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It’s happened again: Screenshots and footage from a playtest allegedly for Project Rene have leaked and fans are disappointed. It’s me. I’m fans. The cross-platform, online Sims game is still so totally shrouded in mystery and each new playtest leak just makes me wish that Electronic Arts would say anything to its players.
A newly posted video shows almost six minutes of gameplay for a mobile Sims game which the uploader claims is from this year and played on an Android phone—which lines up with a “City Life Game With Friends” listing attributed to EA that players found on the German Google Play Store. Here’s what the Google Translation of that store page says:
“Welcome to the City Life Game with Friends! Create your character—a unique individual with their own appearance, style, and story—and join friends and other players to explore a vibrant neighborhood together. Get new outfits from the thrift store, work at the local cafe, or complete quests. Develop your skills in art, music, and conversation. Collaborate to design block party locations, grant wishes at the plaza fountain, discover hidden collectibles, and more.”
In the posted video there’s a familiar outdoor plaza area we’ve seen from other alleged Project Rene leaks where the player walks around with their customized sim among other player sims with goals like making a wish in a fountain and working a shift at a cafe.
The player uses a virtual joystick to navigate, earns gold simoleon coins for completing to-do list items, introduces themselves to other sims with emotes and an interaction menu, and walks over to a space with a prompt to “decorate together” presumably with other players.
Sims fans are unimpressed, and the generic mobile game interface and clearly in-development light rendering isn’t doing it any favors. Playtests are by definition incomplete, and are often not representative of the final game, especially visually. But when these occasional leaks are the only information we’re getting, it’s difficult not to just take it at face value.
EA remains frustratingly cagey about Project Rene—and the other in-development Sims projects—officially confirming very little aside from the fact that it isn’t actually The Sims 5 and will be cross-platform. Half of what we know about Project Rene comes from years old Behind The Sims videos and another half from an EA investor presentation last year that never got properly acknowledged in player-facing communication.
We still don’t even know if these mobile game playtest leaks we keep seeing actually are Project Rene—though in the absence of information that’s what players are guessing. Ever the optimist, I keep reminding myself that this might be The Sims Project Stories mobile game also revealed during that investor presentation. EA still hasn’t told us anything about that either, so we’re just left to our assumptions.
In January this year, Mollie Taylor and I got the chance to interview Sims series boss Lyndsay Pearson leading up to the series 25th anniversary. “Leaks are unavoidable, unfortunately,” Pearson told us then, adding that there have been times where very old playtest footage leaks, causing more confusion.
It’s true, leaks are pretty unavoidable. They’re made worse by the lack of communication though. While EA keeps its lips zipped, it’s difficult not to assume that the thing it originally announced as the “next generation” of The Sims and a “creative platform” has been rebooted and downsized into this online mobile game.
Meanwhile, The Sims series’ new competitor Inzoi launched in early access last week. Though it has plenty of work left to do on creating an in-depth life sim, Krafton is certainly beating EA at the communication game.
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Kurt Indovina
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