It's Finally Official: The Next Sims Game Will Be Free-To-Play

Back at the end of June, we theorized that the next Sims game would be free-to-play. This guess was based on a job listing for a Head of Marketplace & Monetization who would be in charge of “pricing of all content for this free-to-enter game”. Bit of an interesting turn of phrase there. Basically, you can get in for free but you're gonna be dropping cash somewhere along the line.

Now, about 2 and a half months later, we have confirmation that yes, the next Sims game – currently codenamed Project Rene – will be free to play. The Sims VP of Franchise Creative Lyndsay Pearson discussed the game during a Behind The Sims Community update, where she stated that there won't be an initial purchase or subscription. The presentation also noted that the team will add content as time goes on, and the game’s monetization model will be different from that of The Sims 4.

Admittedly, it’s already different in that there’s no initial buy-in, but apparently how DLC is handled will be changed as well. All that said, it seems that the team has not reached any final decisions on how they’ll be going about monetizing the game yet.

One thing that we do know is that when Project Rene does launch, the Sims team won’t be abandoning The Sims 4. Rather, they plan to continue bringing more content to the game. All those folks who have invested a lot in The Sims 4 shouldn’t have to worry about their game being ignored. Considering how much all that DLC costs, that’s a good thing.