The next big iteration of The Sims franchise, known as Project Rene, apparently won’t be The Sims 5. Or at least it won’t function the way numbered entries in the have in the past, with players starting over from scratch while EA stops development on the previous game. This time around, however, EA will continue to support and release content for The Sims 4 after Project Rene is released, and the two games may even share content and progression somehow.
A catch-all blog detailing the future of The Sims franchise, including the live-action movie, had a few details to share about what Project Rene actually is, referring to it as an experience “focused on building ways for friends to meet, connect, and share while playing together in an all-new world.” In other words, it’s a true multiplayer version of The Sims, but we already knew that.
The real info came from The Sims franchise general manager Kate Gorman, in an interview with Variety, who described this situation as a change in philosophy for the franchise.
“It’s not Sims 5 as a replacement for 4,” Gorman said. “What this means is that we will continue to bring HD simulation experience and what people would want from a 5 — but it doesn’t mean that we’re going to start you over, reset all your progress, and really feel like you’re going to lose all of that amazing play you put into 4.”
This change is an understandable one, given that The Sims 4 has been around twice as long as any of the previous three mainline titles, and has accumulated a massive collection of DLC over the decade it’s been out. Abandoning all that would have been a tough proposition, and apparently they’ve decided against doing that.
“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 told Variety. “What we’re really working with our community on is this a new era of The Sims. We are not going to be working on replacements of previous projects; we’re only going to be adding to our universe. With that, you’ll see there are more ways to experience The Sims on different platforms, different ways to play, transmedia, and lots of great offerings within this universe. So absolutely, we’re still continuing to support TS4 more than ever. Still continue to deliver expansion packs and updates and fixes. But what this is to say is, the way we’re going to do things going forward is a little different.”
What all this tangibly means is tough to guess. But we do actually know quite about Project Rene already–it’s been lurking in the shadows for years now while fans waited for some kind of big reveal. They’re still waiting, but folks can sign up to playtest Project Rene in The Sims Labs here.