Raise the alarm! The Burglar is making their long-anticipated return to The Sims

It’s time for your Sims to start locking their doors and closing their curtains at night – not to mention nailing down anything that could conceivably fit into a comedically-shoulder-slung swag sack with the space-saving properties of the TARDIS and a simoleon sign on it – because this month’s Sims 4 base game update has reintroduced the burglar at long last! Sure enough, this is the secret surprise concealed by an eyeball emoji on the game’s latest DLC roadmap, which dropped at the beginning of this month.

A staple of the first three generations of the franchise, The Sims’ iconic burglar NPC was noteworthy in their absence upon The Sims 4’s launch over 10 years ago. A decade is long enough for urban legends to spring up, with a persistent rumour doing the rounds that the burglar was a deliberate omission on EA’s part this time around to avoid traumatising people who’ve been robbed in real life (although if that was the case you’d wonder why they didn’t extend the same courtesy to the survivors of house fires…), despite assurances from the Sim Gurus that burglars were simply still on the to-do list.

Well, regardless of the reason for the burglar’s failure to appear up until now, Simmers can once again bolt upright in a cold sweat in the middle of the night worried they might have heard that unforgettable music sting, thanks to base game Patch 176 and its introduction of Robin Banks, TS4’s newest special NPC. The patch rolled out across all platforms on February 25th, and thankfully also brings back burglar alarms and police officers, as well as the option for Sims with certain species or career perks to attempt to foil that sneaky sim by themselves.

Patch 176 is free to all players regardless of which DLC they own, and incorporates elements supporting The Sims 4 Businesses & Hobbies expansion pack, which is due to launch on March 6th, i.e. only about a week away now. It’s all part of the game’s Motherlode season, which encompasses all planned content for TS4 released between February and May of this year, under the shared theme of making money through fair means or foul – which, naturally, is where our new pal Robin comes in.

Yup, it’s not all cozy pottery workshops and hipster tattoo parlours – there’s a shadier side to The Sims’ latest additions, and the burglar has a big role to play in all of that. If you’ve been playing the Blast from the Past anniversary event you might have noticed some criminally-themed rewards – including the new Sticky Fingers aspiration that lets you play the thief yourself – and sure enough, that was all leading up to this. As to whether this all hints at more underworld dealings to be found in the Businesses & Hobbies expansion pack itself, there’s only a few days left until we can say for certain.