Now that we’ve ticked ghosts, vampires, aliens, mermaids, spellcasters, werewolves, fairies, Bonehilda the Skeleton Maid, and PlantSims off the collective wishlist for The Sims 4, there aren’t too many occult type Sims from previous games left to bring back. The Sims 3 also ran into this problem back in the day, which is when a new creature was created: the Imaginary Friend, who has now reappeared after their long hiatus as part of The Sims 4 Adventure Awaits expansion pack.
Just like in its original appearance, this creepy doll can, under certain circumstances, be transformed into a full-sized humanoid Sim that only its child bestie can see – and can even, if you meet some more conditions, be made into a real Sim through the pure power of a child’s love. But we’re getting ahead of ourselves.
Read on for everything you need to know about how to get an Imaginary Friend in The Sims 4 and how to make them real – or how to get rid of them if you decide that’s what you’d prefer.
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How to get an Imaginary Friend in The Sims 4
Players who remember Imaginary Friends as they were initially introduced in The Sims 3 might recall that there was a lot of randomness and luck involved in actually getting one – and if you didn’t want one, that was also too bad, because there wasn’t much you could do about it once the RNG decided to assign one to your young Sim (and there was about a 75% chance of that happening).
Fortunately, The Sims 4 has taken almost completely the opposite approach, leaving the player fully in control of when and if their Sim children obtain Imaginary Friends. Whereas TS3 specifically blocked you from buying or selling the dolls that could be transformed into Imaginary Friends, in TS4 they can be simply obtained from Build/Buy mode.
Adventure Awaits introduces four Imaginary Friend dolls made by the fictional manufacturer ImagineMe! Each doll has a different appearance (which can’t be changed) and default personality (which can be switched to any of the other three), and uses the doll’s default name unless the player chooses to change it:
- Lil Monster: Defaults to the Goofball personality type
- Pretty Pegacorn: Defaults to the Evil personality type
- Krafty Kid: Defaults to the Creative personality type
- Wild Child: Defaults to the Competitive personality type
However, an ImagineMe! doll does not become an Imaginary Friend immediately upon being purchased. Instead, a child Sim who meets at least one of three criteria – either having reached Level 3 of the Creativity skill, befriended the doll through interactions, or be experiencing a critically low Social need – can select “Turn into Imaginary Friend” from the interaction menu to transform their doll into an Imaginary Friend occult NPC who only they can see.
Since an ImagineMe! doll’s name and personality can only be altered up until the point that they become an Imaginary Friend, be sure to make these changes first if you don’t want to stick with the defaults!
The child Sim only needs to meet one of the three conditions listed above to create an Imaginary Friend. Furthermore, the relationship requirement is easy to obtain after just a few interactions. However, note that the relationship with the newly-created Imaginary Friend will revert back to Acquaintances, and you’ll need to rebuild it to Friendship if you want to keep them around for the long-term (see below).
Only the child Sim who creates the Imaginary Friend will be able to see and interact with them. When switching viewpoints to another Sim in the household, the Imaginary Friend NPC will turn invisible, while the ImagineMe! doll will reappear in the spot where the child last left it. The child Sim will still carry on their half of any interactions with the unseen Imaginary Friend, though, which can creep out some older Sims if they see it happening.
Each child Sim can only have one Imaginary Friend at any given time, even if they own multiple ImagineMe! dolls. You cannot create a new Imaginary Friend by temporarily dismissing an existing one, although you can create a new one after permanently banishing a former Imaginary Friend (see below).
How to make Imaginary Friends real in The Sims 4
A child Sim with a sufficiently high relationship with their Imaginary Friend can prompt their pal to become a real Sim via a clearly-labelled interaction “Offer to Make Real” on the social pie menu. This interaction will display as soon as your doll becomes an Imaginary Friend, but will be greyed out if the relationship values between the pair are too low and/or until the child Sim ages up to a teen.
Upon ageing up to a teen, Sims with an Imaginary Friend who meets the required relationship values will have the option to bring their friend into the real world of high school crushes and sudden skincare crises with them, or put them away as a childish thing that they no longer need. (The second sounds like the start of a horror film, but don’t worry, either option can be chosen with no judgement on the game’s part.)
Imaginary Friends disappear in a puff of magical dust when their child friend ages up to a teen, but that’s okay, since you can only initiate the “Offer to Make Real” interaction on the doll anyway. On the other hand, you don’t need to take any special action in order to leave your doll as simply a doll once your Sim reaches their teenage years.
Upon being made real, an Imaginary Friend will be of the same age group as their friend, and will become part of the active household, although without familial relationships to any of the other family members. They will have a preset appearance that is closely based on their former occult appearance, but much more human-looking. Of course, you can edit them to your liking in CAS if for some reason you don’t want an army of humanoid Pretty Pegacorns running around your Sims’ town starting fires.
How to get rid of Imaginary Friends in The Sims 4
There are a few different ways to dismiss Imaginary Friends, some of which are more permanent than others.
If you just want your Sim’s Imaginary Friend to temporarily revert to doll form, choose “Send Back to Imaginary Land” from the social interactions pie menu. You can then click on the doll again and select “Summon Imaginary Friend” whenever you like to bring them back out of hiding as an autonomous NPC who can interact with their child companion once again.
If, on the other hand, you want your Imaginary Friend gone for good – maybe she’s been starting too many fires? – there are a few different options at your disposal:
- Selling the ImagineMe! doll either through Build/Buy or a Sim’s inventory will instantly, permanently dismiss an Imaginary Friend and remove them from the child Sim’s relationship panel.
- The child Sim can interact with their Imaginary Friend and select the “Say Goodbye Forever” option to dismiss them for good on the spot, which has a similar outcome to the first option but allows you to keep the doll.
- Alternatively, you can simply wait for the Imaginary Friend’s child Sim to age up to a teenager and then not invite them to become real.
Once an Imaginary Friend has been made into a real Sim, you can’t banish them any more. Former Imaginary Friends do retain some of their occult traits, but for most purposes they’re just ordinary Sims now, so if you want to get rid of one you’ll need to use a more conventional method (like building a wall around the pool they’re swimming in).
The Sims Team have been busy with the highly-requested occults this year: why not check out our guides to becoming a fairy in The Sims 4 Enchanted by Nature? Of course, not every Simmer loves supernatural gameplay, but pretty much every Simmer loves The Sims 4 cheats!