There is plenty of hype over The Sims franchise. We know that the developers are working on Project Rene, which was believed to be the next big iteration. But it seems that won’t be the case anymore, as the developers are apparently not moving forward with The Sims 5 as the next big release.
Variety recently reported that The Sims 5 is not happening. Instead, the developers will continue on with the support with The Sims 4. As you know, The Sims 4 is the latest mainline installment for the franchise, and it’s been going on for a decade now. That would prompt some fans to expect the next game to enter the marketplace soon. After all, we know Project Rene is in the works, but that might actually not be the next major installment.
Variety spoke with the vice president and general manager of The Sims, Kate Gorman, who noted that there was a reason why the developers opted to avoid moving on with another edition of the game. The reason was that there are so many players right now on The Sims 4 moving on to the next installment would force players to start over again.
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. What we’re really working with our community on is this a new era of ‘The Sims.’ We are not going to be working on replacements of previous projects; we’re only going to be adding to our universe. With that, you’ll see there are more ways to experience ‘The Sims’ on different platforms, different ways to play, transmedia, and lots of great offerings within this universe. So absolutely, we’re still continuing to support ‘TS4’ more than ever. Still continue to deliver expansion packs and updates and fixes. But what this is to say is, the way we’re going to do things going forward is a little different. And it’s really exciting and it’s really the most expansive iteration of ‘The Sims’ yet. – Kate Gorman
That said, there are still plans to bring content and HD simulation experiences for players. It’s just not going to be in the form of a The Sims 5 game release. What we’ll get instead is more free and paid content kits for The Sims 4. Likewise, we’re expecting a multiplayer component for the game from the developers working on Project Rene.
Additionally, as reported by Variety, there are plans to bring out user-generated kits. These Creator Kits will be available to add new custom content to your Sims’ world. But again, we’ll just have to wait and see how well the developers continue to update and add content that will see players sticking around on The Sims 4.