EA has announced plans to move “beyond linear, sequential Sims releases” that’ll see it forego a direct Sims 4 “replacement” – that is, a The Sims 5 – in favour of a new approach enabling players to keep their progress between titles and “really [have] an ongoing experience”.
EA’s initially discussed its new strategy for the long-running life sim series in an extensive blog post, but The Sims franchise general manager Kate Gorman later shared additional context in an interview with Variety. “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,” Gorman explained. “[But now,] we are not going to be working on replacements of previous projects; we’re only going to be adding to our universe.”
“What this means is that we will continue to bring HD simulation experience and what people would want from a 5,” Gorman continued, “but it doesn’t mean that we’re going to start you over… As we think about the future of it, we want you to continue all of those families and generations. Those creations are your progress, your attachment. We don’t want to reset your progress. And so it’s not about… what the numbers are in the games, but know that the future of the franchise looks more like keeping your progress, keeping things across titles, and really having an ongoing experience, and not a start-and-stop experience between products.”
And while the now ten-year-old The Sims 4 will continue to be “a foundational Sims experience” – receiving new expansions, updates, fixes, and “modernisation” – EA says it’s also focused on creating games that’ll “touch different categories across the simulated life genre including cosy games, social and collaborative based gameplay, [and] mobile narrative games”. Notably, Project Rene – the “next generation Sims game and creative platform” EA announced in 2022 – is also still in the works.