The Sims 5 was officially announced as Project Rene, but the future installment in the franchise already has dedicated Simmers worried.
During the Behind the Sims Summit, a sneak peek of early development on the next Sims game was shown, and VP of franchise creative at The Sims Lyndsay Pearson hinted at PC and mobile crossplay. From the looks of it, players will be able to have the Sims open simultaneously on mobile and another platform of choice, and moving an object in build mode on mobile will move it on the other platform, as well.
While this initially seems like a boon for Simmers on the go, The Sims subreddit is worried about how the purported mobile compatibility will effect the future game's graphics and performance. "If it’s going to support both PC and mobile you know it’s going to be basically a mobile game," writes one concerned Simmer.
"PC-Mobile crossplay is a HUGE red flag. That means the game will be made to be playable in both platforms, and that limits its potential graphic and gameplay-wise. Just see all the downgrades that happened with FIFA (also a EA franchise, let me remind you) when it became crossplatform," says another.
Others worried that a game with so much mobile compatabiilty might mean a game with microtransactions, or one without the hyper-immersive gameplay so many are hoping will come with the next entry in the franchise. "It's bad enough that they have to limit The Sims 4 to account for consoles (sorry console players... but it's kinda true), imagine having to limit themselves to something that is playable on a phone," worries one commenter.
One poster sought to quell concerns by suggesting The Sims 5 might not be "fully crossplay," but instead might just offer players a chance to create and build rooms to store in an in-game library. "They claim they want Sims to be able to do more, and that'd be too much a drain on phones (even thousand dollar phones would have issues), along with screen sizes being problematic," the Redditor writes.
We don't know what EA has planned for The Sims 5/Project Rene's mobile compatibility, and since the game is still in the very early stage of development, we may not know for some time. Here's hoping the future Sims game has all the bells and whistles we've asked for.
The Behind the Sims Summit also announced that infants are coming to The Sims 4 next year.
Pass the time until the launch of The Sims 5 with these games like The Sims.
