When do you start a legacy ?

Hello everyone!

I've been playing The Sims for as long as I can remember, and I’ve always enjoyed telling stories—or at least imagining the potential stories. I love building homes and creating characters, giving families their own rich backstories, building a vibrant town, playing a bit with each household, and unlocking possibilities with each expansion pack. But here’s the thing: after over a thousand hours in the game, I’ve spent way more time in Build and CAS modes than actually diving into long-term gameplay. I’ve never truly played through multiple generations, even though I’ve wanted to.

I have certain favorite families I always consider for legacy playthroughs. But before diving into one, I like to create a very detailed and complex vision for the overall story. So, during those thousand hours, I’ve mostly been filling up Newcrest, developing rich households, exploring each expansion with specific Sims, but never getting past the first generation. When I want to play with kids, I tend to create families that already have them, rather than allowing my Sims to have them naturally. I’ve been focused on setting up the backstory for a legacy playthrough in a separate save. In this setup, everything would progress year by year, with every Sim aging, while the original save stays frozen at year zero. It’s like I’m creating a “horizontal” world to lay the groundwork for a “vertical” legacy, excited to watch how the world changes over time from the perspective of a single family and Sim.

How, when, and where do you start your legacy playthroughs? Do you let go and watch base game NPCs live in base game houses and have 15 kids? Does it bother you to see your Sim die of old age while their high school friends never leave high school and somehow end up best friends with your Sim’s kids, grandkids, and great-grandkids?

Soul soul, a random overthinker.