EA confirmed that The Sims 5 wasn’t and isn’t in the works. Instead, they are focusing on funneling more into The Sims 4, a ten-year-old title. A couple of months ago, Project Rene seemed like it was scrapped, according to a developer’s resume. However, according to Variety’s statement, this does not seem to be the case, and they are continuing to work on Project Rene, which is said to be a separate multiplayer project in The Sims universe.
Electronic Arts has also confirmed that there are no plans for a successor to The Sims 4, which is currently the longest-running installment in the franchise’s history. The first game was released 25 years ago. It’s been confirmed that The Sims 4 will continue receiving free updates and paid expansions.
In addition to The Sims 4 continuing to receive paid content, EA has confirmed that the Sims team is working on a new project that will include a multiplayer mode, as well as partnering up with some Sims creators so that they can sell their custom in-game content through the EA store, similar to how it was done in The Sims 3.
Kate Gorman said that the main reason they have decided not to make The Sims 5 is an overwhelming concern that players would have to “start all over again” after a decade’s worth of gameplay in The Sims 4. There are more than 80 million players worldwide, with a very active social media community. “The way to think about it is, historically, The Sims franchise starts with Sims 1, and then Sims 2, 3, and 4. And they were seen as replacements for the previous products.”
Recently, EA announced in a blog post that some significant fixes will be released for the game, something the fans have consistently asked for when providing feedback for EA. They are also releasing an “exciting base game update” before their upcoming expansion in October, for which they are slowly releasing information. In this blog post, they revealed the Life and Death expansion, where players will get their first proper look at the content on October 3 before it releases on Halloween. So far, it seems to focus on tarot and perhaps new jobs and skills.
In this interview with Variety, EA also mentioned that Sims fans will get to hear more about the elusive Project Rene, which the Sims team has been working on for years. This isn’t their first rodeo in trying to make a multiplayer Sims game, with The Sims Online launching in 2002 and the game shutting down entirely in 2008, which was seen as a failed experiment.
