A new title in The Sims series was announced earlier this year, with playtests beginning soon afterwards, and it hasn’t taken long for leaks from it to begin to spread. The game is called Project Rene, and many players assume the title to be synonymous with The Sims 5, although that was never explicitly stated by developers during the game’s announcement; it’s possible, then, that the game isn’t a mainline entry in the franchise, and is instead a spin-off title akin to The Sims Freeplay. However, whatever Project Rene‘s identity truly is, fans no doubt want to learn more about the mystery title.
Just a week after playtests started, pirating of The Sims 5 began, giving a larger audience access to the game’s pre-alpha state. As the audience has widened, so have leaks, with two substantial ones containing several in-game images each surfacing in the past few weeks. These have all revealed things about Project Rene‘s world, design mechanics, the appearance of Sims, and more.
Sims 5 Leaks Have Shown A New World
The world shown in Sims 5 leaks covered by Sims Community isn’t dissimilar to those that exist in The Sims 4, but they don’t look interchangeable either. The exterior pictures in one of the leaks shows what looks to be a few city blocks, featuring a promenade-like area with shops and a café in a more urban setting, although not to the scale of City Living‘s San Myshuno. The closeness of the businesses has resurfaced some questions fans have already had for ages about the next Sims entry, particularly if it will be an open-world title like The Sims 3. With their proximity to each other, it’s easy to imagine Sims walking from place to place unhindered by loading screens, but that’s of course all speculation.
One of the most standout details from these exterior shots is the large presence of cars. When ranking the main Sims games from worst to best, many veteran players would place The Sims 4 quite low for many reasons, but one of the biggest is the complete absence of vehicles, which were a fun and useful part of every other mainline entry. In the leaked photos of The Sims 5, cars can be seen in many shots lining the streets as well as some signs containing Simlish rules of the road, which begs the question of if they’ll make a comeback as usable objects. However, even though they can’t be used with gameplay in The Sims 4, cars are still featured as decorative objects in some neighborhoods, which could also be the case here.
Something that was first shown in the initial Sims 5 leaks that centered on building, also outlined by Sims Community, that was expanded upon in the second batch of revealed images is the fact that this could be the first mainline Sims game – if that’s in fact what Project Rene is – to begin with apartments as the default living space that Sims move into. Every other entry has begun with houses, with some adding apartments in subsequent DLC. One of the leakers has stated that the playtest contains four already-decorated apartments for players to experiment with, as well as an empty one. The apartments look nearly indistinguishable from those in The Sims 4 City Living, with elevators and neighboring apartments all bordering each other.
Sims 5 Leaks Revealed A Lot About Design, A Little About Sims
While it’s been speculated that The Sims 5 could utilize things like AI technology for Create A Sim, no such information has been revealed so far from leaks. In fact, details about Sims themselves in the leaks so far has been quite minimal. The gameplay of the playtests has centered around building in the game’s Workshop mode, and the only images of Sims have been found through a leaker going through the game’s code. This netted three images of two female Sims and one male Sim, which are still missing features like eyes and full coloring. Other than these absent details, the Sims look essentially identical to those players are familiar with.
On the other hand, a host of information has been revealed about The Sims 5 building from the leaks that have occurred to far. Screenshots of a tutorial for Workshop mode have expanded upon the brief decorating footage shown during the Behind The Sims Summit presentation, detailing how every piece of furniture can have its coloring, size, parts, materials, and patterns customized. Players can easily share individual pieces or entire areas using a multi-select tool and quickly upload it to share with other players, and there are two separate menus where furniture can be found: a Discover menu that displays user-made furniture, and a Buy menu that showcases Maxis-designed pieces.
Part of the second leak has shown off a huge amount of interior spaces and furnishings, with almost 40 images of apartments. A small but standout detail from these Sims 5 leaks has been more clutter in places it typically can’t be placed without Sims object movement cheats or mods, such as dishes in the kitchen sink and stacks of boxes in an unused fireplace. General object placement seems much more free than in past titles, which has given the rooms a more natural feel to them, and is sure to please Sims builders who love clutter and small details. None of the objects themselves look like anything groundbreaking compared to that which players are already familiar with, but they do look to be of high graphical quality, which has been a concern for many fans after learning the game will be playable on mobile.
These two leaks are likely just the beginning of those that will be seen of Project Rene as the game progresses in development and playtests continue. As with all leaks, it’s important to remember that these initial images certainly don’t reflect the final product. Even for Simmers who believe Project Rene probably isn’t The Sims 5, the prospect of any new Sims game is interesting nonetheless, and something that’s fun to keep up with so long as players take everything with a grain of salt. The design elements of the game look incredibly promising, and while it’s a bit disappointing that much hasn’t been revealed on the Sim side of things, it makes sense that a game so early in development wouldn’t have the much more complex gameplay of Live Mode available yet. The Sims 5 itself is still many years away, but keeping tabs on leaks like these is an entertaining way for players to pass the time while they wait.
