Everything about horses in The Sims 4 Horse Ranch expansion pack is impressive, from how detailed you can get with the rich create-a-horse system to the stunning animations that are so good they’re sometimes scarily realistic. Horses are immensely complex creatures, so I was worried Horse Ranch wouldn’t do them justice, but it certainly did.
And sure, I love everything about horses and what the rest of the pack has to offer. But it isn’t the customizable horses, the picturesque world, or the surprising amount of gameplay Horse Ranch offers that has me obsessed. It’s a silly rabbit hole cave tucked away in a random corner that I absolutely cannot stop playing with.
I realize the Horse Ranch expansion pack is all about, well, horses and running a ranch. And while these features are certainly impressive, it’s this ridiculous Dungeons & Dragons-style cavern that has me hooked and excited about The Sims in a way I haven’t felt in years.
Dreadhorse Caverns might be one of my favorite additions ever
Listen, I don’t usually love rabbit holes in The Sims 4, but Dreadhouse Caverns is a game-changer.
The entire Dreadhorse Caverns adventure takes place offscreen. You can click to interact with the cave, but once your Sim vanishes into its depths, you can only interact through pop-ups. This lack of visuals is usually a big downside of rabbit holes, but not with this cave. Instead, it was like taking on a D&D-style adventure where anything could happen next.
You can find this hidden cave deep in the Galloping Gulch area of Chestnut Ridge. It’s one of The Sims 4’s most well-concealed secrets, and even though you can’t actually watch your Sim take on the dangers of this cave, the gameplay associated with it is so good you won’t feel like you’re missing out at all. It’s quite like D&D in this way; a large part of the fun is left up to your imagination since you’re only given pop-up text boxes to work with.
If you’re familiar with D&D, you’ll love what this cave has to offer as I felt myself getting whisked away on an epic campaign each time I sent my poor Sim back into the depths of the cavern. Dreadhorse Caverns is the perfect mix of actual strategy and that signature Sims goofiness as each pop-up you receive becomes more ludicrous and dangerous than the last.
Each time you send your Sim into the cave, you need to work your way up to reaching 100 percent cave exploration process to progress to the next level. You can earn more progress by fighting the foes you come across and navigating past obstacles. Like in D&D, success isn’t guaranteed, the choices you make matter, and strategy is key.
Related: How to get goats and sheep in The Sims 4 Horse Ranch Expansion
When you encounter an enemy, be it a hungry T-Rex or a Two-Steppin’ Giant Spider ready for a dance battle, you’ll need to tell your Sim whether to be offensive or defensive. You then need to keep an eye on your own health and how much health your enemy has left. This process continues until you either successfully vanquish your opponent and progress forward in the cave or until you lose and exit the cave in defeat, which means you have to wait a while before trying again.
Many of the obstacles you encounter in this cave are only passable through solving a riddle, such as the “speak baa” riddle, where you can only progress to a higher level of the cave by having a mini sheep in your inventory. This riddle is extremely silly, but it’s also quite clever, which sums up the D&D vibes and general cave-exploring process quite well.
You get decent rewards for your exploration efforts, and out of everything the Horse Ranch pack offers, this is the only feature that consistently kept me engaged and returning for more. Every adventure into Dreadhorse Caverns felt drastically different from the last, and I consistently ignored my horses in favor of tackling another expedition into the caves.
The pack is great, but it’s not the most versatile
My expeditions into Dreadhorse Caverns have become regular and likely will be for some time. I love scouring the world for collectibles, and each entry into the cave grants a drastically different experience from the last. But, beyond this, I probably won’t make much use of Horse Ranch‘s other features long term.
When I consider picking up a new The Sims 4 expansion pack, I always look for versatile packs that integrate well into my everyday gameplay. Expansion packs like Seasons and Growing Together rank highly for me because of this, so with Horse Ranch, I was looking for features that have longevity and adaptability.
I can see myself returning to Chestnut Ridge fairly often because it is a picturesque world packed with activities. One of my biggest complaints with many of The Sims 4’s worlds is that they are beautiful but barren (I’m looking at you San Sequoia and Britechester). Chestnut Ridge, however, has an abundance of interactable assets.
Nectar-making is a skill I’ll regularly use, and prairie grass is one of my new favorite ways to forage for random items. But beyond this, there aren’t many features that I see meshing well into my everyday style of gameplay.
As much as I love horses, I don’t know how often I’ll actually be adding one to my household. I would probably use them way more if they didn’t take up one of the precious eight household slots we currently have to work with. Because of this, I will probably only return to them occasionally.
Overall, I’d rank Horse Ranch somewhere in the middle of the currently available expansion packs. It’s not one of my favorites, but it’s got some great (if not novel) features. If you love horses and the country lifestyle, you’ll probably really enjoy this pack, but if not, it might not be worth buying for you.
I’m probably going to send every Sim I ever make into the depths of the D&D cave, but I can’t justify the full price of The Sims 4 Horse Ranch pack just for Dreadhorse Caverns, even if I want to.
Disclosure: Our review copy of The Sims 4 Horse Ranch was provided by EA.
