The Sims 4 reaches franchise milestone with 70 million players

The Sims 4 is now the most-played game in the franchise's history. According to Electronic Arts, the life simulation game has topped out at 70 million players since its initial 2014 release. 

Speaking to that 9-year timeframe, EA said The Sims 4 "continues to serve as a digital platform for millions of players." The game initially released for PC, followed by Mac OS X the following year, then for PlayStation 4 and Xbox One in 2017. 

Its new milestone seems largely thanks to its transition to a free-to-play model back in October 2022. That shift has reportedly resulted in over 16 million new players, and an increase in average weekly users by 53 percent. 

Phillip Ring, EA's executive producer for The Sims 4, called it " incredible to see how much our community has grown over the past eight years." 

Other interesting statistics were revealed by EA in that same press release. Since March's Growing Together expansion and a base game update allowing for infants in the life stage, over 8.6 million babies have been made in the game. Of the game's 27.1 million milestones reached on all systems, 12.2 million relate to infants. 

Now, I'm just a Sim-ple small town player wondering...

Where can The Sims series go next? 

As of October 2022, that still isn't entirely clear. But Maxis has already said it's making the "next generation" of the franchise with a title presently known as Project Rene. The unannounced game has been billed by Maxis' creative VP Lyndsay Pearson as "the future of the Sims."

Right now, its big selling point is that players will have direct access to creation tools. Players will be able to change the shape of furniture, for example, including individual aspects like pattern design and shape.

"With Project Rene, we want to make it easier to work together and share," said Pearson at the time. "We're building the next-generation Sims game and creative platform."

Though it doesn't have so much as a release window at time of writing, she indicated that its software may have an Early Access stage for "small groups" before a wider unveiling.