No The Sims 5 Leaves Project Rene with More Questions Than Answers

EA dropped a blog post with some massive updates about the future of The Sims. The blog post covers some interesting stats about The Sims 4‘s player habits over the past ten years, confirmation of The Sims movie in production, new Creator Kits, the new The Sims Creator Program, sign-ups for The Sims Labs, news on future updates for The Sims 4, and playtesting for The Sims 4 and Project Rene.

One thing that was not mentioned was The Sims 5, and now a senior executive at EA has gone on to reveal that there are no plans for The Sims 5. This raises more questions than answers about the nature of Project Rene, which many had assumed was going to be The Sims 5. Rather than creating a new game in the series and moving the series forward, EA’s apparent strategy is to expand on what it has now, rather than retiring active games.

Project Rene is the First The Sims Experiment

EA’s blog post states:

”
The Sims
will move beyond linear, sequential
Sims
releases and offer more options for players than ever before…We’re focused on creating a variety of games and experiences that will touch different categories across the simulated life genre including cozy games, social and collaborative based gameplay, mobile narrative games and continued depth, improvements, and modernization of
The Sims 4
, which will continue to be a foundational
Sims
experience
.
“

With The Sims 4 offering the “foundational” experience of the franchise, Project Rene appears to be the first of EA’s experiments in this expansion of The Sims games, rather than being The Sims 5 sequel that some assumed it would be. However, right now, the only information that EA has released about Project Rene is that it will offer a multiplayer experience, and little else. This poses questions about the nature of Project Rene, what type of game it will be, and what players can expect from the experience. Although Project Rene hadn’t been confirmed as The Sims 5, that role would have guided what fans could have expected from it.

The Implications of Skipping The Sims 5

There will be a small play test for Project Rene in fall 2024 that is invite-only. The play test announcement hopefully means that EA will be ready to release more information about Project Rene soon. Information released about Project Rene so far is that it will be a live service, cross-platform, multiplayer experience. EA’s aim for Project Rene is for players and friends to meet, connect, and share while building in the world of The Sims. There has been some early customization shown for builds, but EA has been very scarce with information about Project Rene.

The news that The Sims 5 is not happening marks a major change for The Sims franchise. The Sims formula has worked since its launch in 2000, and this change could make or break the series, especially with a slew of new competitors entering the life sim market. The Sims 4 has continued to sell well even ten years after its launch, and this decision to continue it as the foundational The Sims experience may have been motivated by its sales.

This may prove to be a divisive decision, however, especially with the problems that The Sims 4 has that are foundational and cannot be fixed with updates. Some were hoping that a reboot of The Sims 5 would address these issues, but will now have to hope that one of The Sims spin-off games provides the gameplay experience that they were looking for instead.