EA seems to have cancelled a new Sims game at the same time that they laid off staff at Maxis.
The rumor first came to attention because of Twitter user SummerBerkay. He shared several screenshots from LinkedIn, which we were able to verify independently. He also believes that the long rumored Project Rene at Maxis was cancelled, and if it was not originally a Sims game, it did turn into Sims 5.
We also have to credit Instant Gaming for linking to the primary source on this. Thoman Sincih is a character artist who worked at Maxis from April 2021 to April 2024. We can thankfully say that he still works in the industry, now at Riot Games.
On his LinkedIn’s About page, he claims credits for several games, including Hogwarts Legacy, Palia, and Star Trek Online. Most notably, the credit at the top of the list is for:
“The Sims 5″ Unreal Engine 5 for PS5 (Cancelled)
There are other LinkedIn profiles that shared information to support some of this information. One Isabela Bradley Sturgeon posted about being laid off at Maxis last April. She was vouched for by Brian Schubert, a former coworker at EA in his post. Thankfully, we can say that she now works at Highwire Games as a development contractor.
Finally, we have a LinkedIn profile for Josh Yaw, who was a software engineer at EA from October 2022 to April 2024. His profile does not indicate that he has found a new employer, but it is possible that the page has simply not been updated properly yet.
We also noted that these layoffs occurred while these employees lived in different parts of the world. Of course, we know that Maxis has several offices around the world, and there is a program for remote work. So this was not connected to one Maxis office closing.
While Maxis layoffs happening in April did not hit the news, EA did announce they would have layoffs across the company last February of this year. So this is not a complete surprise, but it is unfortunate that we only found out about these particular layoffs months after they happened.
It would certainly be disappointing if EA cancelled work on a new The Sims game, whether it was Project Rene, or The Sims 5, or if that was the same project. But let’s not get it twisted: the big news here were the April layoffs at Maxis.
Video game companies can cancel a planned title like The Sims 5 or Crash Bandicoot 5 now, because the circumstances are not favorable, and reexplore it later. But when game developers lose their jobs, as they have in the past two years, that can affect their family circumstances, living arrangements, healthcare, etc.
EA may have met the minimum legal requirements to reveal layoffs, but we hope this news spreading forces them to announce these April layoffs at Maxis. And we wish the best for all the former EA developers affected. Hopefully, they can find placement back in the video game industry.
