EA Maxis is still keeping mostly quiet about Project Rene, an upcoming multiplayer spinoff in The Sims series that we once thought would be The Sims 5, but a recent leak may reveal what it’ll look like — and fans aren’t pleased.
A new leak from Reddit user DzXAnt22, who had previously posted visuals and the map from an earlier Project Rene PC build, reveals potential new information on the game, which EA recently said in a recent giant The Sims announcement will be multiplayer-focused.
It’s worth noting that this data is from a recent mobile playtest for a very small slice of the game, so elements are likely to change. Project Rene is also still in the alpha stages of development, and the images are likely not a great representation of what the final product will look like. Still, they give players an idea of what EA Maxis is working on in regards to the multiplayer Sims spinoff.
🆕♂️♀️ The new screenshots of Create your Sims have been published, this time it is Create your Sims.#TheSimsProjectRene pic.twitter.com/tLixCaHwsr
— Like Life Sim (@LikeLifeSim) September 29, 2024
In this playtest, participants weren’t given the option to create a Sim, although it is apparently coming to the program at a later date. They had to choose between various outfit and Sim presets, which you can see in the X (formerly Twitter) post above.
People on Reddit and X reacted negatively to the screenshots. One user said they looked like clay figures, while another said it was “the ugliest artstyle I’ve ever seen in a game.” It does look a lot less detailed compared to previous Project Rene leaked images, but again, this is a game still in development, so we can expect art and other aspects to improve over time.
The leak also includes Google Play Store descriptions for something called The Sims Labs: The Hub, which DzXAnt22 believes is tied to Project Rene. (The Sims Lab is EA’s name for its playtesting incubator.) It reveals players will be able to explore a Parisian neighborhood in multiplayer. They can get new outfits by getting a job at a cafe or completing quests to earn currency, explore and discover collectible secrets, and “make your wishes come true at the plaza fountain.”
Elements from previous playtests, including a build mode, were not around this time, but players got to explore and complete quests, such as getting something to eat, around town.
EA Maxis is set to expand the reach of The Sims franchise with a number of games that use The Sims name but feature different gameplay. In a post, EA mentioned wanting to experiment with “cozy games” and “mobile narrative games.” It also announced it would continue to provide updates to The Sims 4, which it hopes will be its live-service forever title, and experiment with multiplayer.
The Call of Duty franchise has held a special place in my heart ever since I played my first Black Ops game back in 2010. That game's campaign was something else, with twists and turns that culminated in a mind-blowing finale. We can all admit that compared to those older campaigns, the recent CODs have been lackluster at best, and a complete and utter disappointment at worst. The reboot of Modern Warfare did give me some hope, as the first two installments were actually quite good, but the third game left such a bad taste in my mouth that I wasn’t exactly expecting much from Modern Warfare 4.
After recently finishing the campaign, I can say that this installment is nothing like the recent releases and instead feels closer to the franchise’s roots. For the first time in a long while, the campaign comes across as well-crafted rather than rushed to hit a release date. It arrives three years after MW3, and you can see exactly where all that time went. It seems the studio finally made listening to player feedback a priority.
Epic Games has just announced the 2026 Epic AI MegaJam, which is looking to see how much game development can be squeezed into a very short window. This is running from November 12 through November 15.
Participants can work alone or in teams of up to five people, build in Unreal Engine or Unreal Editor for Fortnite, and bring along “as many AI agents as you want.” Epic explicitly encourages coding agents, AI-generated assets, audio tools, writing tools, and other AI systems. The official event page literally says "Vibe your way to $50k.”
It’s turning into a pretty good time to be a Monster Hunter fan who plays on a phone. Capcom has confirmed that Monster Hunter Outlanders will launch on Android and iOS on October 29, giving the series a new mobile-first game just as Monster Hunter Rise is also preparing to make the jump to smartphones through Netflix.
Outlanders is being developed by Tencent subsidiary TiMi Studio Group under license and supervision from Capcom. Unlike Rise, which appears to be the full console and PC game adapted for mobile, Outlanders is a free-to-play survival hunting game made specifically for phones.