Summary

• The Sims 4 remains popular after a decade but is showing signs of strain with recent buggy updates.
• EA is working on Project: Rene to take the series to a new generation.
• Competition from games like Paralives and InZOI could push players away from The Sims 4 if issues are not addressed.

The Sims 4 has been around for over a decade, and unlike many titles that have existed for as long, it still receives and content to this day, which shouldn't be a surprise. There isn't much competition in the life sim genre yet, so The Sims 4 has been able to dominate unchecked, allowing it to keep its immense player base. Despite this, the game is ten years old, and if some recent buggy releases for the title are anything to go by, The Sims 4 could be tearing at the seams.

EA does have an Sims game that it is working on, titled Project: Rene. Although there hasn't been too much information about it, the game promises to take the series to a new generation, but it doesn't seem like all the eggs have been put in Project: Rene's basket. Content and packs are still being made for The Sims 4 despite the announcement of a new game, and these packs still ask for some pretty high prices for what they are, especially given that the game they're for is ten years old.

Is It Time To Leave The Sims 4 Behind?

Ten Years Is A Long Time In The Gaming Industry

For a single-player series as successful as The Sims 4, it is very odd for the developer not to make a sequel in ten years. It is no secret that the real money made from the series comes from its overwhelming amount of DLC that adds anything from universities to werewolves and mermaids, but recently the launches of the packs have been anything but smooth. Worse still is that the newer packs have been known to create bugs for existing packs, and the game might be suffering from having too much content on a ten-year-old skeleton.

Although it is ten years old, The Sims 4 has only been free since October 18, 2022.

The most recent Lovestruck pack is a good example of the woes of The Sims 4. Before it launched, the pre-release patch was full of bugs that made Sims overly mean, which EA had to come out and apologize for. This was then followed up by even more bugs when the pack was released, namely one that could corrupt game save files and end a playthrough there and then. Everything leading up to the launch of Lovestruck was a complete mess, and it didn't help that when the content did work, it received a lukewarm response.

The idea of improving the dating scene and romance of The Sims 4 was always going to be a good idea to add depth, but the execution found in Lovestruck left something to be desired. The Turn-on & Turn-off system was odd, with clothing color taking priority, for whatever reason. Although this in and of itself wasn't a problem, more obvious features like body hair or tattoos didn't seem to have any effect, and it feels as though the pack was half-baked, which is unacceptable given its price.

Should Expansion Packs Be Exchanged For A New Game?

Project Rene Should Be EA's Focus

Lovestruck wasn't the only pack that suffered from issues at launch since Wedding Stories needed patches to fix key features of the pack. Sometimes, one of the wedded partners won't even show up for their own wedding because of the bugs. These issues seem to be getting more common in the last few years, which is beginning to ruin the overall experience of the base game and possibly shows that too much has been done to The Sims 4 to the point of it beginning to break.

Although it still stands above all others in the life sim genre, there are other games on their way to dethrone The Sims, such as Paralives and InZOI. If EA persists with The Sims 4, the series' players could leave for alternatives in the near future, and moving everything to Project: Rene could be the thing that keeps the series on top. It isn't as though The Sims 4 won't be getting new content since the modding community has taken to the title, but modding gets more difficult if there are constant updates trying to fix the game.

InZOI is looking to have a limited-time character creator, launching on August 20.

There's no denying that The Sims 4 is getting on a bit and is beginning to show its age. Buggy update after buggy update doesn't help its case, and it could mean that the series' fourth entry is reaching the maximum capacity of what it can handle without beginning to break apart. It has been ten years since a new Sims game has been released, and it feels like the right time for another one, such as Project Rene, to take center stage.