I’m not quite sure what to make ofEA’srecent announcement thatThe Sims 4will continue forever, andThe Sims 5 will never be. Technically, people will argue, this is nothing new. Project Rene, as the next phase ofThe Simsis known, wasnever officially called The Sims 5. But it was widely assumed that the series that has always had sequels would get another sequel eventually, rather than an uncomfortable transformation into a live-service format it was never designed for. This is a crossroads for The Sims, and time will tell whether the correct path has been chosen.
It seemed as though The Sims was in a bit of a tough spot. It’s widely agreed that The Sims 4 lacks a certain digital je ne sais quoi previous entries, particularly The Sims 2, had. But as is the nature of je ne sais quoi, that’s tough to put into words. Side by side, The Sims 4 looks better, runs better, has a greater range of design and gameplay options, and offers more technical precision - but this is to be expected as a much newer game. There’s just something flat about it, something bland, something corporate.
With every design decision in The Sims 4, you can smell the stale office air from the featureless conference rooms where the team were forced to pore over audience surveys and algorithmic pie charts to decide on how big the font should be and what soothing tones to use for the menu bars. The Sims 2 felt like it was devs in a room saying “yeah let’s do that, seems cool”. The truth of both games' development is likely somewhere in the middle, but that feeling lingers.
The Sims 4 Is Not Built To Last Forever
What this means is The Sims 4 is probably not the game you’d choose to build your future on. It feels like it needs a sequel to freshen things up. Being ten years old, that’s understandable. But EA claims the game has 85 million players and has made $1 billion in revenue with DLC packs included, and those are numbers you’d build your future on, which is why Project Rene is now the eternal evolution of The Sims 4 and not The Sims 5.
Part of me wonders if the reason the team was initially so vague about what Project Rene was, thentried to bury the lead by announcing it in tandemwitha Margot Robbie-produced movie, was because there was still debate over which way to take the game. It’s also one you can spin in a lot of ways. Sticking with The Sims 4 is obviously a move designed to maximise profit by asking the golden goose to keep laying, but from a player’s perspective, there are two angles.
On the one hand, EA is telling them the game they have right now will go on forever, so they don’t need to worry about buying a new one for $70 any time soon. On the other, it means limited overhauls to a ten year old game, replaced by an endless slew of DLC packs that can be made relatively quickly and cheaply and sold to great profit.
Live-Service Rarely Works Out As Execs Hope
Everyone wants a bankable live-service game, and many series (whether new likeConcordor established likeHalo) have fallen short of achieving the consistent levels of success seen with games likeFIFA/EA FC,Call of Duty, orFortnite, who have discovered a license to print money. EA clearly believes The Sims can join that group with its consistent playerbase and built-in live-service options through DLC, but while this might help the player in the short-term, with no $70 outlay for a sequel that basically plays the same, it’s very rare that the battle pass route ends up being mutually beneficial for players and coffers.
Though I am a far more casual player than the content creators who play hundreds of hours a week, this feeling seems universal. They benefit most of all, on paper, from a live-service direction. It means their game of choice is always relevant and offers a framework for content creation and SEO juice with whatever the battle pass consists of. But these people make Sims content first and foremost because they love The Sims, and they know there is a better version of this game than sticking with The Sims 4 and adding more minor packs to it regularly to hoover up pocket change.
End of an Era. 🩵Best of luck to your future endeavors and thank you for all the amazing content and memories produced during your time with Maxis.@TheSims#TheSimspic.twitter.com/JyQgRpmByY
— TheUnSocialBunny (@mrwsprss)Jun 26, 2025
It’s also worth noting that Grant Rodiek left EA in the wake of this decision. Rodiek was the director of Project Rene when it was assumed to be The Sims 5, and him leaving as EA reveals it is in fact The Sims 4ever suggests an internal struggle over the path in the crossroads. It seems like EA has walked a different path to the one Rodiek wanted. And the ones players wanted. And the one it was widely expected to walk and had hinted at announcing it was already walking down. But now the path is set, and EA is taking a big risk it can convince enough of its largely unwilling fans to walk down the road with it.
