Electronic Arts just made a game-changing revelation: Project Rene, long thought to be The Sims 5, won’t be a linear sequel to the wildly successful and long-running The Sims 4. The publisher is moving away from sequential releases and will focus instead on expanding the franchise to other games, genres, and platforms.
In a blog post published Tuesday, EA said Project Rene development is “focused on building ways for friends to meet, connect, and share while playing together in an all-new world.” This could imply that EA Maxis is testing multiplayer for the first time since The Sims Online, an MMO from 2002 that never reached the heights of its competitors. It also announced that an invite-only, multiplayer-based playtest will be happening this fall through The Sims Labs program.
In an interview with Variety, The Sims franchise general manager Kate Gorman clarified why the company isn’t publishing a traditional fifth edition of the game: It doesn’t want any new releases to be a “replacement” for The Sims 4.
“The way to think about it is, historically, The Sims franchise started with Sims 1 and then Sims 2, 3, and 4. And they were seen as replacements for the previous products,” Gorman said. “What this means is that we will continue to bring HD simulation experience and what people would want from a 5 — but it doesn’t mean that we’re going to start you over, reset all your progress, and really feel like you’re going to lose all of that amazing play you put into 4.”
EA wants to experiment with more ways to play The Sims, with features such as events or more narrative-driven storylines. The post also mentions “cozy games,” “mobile narrative games,” and, of course, more updates to The Sims 4. The company revealed that around 80 million people have played the life sim since its release in 2014. According to Circana Group’s Mat Piscatella, around 10% of all console and PC players in the U.S. have played the game at least once. The Sims 4 will continue to receive updates and content expansions for the foreseeable future, along with Creator Kits made by the community and officially published by EA.
“We’re still continuing to support TS4 more than ever. Still continue to deliver expansion packs and updates and fixes,” Gorman said.
The franchise’s flagship game has been out for a decade, and has been struggling to handle all the DLC and to keep up on modern PCs and consoles. The developers said in May that it had formed an internal team dedicated to tackling issues players have noted over the years. The first batch of fixes will release on Wednesday, and more will be released every two months. Players will also receive an “exciting base game update” ahead of the Life and Death expansion pack in October.
