Eight years after The Sims 4, developer Maxis has revealed that the next generation of The Sims is on its way. This new iteration, currently titled Project Rene, is meant to “remind us of words like renewal, rebirth, and rebirth,” and represents the team’s “renewed commitment to The Sims’ bright future.”
Maxis gave fans a look at The Sims 5 for the first time during the Behind The Sims Summit on October 18. During the presentation, the team revealed a few minutes of gameplay, focusing on going through all the features coming to the game’s build mode. While previous The Sims games have stuck to a grid-based design system, the next game in the series appears to be abandoning that in favor of enabling players to place items anywhere they wish. Players will also be able to customize items similar to how they can in The Sims 3. However, this improved building mode doesn’t just stop at changing the colors and patterns of items – players will even be able to adjust the number of cushions adorning their Sims sofa.
As of now, the studio hasn’t revealed any details about the character’s customization, what The Sims 5 will look like, or the basic gameplay. Maxis stated that while the game will remain true to what The Sims have always been, The Sims 5 will develop the way Sims think and act, as well as providing players with “more ways to play and tools to encourage creativity and the ability to tell meaningful stories.” In addition, the upcoming game will allow players to play alone or co-op with others, and will feature cross-play and cross-advance between consoles.
“From the beginning, The Sims has defined life simulation games and has continued to grow into a great platform for creativity and self-expression,” said Sims President Lyndsay Pearson. “Today marks the beginning of our journey over the next few years as we work on this next game and creative platform, currently called Project Rene. We are building on the same foundation that has made The Sims compelling for generations of players and pushing the boundaries to create new experiences. We will have a lot to share while We continue to advance our game development and major events along the way.”
During the presentation, Maxis emphasized that Rene’s project is still in a very early stage of development. However, the team plans to share updates and work in progress over the next few years, and will use player feedback to help with development.
In addition to The Sims 5, Behind The Sims Summit has also revealed several other changes coming to the The Sims franchise. This includes a new destination for The Sims 4 players to download mods and user-generated content through a collaboration with Overwolf – a mod manager and discovery platform for user-generated content – as well as upcoming updates to The Sims Freeplay and The Sims Mobile.
In other The Sims news, as of today, The Sims 4 is available to players to download for free on PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5, Xbox One and Xbox Series X | S and PC via Steam, Origin and the EA app.
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