Pools arrived in The Sims 4 as a free update on November 4, 2014, a couple of months after the base game launched without them. The update brought a pool-building system that took advantage of the game's room-manipulation tools, giving players more creative control over pool shapes, depth, and placement than previous entries in the series.
This guide covers how pool building works, what you can do with the various construction options, and the gameplay features that come along with having a pool on your lot.
Building pools in The Sims 4
Pool construction in The Sims 4 uses the same drag-and-adjust system that powers room building. You draw a pool shape on the ground, then push and pull its walls to resize or reshape it. This makes the process faster than the tile-by-tile placement of earlier games.
The standout addition is diagonal pool building. Before this update, pools in the series were limited to rectangular or L-shaped configurations made from grid-aligned edges. The Sims 4 lets you angle pool walls freely, which opens up triangular, trapezoidal, and irregular pool shapes. If you have ever wanted to recreate the kind of dramatic, geometric pools you see at resort hotels, this is the tool that makes it possible.
To build a basic pool:
- Enter Build Mode.
- Select the pool tool from the building menu.
- Click and drag on an open area of your lot to place the initial pool shape.
- Use the adjustment handles to reshape walls, including pulling corners to create diagonal edges.
- Release to confirm the shape.
You can continue modifying the pool after placing it. Grab any wall segment and drag it inward or outward. Pulling a corner at an angle creates a diagonal edge rather than snapping to the grid.
Depth adjustment and transparent walls
Two features give pools in The Sims 4 a distinctly different visual character from past games: adjustable depth and transparent pool walls.
Depth is controlled through wall height adjustment. You can make shallow wading sections or deep diving areas within the same pool by adjusting individual wall segments. This lets you create tiered pools with gradual depth changes or sudden drop-offs, depending on the look you want.
Transparent pool walls use the window placement system. You can place windows directly onto the submerged walls of a pool, creating glass-sided sections that show the water and swimmers from outside. This works particularly well when you build a pool on an upper floor or embed one into a hillside, since ground-level rooms can look up or sideways into the pool water.
To add transparent walls:
- Build your pool at the desired location.
- Switch to the window catalog.
- Select a window style and place it on the exterior face of a pool wall.
- The game renders that section as transparent, showing the water volume and any Sims swimming inside.
Rooftop and multi-level pools
The Sims 4 allows pool placement on any floor level, including rooftops. This was a first for the series at the time of release. You can put a pool on the ground floor, the second story, or on top of a flat roof.
Building a rooftop pool follows the same steps as ground-level placement. Make sure the roof area is flat and large enough to accommodate the pool shape you want. Pools on upper floors interact with the transparent-wall feature in interesting ways: place windows on the pool's underside or sides, and rooms below get a view of the water overhead.
Some practical notes on multi-level pools:
- Pools need a solid floor beneath them. You cannot suspend a pool over open air without a floor tile or roof section supporting it.
- Sims access upper-floor pools via stairs or ladders to that level, then enter the pool normally.
- Combining a rooftop pool with transparent walls and strategic lighting can produce striking nighttime visuals on your lot.
Swimwear and Create-a-Sim options
The pool update added a swimwear category to Create-a-Sim. Sims automatically change into their assigned swimwear outfit when entering a pool, so customizing this outfit beforehand gives you control over how they look poolside.
The swimwear options include mix-and-match tops and bottoms, allowing you to combine different styles rather than choosing a single pre-set outfit. This works like other CAS outfit categories: you can set multiple swimwear outfits per Sim and they will use the one assigned to their active outfit slot.
To customize swimwear:
- Enter Create-a-Sim (either when creating a new Sim or by editing an existing household).
- Navigate to the outfit categories and select Swimwear.
- Choose tops, bottoms, or full-body swimsuit options.
- Mix colors, patterns, and styles as you would with any other outfit category.
Pool interactions and Sim behavior
Pools are not just decorative. Sims have a set of social and solo interactions tied to them.
Swimming is the primary activity. Sims build the Fitness skill while swimming laps, making pools a functional alternative to treadmills or jogging. Sims with higher Fitness skill swim faster and tire less quickly.
Poolside interactions include:
- Sitting on the pool edge with feet in the water. Sims can chat with others who are swimming nearby.
- Splashing other Sims. This is a playful social interaction that can affect relationships and mood.
- Romantic interactions at the pool edge, available between Sims with existing romantic connections.
Sims who are angry may autonomously swim to cool off their temper. You will notice Sims with the Angry moodlet gravitating toward pools if one is available on the lot.
Bystanders standing near the pool may get splashed by swimmers, which triggers reactions depending on their current mood and traits.
Drowning and pool-related death
The pool update reintroduced drowning as a cause of death in The Sims 4. In earlier Sims games, removing the pool ladder was a notorious way to trap Sims until they drowned from exhaustion. The Sims 4 works slightly differently since Sims can exit pools without ladders, but drowning can still occur if a Sim's Energy need bottoms out while swimming.
How drowning happens:
- A Sim swims until their Energy bar is critically low.
- The game warns you with a moodlet indicating exhaustion.
- If the Sim remains in the pool and Energy reaches zero, they drown.
To prevent accidental drowning, pull exhausted Sims out of the pool when you see the warning moodlet, or make sure they have adequate Energy before starting a long swim session.
Sims who die by drowning return as ghosts with water-related behaviors. According to the original update notes from Maxis, these ghosts display a degree of "water-phobia" in their afterlife interactions, which adds a morbid bit of humor to the haunting.
Putting it all together
The pool system in The Sims 4 rewards experimentation. Combining diagonal shapes, depth variation, transparent walls, and multi-level placement lets you build pools that range from simple backyard rectangles to elaborate architectural features. A few combination ideas:
- A ground-floor gym with transparent ceiling that looks up into a second-story lap pool overhead.
- A rooftop infinity-edge pool using diagonal walls to create a pointed shape that extends past the building footprint visually.
- A shallow decorative reflecting pool in a courtyard, set to minimum depth with no ladder, purely for aesthetics.
- A multi-depth party pool with a shallow wading section connected to a deep diving zone, using depth adjustment on different wall segments.
Since the update was free and is now part of the base game permanently, every Sims 4 player has access to these tools regardless of which packs they own. The pool system has remained largely unchanged since its introduction, so the building mechanics described here still apply to current versions of the game.
The Sims 4 has continued receiving free content updates over the years, including furniture, clothing, and quality-of-life fixes, but the November 2014 pool update remains one of the largest single free additions the game has received.
Originally published November 4, 2014 on SimGoodie. Source: SimGoodie legacy archive (simgoodie.no)