A new Sims title has been officially announced during the Behind The Sims Summit livestream - but it hasn't been dubbed The Sims 5 just yet. The last main entry in the franchise, The Sims 4, released in 2014, so speculation surrounding the next installment has been ongoing for some time.
Rumors about The Sims 5 have been swirling for months, particularly after the announcement of the Behind The Sims Summit, which many fans were under the impression would be the event where the new game's development status would finally be made official. Interestingly, the initial concept for The Sims 4 was an online multiplayer experience, at the time codenamed Project Olympus, but was ultimately dropped. This has caused many fans to speculate that multiplayer would be one of the features in The Sims 5 at launch, although opinion on whether this is a desirable gameplay element varies from player to player.
The Behind The Sims Summit that premiered on the Sims YouTube channel this week revealed many upcoming things for players to look forward to, including one entirely new project. The new Sims game is currently operating under the name "Project Rene" which was chosen because it's "reminiscent of words like renewal, renaissance and rebirth." It's implied that Project Rene will offer optional multiplayer in both Build and Live mode - or their Project Rene equivalent - and will make it easy to share creations with others, with some footage demonstrating uploading a room to a Sims Gallery. Most of the other Project Rene video focused on extremely customizable decorating and the new game's crossplay, showing a user simultaneously decorating a room on both mobile and computer.
Project Rene Isn't An Official Sims 5 Reveal
Despite rumors that The Sims 5 would be announced this month, Project Rene was never explicitly called the next entry in the mainline series. While it's possible that Project Rene will eventually be called The Sims 5, it's not out of the question that the new game could be a spin-off in the vein of games like The Sims Freeplay. Much like Project Olympus, Project Rene may also change drastically in its design between now and release day. Something heartening to come out of this announcement is the fact developers stated that they intend to be transparent during all the steps of Project Rene's development, which will hopefully help incorporate player feedback into the final version.
It's possible that Project Rene is related to a Sims job posting that was focused on cinematic in-game cutscenes, which would be exciting news for many players. However, there were oddly no actual Project Rene Sims shown during the Behind The Sims Summit, only design options, so for the time being fans can only speculate what the state of Sims will be in Project Rene. Something important to note is the emphasis the livestream put on how early in development Project Rene is - the new game is many years from release, and players still have a lot of other new Sims content to look forward to in the meantime.
Source: The Sims/YouTube