Autonomy has been a part of the Sims franchise for a long time, and it has remained a little controversial in the community for just as long because it is not quite so refined as to be completely reliable. A lot of players prefer to do without it for different reasons. Whether you want to challenge yourself, keep your Sim safer, or are just feeling like it, disabling autonomy can enrich your gaming experience inThe Sims 4.

Besides, micromanaging Sims can be all the fun of the game sometimes. It is harder to get everything just as you want it if you’re playing tug-o-war with that stubborn Sim that just won’t stop turning on the stereo in the middle of the night, isn’t it?

A female Sim looks smug as she walks out of her house by her own will.

What Is Autonomy In The Sims 4?

Autonomy is a game mechanic thatallows your Sims to perform all actions without any player input. When autonomy is enabled, Sims will just take care of themselves. At least, that’s how it is supposed to work in theory.

In practice, autonomous Simsare not always particularly good at, well, being autonomous. Though, one might argue that’s part of the charm of setting a Sim free from all control. They can just be their silly selves.

A female Sim looks angry and wicked as she practices acting in The Sims 4.

An autonomous Sim willdecide for themselveshow to prioritize their motives, will go to work and school without being prompted to, will take care of house chores, and everything in-between.

This feature is particularly useful forplays where there are many Sims in a single lot, when trying to juggle everything can get a little tricky for us as players.

Why Disable Autonomy?

Generally speaking, the main reason to disable autonomy issimply wanting to control all aspects of the gameplay.

While you may still control autonomous Sims and override their actions by canceling them, it is much easier to just control them completely. That way you canavoid disobedience from your Simsaltogether.

Though, there areother good reasons to want to disable autonomy. You might, for example, decide to do a challenge that does not allow autonomy. Similarly, your Simsmight continuously endanger themselveswhen set to be autonomous, prompting you to decide that they should not be autonomous at all.

In all these cases, you will definitely findit’s best to just disable itinstead of having to constantly cancel a Sim’s actions to try and force them to do something else.

How To Disable Autonomy?

Disabling Autonomy can be done in just a few steps:

There is an option that allows you todisable autonomy for the current Simin the lot you’re playing while keeping all other Sims autonomous. If you have a lot of Sims in your household, you can choose this option instead tomake everything less overwhelming.

This same tab will also show youall options to adjust auto-aging for Sims, both in your current lot and in unplayed lots.