Our community has continued to inspire us with the billions of unique Sims they’ve created, the countless stories they’ve told, and the remarkable builds they've designed. We’ve welcomed millions of players to The Sims and watched in awe as they unleashed their imaginations, discovered and connected with ideas, experiences and versions of themselves, both in-game and real life. Here's the announcement from the Sims 4 website: On Wednesday, EA and Maxis announced that The Sims 4 base game will officially become a free download starting in October. Electronic Arts is instead looking at another one of its staples and deciding that its time as a premium game has passed. Gaming has seen some long-running franchises make the jump from premium to free-to-play over the years, but they've usually been MMORPGs. At least mechanically, our resident Sims enthusiasts reckon it's looking good so far. The Sims 5 is still in early development, with the most recent gameplay showcase offering a quick-and-dirty look at how the actual Sims behave.

But as Pearson says 'we're still exploring a lot of different ideas and we haven't settled on all the details of everything,' so don't get too attached to any one idea just yet. It's encouraging to hear EA publicly dismiss F2P energy mechanics, and offering popular features like weather from the get-go could help distinguish the game from the likes of The Sims 4. Much of Project Rene is still up in the air, but the nature of this free-to-play standalone option is slowly coming into form. It's a little early to know exactly where to draw the lines, but it's important to lower those barriers to play and give everyone the broadest shared systems because that feels like the best foundation to grow from.' Building it this way means, down the line, we can use wind or rain or clouds for other pack themes as well. In Project Rene, we might introduce basic weather to the core game for free for everybody, and then a pack for purchase might focus on winter sports and could include activities like ice dancing or a snowman building competition. In The Sims 4 the only way to experience any weather is if you purchase Seasons. Beyond regular updates to the core game, we will sell content in packs, but we want to change that mix a little bit. We definitely won't start with everything you have in The Sims 4, but we're gonna add new experiences and content to Project Rene over time. Elsewhere, Pearson reiterates that 'Project Rene is not setting out to replace your current, awesome Sims experiences.' She maintains that 'we want to focus on building something strong and cohesive from the start.

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