Gaming developer Electronic Arts (EA) has released a statement outlining its plans for the beloved Sims franchise, officially announcing an offshoot “mobile-first” game but ruling out a new instalment for the flagship game, a would-be ‘The Sims 5.’
The blog post is widely seen as a direct response to concerns regarding EA’s unprecedented $55 billion sale to Saudi Arabia and US President Donald Trump’s son-in-law, Jared Kushner.
“Our Sims team’s creative control, guided by our values of inclusivity, choice, creativity, community, and play, has not changed,” affirms EA at the start of the post, after fears were raised over possible censorship of the game’s more progressive features.
“These values inspire the decisions we make each and every day as we plan for today, tomorrow, and the future,” adds EA, without mentioning the buyout itself.
Is Project Rene The Sims 5?
EA has revealed it has been working on the next steps for the franchise with ‘Project Rene’ and the “next evolution,” known in the community as ‘Project X.’
The Sims team confirmed that ‘Project Rene,’ widely believed to be ‘The Sims 5,’ is not in fact the successor to the flagship game, but rather a new mobile-first multiplayer experience.
“Project Rene has evolved to focus on social multiplayer play (…) and is a separate experience from any future deep, single-player life simulation experience,” writes EA.
The Sims team also urged current players of ‘The Sims Mobile’, set to shut down on January 20th, 2026, to move towards this new mobile game.
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What is next for The Sims?
Despite being over a decade old, EA has said it will maintain and update the current instalment, ‘The Sims 4.’
The Sims 4’s twenty-first – and rumoured to be final – expansion pack is purported to be called ‘Royalty & Legacy,’ although the statement did not touch upon this.
To abate fears of a mobile-only focus for the future, the Sims team writes that “single-player PC and console experiences will always be a part of our future, with more than half of our global development team dedicated to The Sims 4 and the next evolution.”
Describing the development of a “family of new Sims experiences across PC, console, and mobile” has widely been seen as pivoting away from a single flagship game and a move towards a connected Sims ecosystem.
Whatever is next for the franchise, it is unlikely to be ‘The Sims 5.’
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