Playing God is a lot of fun, and The Sims lets you do just that. As such, it's easy to see how this franchise could continue for years to come – and so you shouldn't be surprised to learn that The Sims 5 is in the works.
While The Sims 3 and, to a lesser extent The Sims 4, are still very much in play as excellent games, the next instalment of the ultimate life-simulation game – only known as The Sims 5 – is currently in development by Maxis and Electronic Arts.
It's been six whole years since the release of The Sims 4, which didn't exactly blow people away. It removed one of the best features of its predecessor, which was having the huge open world, or at least the open city that was introduced in The Sims 3. It was also lacking in content at launch and riddled with bugs.
While there's little to talk about regarding The Sims 5 at the moment, we can only hope and pray that it will bring back an open-city feel, instead of the closed-off neighbourhoods seen in The Sims 4.
The biggest buzz about The Sims 5 is that there might be some form of multiplayer, which hasn't been seen since The Sims 2 on PlayStation 2.
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While confirmed, The Sims 5 is still some way off. Based on early reports, we've heard that The Sims 5 is going to be cloud-based (no, not set in heaven), with some form of multiplayer component added to the game.
If this translates as full-blown co-operative play, then this Sims game is going to trump every other in the franchise (well, maybe not The Urbz...).
Regardless, we all know that modding is what makes The Sims such a transcendent experience, and we hope that The Sims 5 will be moddable to the same extent.
Check out below for everything we know about The Sims 5 so far, plus what we're looking forward to most.
Cut to the chase
- What is it: The next instalment of the beloved life-simulation game The Sims
- When is it released: TBD
- Which platform will it be on: Historically, The Sims comes to PC first and then to consoles
The Sims 5 release date and price
As it stands, the game isn't far along at all, with NME reporting that The Sims 5 is currently in its "conceptual phase".
With that in mind, we probably shouldn't expect to see The Sims 5 any time soon. Bear in mind that the gap between past The Sims iterations has been typically long as well. The Sims 3 came out in 2009, after which The Sims 4 was released in 2014. This means this is the longest we've ever gone without a brand-new mainline Sims game.
However, it stands to reason that The Sims 4 is still going through its lifecycle and EA isn't finished with it yet. The most recent Game Pack added to The Sims 4 was released in August this year. Star Wars: Journey to Batuu was heavily criticised for being a bit light on the content side.
Eco Lifestyle is the latest expansion for The Sims 4, released in June 2020. It's likely that EA and Maxis are planning to release a few more content packs for the game as we head into 2021.
However, what's become increasingly obvious is that The Sims 4 has long overstayed its welcome, so we hope that comes 2021 we'll hear something significant about The Sims 5.
The Sims 5 trailers and gameplay
As you might expect, there are no trailers for The Sims 5 right now.
However, we'll update this section as soon as we get one.
In terms of gameplay, we can probably expect that The Sims 5 will play similarly to previous iterations, no matter what it ends up looking like.
You have daily needs and shifting emotions to take care of, which you complete and keep in check by doing certain actions such as eating, **showing** and, of course, socialising with people as soon as they happen to pass by your home.
Sims gameplay has remained relatively unchanged through its lifetime, with some new additions and quality of life updates thrown in from time to time. It will be interesting to see whether The Sims 5 adds a new dimension to the game, perhaps even being able to take direct, third-person control of your Sim as opposed to the overhead view of clicking and moving.
The Sims 5 multiplayer rumours, news and more
Multiplayer components
Multiplayer being added to The Sims is being discussed on the official Reddit site and, for the most part, has been met with indifference. It could be that people are expecting to see something like The Sims 4 community online functions, which lets people share creations online in the game.
Electronic Arts CEO Andrew Wilson said in January 2020 that the next game in The Sims series could feature singleplayer and multiplayer elements. He went on to say that there might be elements of The Sims Online added to the next title.
“As Maxis continues to think about The Sims for a new generation – across platforms in a cloud-enabled world – you should imagine that, while we will always stay true to our inspiration, escape, creation, and self-improvement motivations, that this notion of social interactions and competition – like the kind of things that were actually present in The Sims Online many, many years ago – that they will start to become part of the ongoing Sims experience in the years to come,” Wilson said on the Sims Community website.
He went on to say: “We are very excited. This is a game that really doesn’t have any competition in its category for delivering and fulfilling these motivations for players, and we think it's a tremendous growth opportunity for us for many, many years to come.”
The Sims having multiplayer components could be a huge selling point for fans of the series. There have been many occasions when playing The Sims that we have wished to start up a new household in a game and have friends join to take on their respective characters and all play together, simultaneously living out the virtual experience in co-op.
This feature was used in The Sims 2 on PS2 consoles to great effect, allowing two players to create a character each and live together in the same house, sharing the same screen; it was excellent.
Will The Sims 5 come to console?
As it stands, there's no concrete information about The Sims 5, but we can probably expect that it will come to the PS5 and Xbox Series X during its lifetime – which is typically long if previous Sims games are anything to go by.
Historically, Sims games become available on PC and then are re-worked slightly for consoles and other systems. We can expect this to be the case for The Sims 5. The Sims 4 was released on PC in 2014, only becoming available for consoles in 2017, so be prepared for a significant gap when it comes to porting the PC version to console.
What about expansion and game packs?
The frequent release of expansion packs help to pad out the life of each Sims game, giving it new life. The Sims 3 enjoyed 11 expansions, all of which added new elements – such as pets or the University Life expansion – and helped to keep the game fresh and going strong.
Currently, The Sims 4 has 9 expansion packs, with a 10th in the works for November 13. The point being, The Sims 5 will almost certainly get the same treatment and will be updated continuously through its expected long life.
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