Businesses & Hobbies is the expansion pack built around turning a Sim's passion project into an actual paycheck. It adds a flexible Small Business system, two new skills in Pottery and Tattooing, a mentoring and class system, and a Scandinavian-inspired world called Nordhaven. Here's everything worth knowing before jumping in.
The Small Business System
The headline feature of this pack is the ability to turn any residential lot into a Small Business Venue. That means a Sim's own house can double as a shop, gym, tattoo parlor, or basically anything else with the right setup. Lots can be split into three zones: Public, Employees Only, and Residential, so customers, staff, and family members all stick to the areas they're supposed to.
Business owners get to define what actually happens on the lot by setting business activities. A retail shop can be set up to encourage browsing and buying, a gym can push customers toward the equipment, and other activities from previously owned packs even carry over. Someone with the Realm of Magic pack, for example, can set up a business that pushes visitors to use Spellcasting, which opens the door to building something like a school for Occult Sims.
Sims 4 Business & Hobbies Guide: Small Business, Pottery, Tattoos
Owners can also set entry criteria for who's allowed in, including age, marital status, career, and occult type. That level of control makes it possible to build genuinely themed spaces, like a Spellcaster-only academy or an under-30s fitness club.
Mentoring and Classes
One of the most useful features tied to this pack technically shipped for free in a base game update just before launch: Mentoring. Any Sim with a skill at level 5 or higher can mentor another Sim in that same skill, speeding up how fast they learn it. Businesses & Hobbies builds on this by adding a whiteboard object that lets Sims run full classes instead of one-on-one lessons, covering nearly any skill in the game, from painting to acting.
Mentoring and classes can be run for free or charged by the hour, and the payout scales with how high the mentor's skill level is. It's a solid way to speed up skill grinding while running a legit business on the side.
Sims 4 Business & Hobbies Guide: Small Business, Pottery, Tattoos
Skill Mastery Perks
Sims who hit level 10 in a skill and keep practicing it have a chance to unlock random Skill Mastery perks. These vary depending on the skill, ranging from automatic friendship boosts when performing for a crowd to passive skill growth while sleeping. It's a small bonus system, but it adds some replay value to skills that are already maxed out.
New Skills: Pottery and Tattooing
Two brand-new skills anchor this pack.
Tattooing got a full rework across the board. There are far more designs to choose from, tattoos can be layered, and a new Tattoo Paint Mode lets Sims design completely custom body art. Finished designs can be shared through the Gallery, so players can grab tattoo designs made by other Simmers instead of building everything from scratch. The same tool also works for smaller cosmetic touches like bruises or birthmarks.
Pottery lets Sims throw clay on a Pottery Wheel and fire pieces in a Kiln, unlocking functional items like tea sets, planters, and incense burners as the skill levels up. Broken pieces can even be repaired using Kintsugi, the Japanese art of mending ceramics with visible gold seams, which adds character and value to finished pieces.
Sims can also cook up Family Recipes using a new cookbook, adding a bonus ingredient that changes the meal's effect, whether that's a mood boost or an extra bump to skill gains.
Sims 4 Business & Hobbies Guide: Small Business, Pottery, Tattoos
Nordhaven, the New World
Nordhaven takes design cues from Scandinavian and Dutch architecture, and it looks the part. That said, it's a smaller world than most recent expansions, split into just two districts: Industrial and Historical. A handful of pre-built businesses and hobby meetups (fitness, geek culture, and more) are scattered around, but many lots feel underused or empty compared to what other worlds offer. Anyone expecting a hobby-packed, activity-dense city might come away a little underwhelmed.
What to Know Before Buying
The pack leans heavily into the "business" half of its name and doesn't add much in the way of brand-new hobbies, mostly turning existing hobbies from other packs into things Sims can now monetize. Build Mode items skew toward a simple Scandinavian, wood-heavy style that won't fit every build, and the Create-a-Sim additions, while decent, don't stand out compared to other recent packs.
Where the pack shines is flexibility. Owners of other expansions get extra mileage, since features like Get to Work's retail system or Realm of Magic's Spellcasting interactions plug directly into the new Small Business tools. Without those other packs, the business options are noticeably more limited.
Businesses & Hobbies is best suited for players who specifically want to build and run a business inside their Sim's world, especially if they already own a few other expansions to pull extra functionality from. Anyone hoping for a wave of brand-new hobbies might want to manage expectations going in.