The Sims 4 keeps on chugging along after more than a decade, and all the signs from the powers-that-be at Electronic Arts indicate nothing will change on that front any time soon. The Sims 4 is here to stay, and if EA ever decides to move on to a Sims 5, it won’t be in the foreseeable future–a point that was made pretty explicit by Laura Miele, who serves as EA’s boss of non-sports games, in a chat with Variety.
“What I wouldn’t want to have happen is you to have to start from day zero and start from scratch and give up all of the things that you have created, give up all of the content that you’ve purchased over the years,” Miele told the trade publication. “We put out over 85 content packs over the last 10 years on The Sims 4, and so resetting that is not player friendly and not a good idea for our community.”
Instead of replacing The Sims 4, EA will build on the existing foundation and expand the greater Sims ecosystem with the multiplayer-focused Project Rene and other projects.
“What we’re doing is upgrading and refreshing all this technology, and we’ll be adding modes of play — but we also are going to be creating and updating the base technology and the base user experience on the core game,” Miele said.
“So you’re going to have this life simulation, you’re going to have multiplayer capabilities, we are going to have mobile expressions of this. We’re doing cozy games as well and more to come on that. We did a release with Nintendo on cozy games in Asia for The Sims. I see The Sims as a significant ecosystem, and a universe of multiple Sims experiences that we have to build on.”
It’s the bit about “upgrading and refreshing all this technology” that will likely have long-term Sims 4 players talking the most. There’s a reason folks have been clamoring for a proper new Sims game despite knowing full well that a new full title would restart the DLC cycle and render all their mods defunct–they want The Sims 5 because The Sims 4 has been out for 11 years and feels very antiquated even with the regular updates. Perhaps this comment indicates that a dramatic overhaul of The Sims 4’s foundation could be in the works.
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