The Sims: Unleashed is a 2002 expansion pack developed by Maxis and published by Electronic Arts for The Sims. The fifth expansion pack for The Sims, Unleashed expands the game's neighborhood to include a community area named Old Town which allows players to purchase pets, including cats and dogs, and farm their own produce. Unleashed was announced by Electronic Arts in June 2002 and released in September, with a Macintosh port of the game published by Aspyr Media in December. Upon release, Unleashed received generally positive reviews from critics, with praise directed to the scope and variety of the gameplay additions in the new neighborhood and pet mechanics, although expressing disappointment at the limited degree of control and gameplay mechanics involving pets. The concept of owning pets would be later re-introduced in The Sims 2: Pets, The Sims 3: Pets, and The Sims 4: Cats & Dogs.
Gameplay
thumb|left|Unleashed introduces an expanded default neighborhood, including residential lots and commercial lots in Old Town.
Unleashed expands the default residential neighborhood of The Sims with a new commercial district, Old Town, increasing the number of community lots from 10 to 40. Old Town features new lot types, including pet stores, gardening shops, and food service areas. Players can also rezone lots for residential or community use. As with community lots in other expansions including Hot Date, Sims can access Old Town lots by calling for transportation.
In Unleashed, Sims can now adopt pets for their families, particularly dogs and cats, which count as members of a family and move independently. Pets can be adopted from the local adoption center. Players choose the pet's species, breed, and name. Players cannot choose their personality points; pets come with random personality points. The game also introduces pet birds, fish, turtles and iguanas that act as interactive objects. Sims can interact with pet dogs and cats in different ways, such as rubbing, playing and clapping. Other social moves include praising and scolding. Pets can also be trained to obey Sims, either by normal Sims or the local Pet Trainer, and can be entered into a pet show at community lots. outperformed only by The Sims: Vacation, and the 6th best-selling of 2003. The game also topped monthly sales charts, including NPD charts in the United States, ChartTrack and Virgin Megastores charts in Europe, and IEAA sales charts in Australia.
Reviews
According to review aggregator Metacritic, Unleashed received "generally favorable" reviews from critics.