra Plain Eyes for Sims 3 will make the eyes of your SIM character appear super natural, to make it look far more human and more realistic. It changes the masks that EA uses for the vanilla game and makes them look so much better in terms of illumination and colouring. They are an amazing way to make your SIMS look more realistic. The changes are plain, but very easily noticeable - definitely download this mod and give it a try!

24. Ultra-Plain Faces

This mod does the same for your SIMS faces that the previous entry does for the eyes. It is made to improve face styles and makes your SIM appear much more realistic and less like a cartoon. It basically works as an overlay for every face in the game to add some much appreciated realism and corrects and improves faces and facial expressions to make them look more human.

23. Zerbu’s Ultimate Career Mod

Rabbit holes have been a thing in the Sims since the first game was released. In fact, it wasn’t until Sims 3 when some careers started having the option for your sim to work on a specific lot. And you still needed to have them do tasks yourself because they were part of career expansions. However with this mod you’ll be able to send your sims to a specific lot and have them do tasks in the time that they should be working. 

It makes the whole SIMS work thing much more realistic, even if they get lazy and slack off on the job, you will be able to see where they are and they won’t be just disappearing into a virtual car to go nowhere. You can assign any given lot as their location of work and have them go there to do activities during the time that they’re at work. Instead of going to a rabbit hole, your sim will then go to the selected lot and do any specific number of activities before they go home. 

22. More Traits For All Ages

An uber cool way of personalising your SIMS further, this mod will allow them to aquire many more traits than the game normally allows. This means they can become more multifaceted, like people in real life! As such you’ll be able to have your sims earn more traits as time goes on. For example, sims that age up will automatically receive new traits even if you’re not controlling them. This gives a whole new lease of life to the game as it means giving more personality to every sim in the world you inhabit. On the odd occasion, active sims may have an issue or two aging up and need to be reset. You may need to remove additional traits, age them up, then add the traits back in.

21. No Intro Mod

Doing what it says on the tin, this mod allows you to jump straight in to the game without having to wait for loading screens and intros, which is so, so handy because those intros can be way longer than needed. If you forgot to do something in game, you can now jump right in before you get sidetracked by intro screens and forgot what you came there to do in the first place... perhaps a judgment error from EA but we are all a little used to those. Consider the game already booted! Install this mod and you will thank yourself long afterwards. Regions won’t have any intro videos and you will be able to play as soon as you select them.

20. Traveler Mod

One of the worst things that you can have happening to a legacy save is losing all of the progress you’ve made with a sim because you want them to move elsewhere. A bit like a cat, the sim will forget any relationships it had with the residents there and this inconvenient amnesia can get oh so annoying when you just want to pick up from one area where you left off, like you might do in real life. The Traveler mod is the best mod to download if you like to have your sims constantly moving from one town to another. This free mod allows your sim to migrate from one place to another on any other map but keep all of the relationships they have. It's like giving your sim the gift of memory! People who like to play long legacy saves rejoice! The only thing to watch out for is any other mod that greatly alters the base game file, as it may interact with this one, meaning neither will work. This is great to keep in mind if you’re big into modding.

19. Tagger

This mod overhauls the map tag system allowing you to tag Sims and lots automatically or manually and even lets you colour the tags based on whatever it is you want to pinpoint. Since the Sims 3 has the biggest maps of any Sims game, it becomes incredibly difficult to locate things, people, and houses. Enter the Tagger mod - super useful it allows you to tag stuff much better than you can do in the base game. One of the main problems of the vanilla tag system is that you can’t really create custom tags and don't have much freedom over them in the game. This mod makes tagging far more user friendly, allowing you to create custom tags and select way more when it comes to the entire map in motion. It is incredibly compatible too, so you can still go mod crazy and use this one at the same time, as Tagger works well with every other mod, as well with custom maps too. You will be able to download modded maps and use the mod to your heart’s content - you’ll be able to tag whichever you like on maps that aren’t even included in the base Sims 3 game!

18. Woohooer

Woohooer means you will be able to create some more realistic, raw, heartwarming or 'anything goes' storylines with your characters as it will allow teenage and even male sims to get pregnant, allowing you to take a much more liberal approach to dating and relationships than EA allowed in the original game. Also good for spawning new members of your army! This mod goes well with the Kinky World add-on too, and modders recommend using them together for a true and more realistic Sims 3 experience. However, you may find you might have to expand your characters' wardrobes too and download special clothing for teenage and male sims that become pregnant, as the base game’s clothes are a little too basic here.

17. The Sims 1 Music

A mod that is pure gold for old schoolers that means you can install the music aka pure nostalgia of Sims 1 to your Sims 3 game. This mod simply replaces all of the default Sims 3 music with songs from the original Sims 1 soundtrack. It means we no longer have to try hunting down the original music on Youtube to play at the same time, to recreate the golden feeling of playing The Sims, as it were called, in the good old days. It is perfect to help you reminisce of the good old times of classic BGM songs from The sims without having to go back to playing the (somewhat outdated) older games. It’s a simple mod, but one of the best for old school gamers.

16. Sims 3 Loading Screen Replacement

Make the loading screen more entertaining with this fun mod that changes the way loading screens look in the game by adding new features and messages to the OG ones. The main goal of this mod is to take you through a trip that passes every single expansion pack made for Sims 3, which makes it much more enjoyable and I guess increases ones anticipation for getting in to the game. Look at this as a loading screen replacer that will help you enjoy the original Sims 3 loading screen with features of all the other expansion packs of the game! Be sure to look out for some certain humorous remarks on the screen which didn't seem to have made it in to the original game.

15. The Sims 3 GPU Add-on Support

A mod to increase the perfomance of your game if playing on PC devices. When the Sims 3 was made and the last patch was released, there still weren’t many of the current modern GPUs in the market. As such, many GPU models are not automatically used by the game when you first run it. This mod changes the list of GPUs that the game automatically sets to simplify the task of having to do so manually. As such, if your powerful GPU isn’t included in the default list for Sims 3, it’s highly likely that this mod will increase the performance of your game by a notch or two. A great mod for PC gamers alike, just be sure to backup your game files before using this tool!

14. Northeney

A cool and atmospheric location to explore, Northeney looks like one of those traditional coastal US towns with lots of cozy houses and a lighthouse. A quiet corner of Sim life, the landscape is rugged with marshy land and grass and mini islands not far off the shore. It is somewhat similar to the town of Windenburg that was added to the Sims 4 with the Get Together DLC, but it has a less Germanic and more of a typically American feel. It can often be misty and cloudy, which creates a delicious spooky atmosphere. This mod is easy to install and a really cool new location to explore and for your Sims to live a relaxed and peaceful lifestyle.

13. Cronor

Speaking of spooky surroundings, Cronor is a futuristic custom world made by Crowkeeper and Norn on Mod the Sims. A dark and dreaded place where darkness seems to overshadow everything - Cronor definitely has that atmosphere if you're craving it. It is incredibly detailed and has so much depth to it, which is amazing. There's a lot to enjoy if you like your creepy places. If you install this mod it’ll add a new location into the game. It’s a technological place where nature is overblown by technology and it’s got a seriously creepy Matrix feel about it.

12. Like 4 Like Build & Buy Mode

The build and buy modes of Sims 3 are some of the less well attended to parts of the game. This mod was made to improve them and make these aspects of the game better and easier to use. In the OG version, many noted that the whole thing could be better organized, and some prices just feel a bit off and not realistic at all. This new mod means you’ll be able to better browse the pages as well as have prices that feel much more accurate.

11. Children Can Care for Their Siblings

This mod serves to make family life a bit more realistic in the game, by letting child Sims interact with their baby siblings or counterparts. Normally in the OG game, it is only adults who can hold the babies and tend to todders, which can be a bit frustrating when none of your young half Sims can interact with the babies in the family or household. I mean, a 14 year old can at least hold their baby sister right? Easy to install, it means that your Sim children will be able to take care of toddlers and help them with basic needs, much like what might happen in real life. Who are we kidding - kids these days are too hooked on games, am I right? But that would make for a less interesting game I guess.

10. “No Stretch” Children Can Series

This mod gives children more abilities in the Sims 3, so that they are able to perform interactions like adults do, without stretching and acting weird, making the game a lot more realistic. It works by converting a lot of adult motions in the game into children ones and allow Sim children to perform the same actions as an adult without having to move in a weird way. They can even also perform actions that weren’t originally possible in the base game, such as interacting with fireplaces, living life on the edge!

9. Canning Station Overhaul

Albeit a smaller change than it sounds, this mod improves the way Grandma’s Canning Station works in the game by making it more pleasing. Not only does it fix many a bug that it had, that were super irritating, but it mainly helps the station look and feel more realistic by changing the way items on the station look. Using this mod, each loaf of bread will appear different, depending on the jam that it carries. Introducing more spreads, better visuals and more!

8. The Third Person Mod

This fully controllable third person mod means you can fully feel like you're in the game and living through your Sims perspective, instead of just controlling them. It enables you to play as if it was any other adventure game, living vicariously through your Sim’s eyes! This mod also means you’ll be able to move around with the WASD keys as if it was any other PC game, a movement system that its creator originally built from scratch, which is why it moves so naturally when playing in third person. This is one of my favourite ever Sims 3 Mods and perfect for those looking to live a virtual life through a single Sim!

7. Retuned Attraction Mod

It's fair to say that some aspects of the 1.42 patch that was implemented into the game didn't quite make sense, which made aspects about the attraction between Sims feel a bit unnatural. As raged about on many a thread, it meant that Sims that can’t really stand athleticism could be attracted by the athletic prowess of other sims, which left many shaking their heads in confusion to say the least. With this mod the attraction system makes a lot more sense, without losing the essence of the vanilla system. It also means that Sims that got rejected in one coupling less willing to ask that individual out again, which makes more sense in real life! That, or Sims folk have got a lot less romantic these days (and a lot better at knowing their worth).

6. Midnitetech’s Career Mods

This is a really cool mod that opens up more avenues for your Sims career wise and allows them to take different career paths that don't feature in the original game. Even though there are many entertaining careers for your characters to embark on in The Sims 3, the options are still very limited compared to real life. To make the game more realistic, this mod overhauls the number of careers that your sim can chase after by adding a heck of a lot more into your options pool, thus making the game much more expansive and allowing you more storylines to live through.

5. GROW – Progressive Aging

One of the most unrealistic parts of Sims 3 is the speed of which your characters can grow, namely children, who can grow from a toddler in to a full-grown child in the space of a single day. This frustration is solved thanks to the Progressive Aging mod, which means aging can happen with time, which is more natural, instead of it happening in milestones. This makes the game align much more with reality, which can be hard to achieve as The Sims 3 is a game where everything is moving at a constant speed. Note this mod only modifies the way teens and children age, instead of adults, and makes the transition to adulthood much smoother and much more realistic than it is in the original game, here you’ll be able to see how children turn into grown-ups like it were real life. Puberty would truly be scary if, as a child, you suddenly woke up as a complete adult version of yourself!

4. Kinky World

Potentially the most X rated Sims 3 mod addition to this list, it makes the act of said woohoo-ing much more realistic with adding some very vivid animations that detail the kinds of romantic encounters that Sims can have. It is perhaps the spiritual successor to the Wicked Whims mod, that currently sits at the top of most download lists in the Sims 4 community. Very X rated and graphic scenes and animations, created by the community's most talented Blender artists, are able to be accessed, which are sure to spice up the game in a whole new way. They are very talented artists as the scenes are very realistic. Kinky World is the best adult mod for Sims 3 for people who are looking for a well rounded and realistic, racy gaming experience, that explores one of the less covered aspects of the Sims games, sexual encounters.

3. Story Progression Mod Story

The story progression in the Sims 3 is known to be particularly dry, so this mod spices it up a bit and creates some excitement and drama! It affects the way characters interact with each other and how NPCs behave, making gameplay much better and way more interesting and entertaining in long saves. Happily, it was created to work well in all versions of The Sims 3 so you can run this anywhere. If you still enjoy playing this game more than Sims 4 then be sure to install this mod! You will absolutely love the way things develop in legacy saves and it feels so much more natural.

2. Master Controller

One of the best mods to install before any others, Master Controller allows you to better manage all of your NRAAS mods and means the game understands how to run them better. This is perfect if you are a bit of a mod addict and want to get the best out of your mods and your game. The processes of your Sims 3 game will run much better with Master Controller, so it’s one of the most recommended mods that you can download for your game first of all. Easy to install and free of course, it will make it easier for you to manage many in-game variants using simple sliders. It gives you a lot more freedom and control over your game, you can even edit many of these things by yourself by accessing the mod’s documentation. Definitely a true necessity for any Sims 3 lover!

1. Overwatch

A mod developed by NRaas Industries that attempts to correct known errors produced by the game in The Sims 3. It runs in the background and automatically attempts to correct any problems that it finds, such as unroutable Sims, glitches, corrupted game data, and references to content that no longer exist. As the Sims 3 is the largest Sims game ever made in terms of worldbuilding and managing the size of the worlds, we all know how complex games can get when the story progresses for many generations. This opens the playing field for more bugs and glitches to exist and to happen. With such a big world, it's much more likely that things might not work as they should from time to time, which can be quite inconvenient when you play the same save for a while. Luckily, there's a mod for that!

The Overwatch mod was made to make your game run much smoother and is specially designed to combat the annoyances that often come with large scale gameplay. To stop Sims getting stuck and other mishaps, Overwatch makes sure to reset the state of things from time to time, making your game run smoother and helping you to avoid facing unfortunate encounters where interactions become impossible. It is incredibly useful in case 2 mods conflict with each other.

It also performs a nightly cleanup (5am for urban worlds, such as Bridgeport; 3am for others) to reset various objects, delete abandoned vehicles, turn off televisions and stereos in inactive households, and recover missing or abandoned Sims. Happily, the mod will produce a notification reporting on any actions it takes.  The Overwatch mod is a simple but amazing add-on which makes The Sims 3 that much more of an amazing game.

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