The Sims 4 Island Living: complete guide to Sulani

Released in June 2019, the expansion pack The Sims 4: Island Living remains, several years later, one of the most relaxing additions to the franchise. It's not a vacation DLC like Snowy Escape or Jungle Adventure, but a genuine residential world: your Sims can buy a house on stilts there, start a career, and spend their final days sipping kava at sunset. This guide covers everything Sulani has to offer: its environment, its careers, its traditions, and its unique activities.

Sulani, a tropical archipelago inspired by the Pacific

Sulani is a volcanic archipelago clearly inspired by Polynesian and Hawaiian islands. The world is divided into three main neighborhoods, each with its own atmosphere and its own buildable lots.

• Ohan'Ali Town: the civilized heart of the archipelago, a former fishing camp turned into a small town with a lively beach bar, a few shops, and affordable residential lots. It's the ideal landing spot for a family arriving in Sulani.
• Lani St. Taz: postcard-perfect beaches, with pristine white sand, turquoise waters, and the pack's most luxurious homes. Reserved for wealthy Sims or players who love building right on the ocean.
• Mua Pel'am: the wild and vulnerable area. Here you'll find an active volcano, a waterfall, a hidden cave, and above all a fragile ecosystem that will evolve based on your actions.

What makes Sulani unique is that the ocean itself is a playground. Sims can swim freely out at sea from the beach, snorkel around the green buoys, paddle an outrigger canoe, ride aqua-zips (customizable jet skis), or simply drift along on an inflatable chair. A nice new everyday-life mechanic: tanning is now a full-fledged system, with a real risk of sunburn if you forget your sunscreen.

A living ecosystem that reacts to your actions

This is probably the pack's most ambitious contribution: Sulani is a living, evolving world. The Mua Pel'am area, in particular, is in poor health at the start of the game. The water is murky, wildlife is scarce, harmful algae are spreading, and you'll regularly run into littering Sims (marked by a red exclamation point above their head) who come to dump their trash on the beach.

Every eco-friendly action your Sim takes quietly earns nature points, symbolized by a small green heart. There are about a dozen useful actions:

• Picking up litter scattered on the sand or floating in the sea
• Digging to unearth buried trash
• Cleaning up ash and sulfur deposits around the volcano
• Confronting (or reporting) littering Sims
• Taking water samples and studying species through the Marine Biologist career

The island then goes through three visible stages: polluted, recovering, and finally restored. Once Sulani is in full health, the water turns crystal clear, the coral reefs burst with color, turtles come to lay their eggs on the beach, and you might even spot the extremely rare albino dolphin. This visual progression, praised by the entire French-speaking gaming press, gives players a real reason to settle down in Sulani for the long haul instead of just passing through as tourists.

One good deed for the island = one green heart = one or more nature points. The transformation between the ecosystem's three stages is truly impressive, especially in Mua Pel'am.

Careers and side jobs built for the beach

Island Living introduces a standard career and, more importantly, three new part-time jobs, in keeping with the Freelance update that arrived alongside the pack. Combined with the Odd Jobs system available from the phone between 8am and 9pm, your Sims have plenty of choice.

The Conservationist career (full-time)

This is the new narrative career of the pack. After a few entry-level ranks, it splits into two thematic branches:

• Environment Officer: politics-oriented, it lets you influence conservation measures on a global scale (plastic bans, species protection, etc.).
• Marine Biologist: more scientific, with underwater research missions, coral studies, and nature documentary filming.

Both branches offer the option to work from home, which fits perfectly with the laid-back spirit of Sulani.

Three part-time jobs "on the beach"

• Lifeguard: two shifts, from 8am to noon or 5pm to 9pm. Perfect for an athletic Sim who wants to save lives without sacrificing their free time.
• Beach Cleanup Officer (diving / coastal cleanup): your Sim explores the seabed while earning nature points for the island.
• Fisher: morning shifts (5am-9am) or night shifts (9pm-1am), with real earnings if your Fishing skill improves.

Thanks to the parallel update, a Sim can now hold two part-time jobs at once as long as the schedules don't overlap. So you can be a lifeguard in the morning and a fisher in the evening without the game batting an eye.

Odd Jobs and the traveling merchant

A cross-pack addition, Odd Jobs are one-off gigs accessible from the phone. In Sulani, you'll find babysitting, delivery, and gardening gigs, along with the picturesque role of traveling merchant, who sets up a stall on the beach. A good way for a freelance Sim to make ends meet, or to try out a job before committing to it full-time.

Elemental spirits and Sulani's culture

The developers took care to root Sulani in a local culture. Two new traits are available in CAS: Island Native, reserved for Sims born in the archipelago, and Loves the Water, for those who adore water. The first grants access to a unique and essential social interaction: "Summon Elementals".

The Elementals are the ghosts of Sulani's ancient inhabitants, spiritual guardians of the archipelago. Once the ceremony is started, it lasts about four hours and ends with a judgment: if your Sim respects the island, picks up litter, and honors local traditions, the spirits are benevolent and grant a positive mood buff; if they pollute or disrespect Sulani, brace for their wrath (bad moods, stormy atmosphere, negative events).

The place names themselves draw on Polynesian mythology: Mua Pel'am refers to Pele, the Hawaiian goddess of volcanoes, while other locations evoke major figures of Oceanic tradition. On site, your Sims can share a kava ceremony, chat with elders, learn local customs, or propose a traditional beach wedding.

Sulani isn't just a new postcard setting: it's the first world in the game where community, culture, and ecology matter just as much as the houses you build there.

Mermaids: the quick recap

Island Paradise also introduces mermaids as a new occult type. We covered them in detail in our occults guide, so here are just the essential pointers.

• Create a mermaid in CAS: select the occult category and choose one of the four customizable tail templates (patterns, colors, fins).
• Transform a human Sim: eat Siren Kelp, which can be purchased for 500 satisfaction points or found by diving near the buoys at Mua Pel'am. Be careful: you must enter the ocean within 24 hours of ingesting it to trigger the transformation.
• Siren Song: aquatic lullabies allow you to change other Sims' moods, attract rare fish, or call dolphins. They consume the new hydration need that replaces hygiene.
• Marriage with a mermaid: mixed mermaid/human relationships are possible, with specific romantic interactions (kissing in the water, drifting together at sunset).
• Turn back into a human: consume two Siren Kelp in a row then enter the water, or simply avoid seawater for 48 hours.

Our tips for getting started in Sulani

• Start small: place a small house in Ohan'Ali Town first before aiming for the premium lots in Lani St. Taz. Sulani doesn't reward rushing.
• Adopt an eco-friendly lifestyle right away: every piece of litter picked up earns invisible points and unlocks the world's visual evolutions faster.
• Give at least one Sim in your household the "Child of the Islands" trait to access the elemental spirits ceremony.
• Train your Sim in fishing before accepting a part-time job as a fisherman: it's the skill that unlocks financial rewards the fastest.
• Do at least one dive at the green buoys of Mua Pel'am: it's one of the best ways to find Siren Kelp for free.

To go further

Island Living pairs particularly well with other packs focused on nature and community life. If Sulani appeals to you, here are a few complementary reads to explore on playnews.gg:

• The complete guide to occults in The Sims 4 — to dive deeper into mermaids and compare them to vampires, spellcasters, and other spirits.
• Eco Lifestyle: building a sustainable neighborhood in The Sims 4 — another pack where the environment reacts to your Sims' actions.
• Advanced skills: fishing, diving, and fitness — to make the most of the water activities introduced in Sulani.