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EA has teased a re-release of the first two games in The Sims series as part of its 25th anniversary celebrations, and a new report from Kotaku says both games will be released by the end of the month. The Sims, originally released in 2000, has never been available digitally on PC, while The Sims 2 (2004) hasn’t been available since 2014.
Both games will apparently arrive with all of their original expansion packs, which in the case of The Sims 2 will mean a mind-boggling amount of content (though don’t be surprised if certain licensed DLCs don’t make the cut). This is the kind of re-release that catches you by surprise and feels overdue: The Sims is such an influential and unique part of gaming history yet the only way to play it on PC now is to track down an old disc.
EA’s teasers come as part of the 25th anniversary roadmap, which is revealing various updates to The Sims 4 along with unspecified surprises. It lists one of these as “Nostalgia Now” and follows up with the text “so start speculating—hmm…what could Nostalgia Now mean?” The Sims social media accounts have also posted a short clip of the diamond cursor and prompt wheel from The Sims 2, selecting the option “Time travel”—And if all that wasn’t enough there’s official Sims 2 merch appearing in the wild.
Both games are classics and perhaps the crowning achievement in Will Wright’s storied career. The drawn-out development of the original game is a whole other article, but Wright had the idea on the back-burner for years and had to push it through unimpressed focus groups and apathetic management before others came round to the brilliance of the “dol’s house” concept, and the idea of simulating human interactions and daily routines.
The game was an instant success and, for my money, The Sims 2 is one of those perfect sequels that just did it all again but doubled-down on the best aspects. The complexity of the Sims themselves hit a real sweet spot where their behaviour was genuinely surprising at times, and it’s one of those games you can set up and then sit in front of for hours just watching and tinkering.
The Sims 4 is the current iteration of the game, now 11 years old but still supported by Maxis. The next entry in the series goes by the codename Project Rene and, though EA has been tight-lipped about it, there’s a surprising amount we already know and even some early footage.
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Kurt Indovina
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