A Brutally Honest Review of The Sims 4 Horse Ranch 

Watch my Horse Ranch let's play with full gameplay here -> ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-mAmxsxDYZIM.html

Can you imagine if you actually had to interact for the competitions though, like knowing Sims 4 it would take you six hours to walk up to a vault and then your sim would randomly dismount mid competition and start doing push-ups 💀

This is exactly why people can spend literally hours in CAS and build mode in Sims 4, but struggle to enjoy the gameplay.

GET READY for the next expansion pack: the Sims4 - PIG LIFE - ! Raise your own pigs, feed them, hug them, play in the mud. Build your own pig farm and collect shit for your own eco-friendly bio-gas plant 🐷

"Instead of making it gameplay, they made it a fake experience you have to imagine is happening" 😭😭😭😭 That's Sims 4 as a whole!! I gotta use my damn imagination for literally everything

It’s really refreshing to have an HONEST sims review from a RU-vidr. Most of the time they pretend issues don’t exist until months after a pack is released.

In the sims 3 pets there were so many obstacles with different difficulty levels and salt for the horses to lick. It’s ridiculous how little content there is in this pack

Let’s be real EA would have the nerve to make a “My first Unicorn” pack

It feels like it should have been part of cottage living! Cottage Living: my first ranch.

I honestly feel an overall of 6.5 out of 10 is very generous. We can't hate you Satch. Personally would have deducted another point or two from cas and build-buy.

I didn't even realize that there were no horse themed kids toys! O_O how did they make an entire horse expansion pack without a rocking horse! Or one of those stick horses?! That would have been perfect for kids too young to ride horses, or as a way for kids to practice, or even as a part of a child's aspiration be a horse rider! Oh man they really let kids down in this. I'm officially expecting a My First Horse pack geared towards children :/

We watch Lilsimsie to get overexited, we watch Satch to get back to reality😌

In Sims 3 horse competitions, while it's also a rabbit hole, you are shown a live scoreboard, where you can see how you're doing and change your technique accordingly. I think there are three options, something like "ride carefully", "take risks" and "go all out". I don't know why they didn't do the same thing in Sims 4, especially since they did replicate everything else.

Without open worlds, horses are no different from bikes and the household limit inhabits you from making a proper ranch. You can't have a big family\workers or a bunch of horses. They could've at least added a few minor features, like rabbit hole horse riding classes and a ranch lot trait to give you special features and maybe money based on how much you're producing. For unicorns, it would've been so cool for secret locations to make a return. Even just a tiny hidden lot where you meet a unicorn and learn how to craft some kind of potion to turn your horses into unicorns. I don't even want many features, just have them give you rainbow poop (special fertilizer) and one or two things they can do. Maybe they can heal you if you have a curse or disease from other packs. Definitely skipping this one.

They also lost the opportunity of making an override of the forgotten woodworking table. They could have made woodworking a skill itself. Sims being able to make their own stable, fix it, to make new objects decorative or functional to sell. Even to make their own houses, with exclusive swatches. We already have even the animation (from build treehouses and the rocket ship) for it, and we all know Maxis doesn't have any shame for recycling. But hey, even more simple than recycling, it is doing nothing at all

I'm very happy to see someone not straight up accept the " horses were hard to animate " excuse 😭

Its sad that there isn't anything for kids and toddlers, they could've made something like ponies for the kids to ride. AND NO WOOHOO LOCATION, I am shocked. Keep up the great work Satch!! ❤

I clicked on your video so fast lol

Skyrim (for example) is what, €30 more expensive than this and have x1638191 more features than this, so no, the "horses were hard to animate 👉🏻👈🏻" is not a valid excuse for the price.

No matter what anyone likes to say about you, this was a truly fair review! You gave credit where credit was due with CAS and BB, understanding not everyone has every pack so for them there is no repeat items as well as how good they executed the theme. I appreciate you going in hard with gameplay thought because people need to take their rose-coloured glasses off and realise this is supposed to be an EXPANSION pack so there should be so much more gameplay that EXPANDS the entire game. You’re right, as an end-consumer, it is not on us to “think about how hard this was to animate”….. well guess what, I don’t. This is a multibillion dollar company and a basic economics class will educate you that if a company wants my money, they need to provide what I’m willing to pay for. Unfortunately, too many people either have their parent’s pay or just don’t care about their money so EA and Maxis know they can do the bare minimum and get away with it. Too many comments of “I know this is a Game Pack but look at cute horses and sheep”….. ok rant over lol

I was waiting for your take! You and Plumbella are the only honest and balanced reviewers I see these days

I have a dog and a horse in my household and there is NO INTERACTION between those two. I am honestly beyond disappointed

Considering the main point of the pack is the horses they lacked in cas and i feel like they should have gotten more toy items because their fun kinda goes away real fast and its annoying to get it back especially when they refuse to play with the ball. And fyi for the people who choose to still stay delusional about the fact that this pack has bugs while literally watching this video a sim i created in henford appeared in chestnut on her horse and just stood there for a bunch of in game hours. Funny enough when she first appeared a random townie spawned beside her with a bike rode literally like 2 seconds in front of her got off then stood looking at his bike for while. Also during this i just stayed looking at the world just for sims movement and in a full sim day i seen 3 npc horses/riders plus my one sim.

I was a bit disappointed with the build/buy. I felt it lacked a lot of stuff for actual stables/horse care like more saddle/bridle racks, grooming kits, etc. Also, I'm really disappointed we can't make a jumping course like in the Sims 3.

You are making so many good points about missing gameplay, and I strongly agree with you that EA should've put more effort into the competitions. I watched another review by an actual equestrian, and she said it was a shame that we couldn't make a jumping course or lead the horse around like in the Sims 3! Sims 3 also had western AND classic horse riding saddles and reins (and you could ride bare-back haha). In the Sims 4, EA could've added new things like a round horse pen where you can see your sim train for competitions, or even a round horse bathing pen, adding new horse shoes, ponies. HELLO, WHY IS NOBODY TALKING ABOUT PONIES XD. It would've been so cute to have parents teach their kids how to ride on ponies...

I always wait for your take on DLCs before purchasing a pack especially Horse Ranch because I'm underwhelmed with what I saw so far. I appreciate your honesty Satch ❤ I look forward to your Let's Play featuring Shanice in her cowgirl era.

for an expansion pack i wouldve at least expected a new job or two, this pack really feels like a game pack instead of an expansion pack ☹ It wouldve made so much more sense as a gamepack. Hopefully we'll get unicorns with fairies and whatnot..lol

My theory is that the sims team are expecting lots of new horse lover players to come to the sims 4 for this pack to play as a horse game, so they felt okay recycling the same sorts of ideas for items etc as their target audience don’t have the other packs. Maybe that’s why they felt comfortable having this pack release so soon after growing together - because they were going after two different audiences (long term players vs new players)

It‘s really such a missed opportunity with this pack. Unicorns alone could have been sold this pack miles away but knowing EA, there will be a stuff pack / Gameplay for unicorns. I wish they either had put this with cats and dogs like in the Sims3 or just put more effort into the horse pack by adding more gameplay like that you could be a teacher for children to learn how to ride a horse and maybe earn some money from it and more, it‘s not as hard as they make it seem like.

The Sims Team set the parameters of what an Expansion Pack, Game Pack, and Stuff Pack should contain to be classified as such. From everything I have seen, this is a Game Pack. They did this with Cats & Dogs too. When they first announced Cats & Dogs, it was as a Game Pack. They just price the Game Packs they know will sell Really well as Expansions. It is not just animal related packs either. Family gameplay packs get the same treatment. However, this is mostly just My Opinion.

I really think cottage living and horse ranch should have been one expansion pack. But the horse interactions/ animations are adorable!

The races might have been a rabbit hole in TS3, but you still had to manage your horse's performance. Also, that rabbit hole was in a large open world, which it is not in TS4.

I saw what you did there at 2:11 you cheeky bastard.

I absolutely agree with your take on the pack. I started it up, created a Sim and a horse to have a play and get used to the pack. After about 45mins I was bored and went back to my legacy family. I love what's there but it's no where near enough for the price. I was so looking forward to my Sims kid becoming a vet to treat the horses but nope 😢

The ranch hands sometimes standing around creepily on your property long after they were supposed to go home is realistic and not a bug.

After seeing this, I can say EA and Riot games are now working togheter on scamming people. EA made a game pack and named it expansion, riot made a legendary skin and named it ultimate

You and Plumbella are the only ones I trust for honest looks at packs. I easily get excited when others are excited, so I have to have someone like you bring me back down to Earth. 😂

I don't think you're wrong, I am a horse lover. Grew up young with 9 years of horse riding, this is BARELY a Game pack. Expansion I am failing to see how. At this point they're really valuing building more than gameplay. And splitting as much as they can to gather more money before they die to upcoming competition. They couldn't even bother with unicorns? Make a rabbit whole like the tree in base game that brings you to a spacial place where you can find them. Like come on, seriously? Heard that they also had problems with adding a new lot type but it's not the first time they said that. Coding is hard, as someone who does work in teams as a concept artist, I had back and forths with programmers and it's very difficult but if you, as a big company can't afford to find a way to make your programmers fix it damn. I don't want to know what the sims code looks like now. Going back to the pack i've yet to play it myself, I've seen people review it in all sauces and all have the same opinion, even those who usually defend it and love it are all SEVERELY underwelmed. I wouldn't have minded the rabbit holes IF there was more gameplay elsewhere, there's not much at all, they could've included the feature where you see live where you and your horse are placing yourselves at during the race since they copied the sims 3 for it already, the bugs are giving wedding core. I will play it more to form a more solid opinion and ideas of what they could've added, but as a horse person I deeply agree with everyone beeing underwhelmed and disappointed. They did... maybe not even the bare minimum and want to be praised. "Oh the horses took long to animate" I mean... yeah... they're the FOCUS of the pack I'd hope SO. But it's not enough. But it is definitely NOT worth the price, it feels like their budget went out of hand and they didn't study enough to make it worth the price, porbably some indecision inside teams or miscomunications. It's better than saying they just don't care which I don't think it's the case for people who work in it, just the higher ups. And the fact that they think they had such a brilliant idea to make animals not playable makes the pack much less valuable too, since that also gave a more solid value to packs in other the sims. And also- a minor thing maybe but bigger lots? i don't know what I'm supposed to fit a horse in a 20x20 lot or even the slightly bigger ones LOL And they couldn't include ranches BECAUSE of poor coding? since they've been lamenting this issue for YEARS now, how come they didn't fix it yet? As many things in the game sadly/ But one would think the code would be core fundamental in a game so big. Apparently not.

I wish they'd even added a work at home career that just guided you through daily ranch duties if you wanted to be a horse breeder or a nectary. I like the change to the aspirations!

The nectar drinking thing - that they get dazed and pass out - is exactly the same as drinking fizzy juice in Eco Lifestyle. So if you have Eco you can just make and drink juice and it's the exact same thing. As a console player all I want is for my Sims to be able to get drunk. I probably would have bought this pack of nectar was different. I know it's a PG rated game, but as a kid I was woohooing Mortimer Goth and violently burning to death in an oven fire on the Sims 1 😮‍💨 are kids even playing TS4? Idk why they're so G rated when adults are their primary player base.

I can 100% guarantee that unicorns are going to be an entirely separate DLC that they purposefully did not release with this pack to double dip and get twice the amount of money for the work they did creating Horse Ranch

It’s so weird, the pack almost feels like it’s lacking an identity. Its main feature is obviously the horses, but there was so little focus put on horse gameplay. They added the wine- I mean nectar making which I suppose matches the ranch theme. And then sheep and goats? Because… Ranch? It really lacks depth, like they threw in a bunch of surface level content rather than going all out on the horses. It could have been a good gamepack, but expansion pack? No.

Finally an honest review where the reviewer is not trying to defend this as an expansion pack and 40€ price like lilsimsie.

The bed thing bugged me as well. I made a horse for an existing family in the Cottage Living world and he would not sleep on the bed at all. Would go into the 'stable' I built but would not sleep on the bed even when I assigned it to him. I then made a new family with a horse and placed them in the new neighbourhood, did the exact same thing with the horse and she sleeps on the bed 9 times out of ten at. So i don't know what it is, why one does and one doesn't, if it's just a really finicky thing, if you have to place it in a certain way, but it's an inconsistant function to say the least and is probably still buggy.

I bought it for the full expansion pack price but agree that it's worth only the game pack price. And they didn't even have to add much to change my mind about this. Ponys that could work like bikes to be ridden by kids, and horses for teens and adults. Add that after school activity. It's not like that's a lot of work to add. Actual breedable unicorns. If you can inherit hair color, why not a horn? And clothes and accessories for all ages. I would have liked a rocking horse and hobby horse. Or bull riding. But I get that they all need new animations. And it's really a shame they couldn't even think to add a new woohoo bush in form of a haystack. Or a hottub in form of a half barrel. I mean, come on, some things are so obvious and shouldn't be too hard to add since it's just reskinning items that are already there. Though I'm still waiting for the broom in the dust kit to clean the dirty floors in off the grid houses. So, obvious seems not to be quite so obvious...

Roared laughing at what you wrote on the horse... great review and honesty - thanks!

I played this game pack yesterday and i'm already done. Some stuff are sooo boring, like turn around barrels for a thousand times in order to progress, that's absolutely not who you do it irl. there are a lot of mistakes with horses like something very simple : the sims don't take the reins in the right way, and that so basic and so botch. I also don't understand why the breeds don't come with pre-assigned traits (like for the dogs) and the breeds don't look like the real breeds. It's a piece of detail, but i don't get why you can't do diffrent coloured eyes... that is someting very common with paint horses who is THE ranch breed like in "Horse RANCH" 🙄

The cave reminds me of Sims Medieval, you had to go there a lot to finish your quests. But let me get this straight, you can't actually visit the equestrian center? They showed it in the trailer right?

I love long term aspirations too! I use the aspiration overhaul mod that does this to all the existing aspirations and even adds a few new ones. Makes it feel like your sim has an actual purpose and lifelong goals and desires.

I'm sorry but the this pack is a complete disgrace. I have enough of this sh**. There ain't no way I'm buying something as shallow as this with my hard earned money. Thank you for the Review

I love how honest you are with these reviews, it tells me exactly what to expect so I can figure out what to buy that I would have fun with and would suit my type of gameplay! Tysm!!

If all the horse competitions are rabbit holes, that is just more proof this should’ve been a game pack bordering on stuff pack.

I was expecting that you would be able to build courses and have competitions like you can with dogs in the sims 4. Sure, it’s pretty basic and there’s no real judges and stuff but at least it’s something you actually do and not just sit and wait while your sim is in a rabbit hole and you have absolutely no influence over their success or failure. They should have at least included some career-like options like “try hard”, “take it easy”, “take a shortcut”, “blackmail the judge” or something fun.

I died at the not sponsored by love honey 😂

My FAVOURITE Sims 4 reviewer. I just feel like you’re giving voice to everything I feel about the content!

I just saw lilsimsies review and she claimed it was bigger and better than Cottage Living and i felt so incredibly confused when i watched the gameplay of it. The horses are great sure, but this is not a big pack by any means 💀 I dont care about it taking long to animate. EA are not starving indie devs. In fact starving indie devs are usually way more fair with pricing. Also i had to constantly reset my sims because they bugged out. One of my sims cant even eat food 💀

Tbh I agree on what you’ve been saying about it should been game pack and how it’s costs more than it should. If I didn’t have the added pack of cottage living I would not have even got it. And yes they put a lot of effort into the horse animation but to me it seems like it’s on the same level of werewolves and nothing compared to Cottage Living or even Seasons. I’m disappointed that they didn’t do more to make up with the cost amount and instead went with trying to make their customers feel like they had to be happy about what we got because the team put a lot of effort… which they did but it could’ve been more focused on as a game pack and not as an expansion. I appreciate you’re willingness to be honest and transparent about this. *Edit* After playing the pack for a day I’m actually angry about this pack, it was suppose to be a cowboy pack and brought more cas to play as an indigenous tribe. This pack would’ve been great if they did more than just focus primarily on the horses and actually brought more southern culture as well as more representation of indigenous tribes of America.

One thing they did right this time, sims go INSIDE THE CENTER and don't just disappear next to it!

i always come here for sims content related feed back and you always deliver, appreciate it

Well this just supports the thought I had as soon as this pack was announced. This was supposed to come with cottage living. They just split it for more money. What a shame! I might wait for a sale otherwise I won’t buy it.

country wear kit coming soon 🤪🐴🐎

The best part by far to me are the sheep/goats. Too cute to handle. I love the interaction about discussing which clouds are the fluffiest with them 🥰🥺 otherwise though the pack doesn’t really interest me (especially lack of gameplay)

I was waiting for your video sm, I felt the adrenaline rush as soon as I saw that your video came out🤩

Your review is so fair, especially the Gameplay section of the review. Thanks for reviewing!

Just got it, I'm almost scared to watch 😂😂😂 but I always appreciate the brutal honesty lol. I got it mostly for the landscape, just moved back to the east coast from the west so I miss it ( sort of lmao) it's so pretty 😍😍😍

Heck yeah, I've been waiting for your review! Love your brutal honesty since you don't sugarcoat bs that EA creates (no hate EA/jk), so finally the vid is here!! Thank you!!!

I love your reviews!! 💗💗💗 thank you for being honest 👏🏻

Your reviews are the best, it's really nice seeing honest reviews like yours! also, love your laugh so much hahahah

Its kinda ironic that you say people should just stick to cottage living for the builds because I honestly think you should only get this pack if you already have cottage living. I mean you do get to create barns in this pack which I felt should have been in cottage living. Plus the mini-goats and mini-sheep. I feel like if you want the full farming experience then you should get both packs. But I would not buy this pack on its own if I didnt have cottage living. It just sucks that you need to pay $80 for both packs to have the full experience.

Thank you for keeping it real and watching out for the consumers. Definitely give them more insight before they purchase

I haven't got this expansion pack yet because I was unsure, so I appreciate your honesty and openness! Your honesty is why I watch and love your videos! Thank you!

Thanks for the honest review Satch - we ❤️ you for that! Thanks also for addressing Cross Pack Play since I mainly want the sheep/goats to use in Cottage Living! Will definitely be waiting for a sale based on your review though, so thanks again for rating this pack!

I know it’s meant to be a western theme but I wish that we had some general horse riding outfits for families who have horses not in the western themed world

So much missed opportunity like Jame said cabinets swatches missed some reall nice smooth textures like the other furniture has. I also think that we need more Native tribal stuff. Tepi, fluts, pottery hay even archery (which I have a mod for) Hay even smithy like to craft horse shoes, we get a another Bush should.have benn a pile of hay. I think EA like to re use items too much now.

i live for your review so much

Honestly when I played this game my first reaction was just: this should've been in cottage living or cats and dogs

I actually like the clothes a lot, I deeply dislike dressing my sims as insta models😵‍💫😵‍💫 I want them to have a story and look natural

Let me just say, as a skill equestrian (10+ years of experience, a while wall of ribbons and trainer of 4 horses) the attention to detail with raising horses and caring for them and the traits that they can have is absolutely phenomenal and much better then I was expecting.

I appreciate the honest review sooo much and omg a wild horses option would have been amazeballs!!! So now I feel like I’m missing out on even more lol. I’ve wanted horses since the beginning of sims 2 but, I agree that it’s not worth the price😢. It’s gonna kill me to try to wait monthssss for it to go on sale though!

I get the western vibes, ok cool do western vibes, but I’m honestly distraught there is no decent horse girly outfit 😢 as someone who is not American and grew up with horses it makes me sad to not have a nice helmet that shows the braid behind the hair, some nice leggings and a shirt or blazer that doesn’t scream YE HAW

I wished the mechanics for the cavern would have rather be applied to the equestrian center so you might have like be semi-active on the races etc. And yeah, I wished we rather had a secret world similar to the ermit in outdoor retreat but with a unicorn instead. Also world had things, (thank god since the lots are very small) but I wish they had more things for kids. I guess if this pack was released a few years ago, it would have been great. But it feels very "old pack" in terms of gameplay. One main feature, nothing for toddlers and kids (I wished there was a rocking horse :'( ) and... That's it.

Been waiting all goddamn day for your review! Yay!

Thanks always for being so honest ^^ I truly appreciate it

I was waiting to watch your review on this pack, I did not watch any of the other ones even though I was very curious to see what was in it 😆 thank you for always being brutally honest

The cas items are similar to something from the other packs. The buy mode items looked like it should be on Cats and Dogs pack. The thing I love for the buy mode is the dark wood swatches is beautiful and I'm obsessed with the new house doll.

i love your videos satch!

I Appreciate a different perspective from just being excited for this pack. Thank you

I do love the fact that next to nearly all lots in the world there is somewhere to take your horse to train, so its not exactly empty, for other stuff yes, but there is training grounds everywhere with barrels and jumps so you dont have to to have them on your lot ❤

Relating to adding in a new job for this expansion pack, a horse trainer or animal groomer could have been a cool/interesting part time or full time job feature that they missed out on completely. I remember in the sims 3 pets pack you had to clean the horse stalls, but also their hooves and brush them constantly to keep their mood up! would have been a great re-addition

Thanks for your honest review. I think anyone that is a long time simmer that also know about the previous games would compare and be dissapointed. As a player that doesn't have anything to compare it with I think you would view it more positively and there is less to be dissapointed about because you have nothing to compare it with. At the end of the day if you are going to spend money on something you better spend it on something you truly like and think it's worth it. It's always good to look at it from different perspectives and take advice from the people that have the same experience as you. Which is why there is no need to hate on Satch cause there is enough people that have a similar background and perspective and these people should have someone to represent their opinions too. So Satch, I doubt you are reading this long message lol, but I hope you can proudly continue to be you and be honest to yourself. You don't have to apologize for anything😂. And if someone doesn't like what you have to say they can choose not to engage and just go to someone else that will talk what they want to hear. That's at least what mature people do🤷🏾‍♀️. Have a good day and I look forward to your lets play 😄❤

Thanks for this!! 🎉 we need more honnest people out there. I agree with your scores

I love how honest Satch is, he's one of the youtubers who speaks his mind and I'm here for it

I think nectar making should have came with my wedding stories and Tartosa.. eh

It’s finally here😂 thank you🤩

I appreciate your bluntness, you explain your reasoning

I have been waiting for this!!!

That was what I was looking for: Cross Pack Play. Thank you for that. I will be purchasing this one because I love horses, but I will, again, wait until it goes on sale (and let them get the glitches out). Also, I will purchase it with cottage living because that is the one I want more than anything in the world.

Its a fair, logical assessment... honestly, a better review than I anticipated. 😅

OMG Satch! That text you almost finished showing off writing on the horse in CAS. Please never change.

I was waiting all day for this!