It doesn’t look like we’ll get The Sims 5 any time soon, especially on PlayStation, thanks to updates on Maxis employees’ LinkedIn pages. Recent posts spark a rumor that The Sims 5 as we know it is canceled, and that Project Rene may not be moving forward.
As pointed out by SimmerBerkay on Twitter, it seems that some Maxis employees, unfortunately, have been let go from the studio – the latest in a string of layoffs impacting the industry. Among them are credits for working on “The Sims 5” via Unreal Engine 5. It does state that this is the PS5 version that’s now canceled, but that doesn’t bode well for the project overall if the Maxis and Sims 5 teams are losing staff this far out from release.
It also appears that within the last year, staff have moved from Project Rene – what we assume is the working title for Sims 5 – over to the Sims 4 team, which suggests that EA isn’t slowing down on Sims 4 content any time soon, despite the game being ten years old and having over $1,000 of DLC available already, with two new packs coming very soon.
We know relatively little about The Sims 5 and/or Project Rene as there hasn’t been any update for months, but we do know it was meant to come to mobile in some form. That could be as a full game or as an adjacent app to use in the full PC release. Regardless, there aren’t enough games like The Sims for us, so this is a bit of a blow if true. We’re always hopeful for a Sims Nintendo Switch version, even if it’s a spin-off like the GameBoy and DS games of old.
While there is no confirmation that this affects the next iteration of Sims, and what platforms it may come to (other than PlayStation, apparently), this doesn’t fill us with hope. This news comes after we saw Life By You get canceled despite a huge and eager fanbase waiting for it to come out. Come on, EA, don’t let us down.
As we sit waiting for any news from the Sims team, we can recommend some excellent life sims to play, or perhaps some dress up games if you feel the need to flaunt your fashion sense.