We now have good reason to believe that The Sims 5 may be coming to mobile, and not even consoles.
As reported on GameRant, Maxis has put up job openings for codename Project Rene. While the studio didn’t identify this as The Sims 5, insiders have disclosed that this is the title that they are working on.
The job listing for a Multiplayer Gameplay Software Engineer indicates that the job is “for both PC and Mobile platform games.” Again, what’s not written here is as relevant as what is written here, as consoles are not included in the job listing.
It certainly would feel to be a long time ago, but the first few The Sims games did get ported to consoles, and have a longer history than mobile The Sims games. While game consoles like the PlayStation 2, Xbox, and GameCube were sufficiently powerful to run The Sims and The Sims 2, the game did need to go through some changes to fit that console market. Particularly, Maxis added mission based modes to better fit expectations of console players.
The latest The Sims game that were ported to consoles was The Sims 4, which did get ports to both Xbox One and PlayStation 4. At this point, Maxis did not add any console specific modes, but they did make quite a commitment by producing feature parity between PC and console. This means all the DLC and patches that the PC version received were carried over to the console versions as well.
We had recently reported that other job listings suggest that The Sims 5 could also launch under a free-to-play model. But we should also discuss Maxis’ earlier dashed ambitions and why that could affect their choices now.
SimCity in 2013 should have been Maxis’ shift for their franchises to online multiplayer. This reboot received favorable reviews prior to release. However, the broken online functionality at launch completely ruined the game’s reputation.
Today, Cities Skylines is the popular city building simulator of the day, and SimCity hasn’t seen a new game in over a decade. Maxis Emeryville, the studio that made the 2013 SimCity, has since been closed.
Is PC and mobile Maxis’ gateway to make an online Sims game? It would make sense as they would be targeting market segments that are more willing to engage with free-to-play and always-online game models.
This is only a theory for now, but it could be promising for Sims fans if they can successfully transition their games in the future.
