Today, EA announced a major shakeup that included the layoffs of 400 employees and the closure of BioWare. Sims fans were especially quick to share worries about their beloved EA-owned life-sim franchise, which has already been mired in confusion amid constant downgrades and rumors that The Sims 5 might never happen. On Wednesday, via an internal email shared with Kotaku, EA executives Cam Weber and David Tinson announced that work on an in-development game codenamed Project Lotus would be paused.
“In Lifestyle, we’re focusing on the long-term potential of The Sims and skate. We’re going to prioritize our efforts on ‘Project Evergreen’ for The Sims to give the team more time to reach the full potential and vision for the game, and to help make this possible, we’re pausing development on ‘Project Lotus.'”
Fans were quick to react, with some celebrating the death of the controversial installment, while others expressed concern for the longevity of the series under EA’s ownership. “sims 4 not making it out 2026 THE END IS NIGH,” one fan commented.
What are Project Lotus and Project Evergreen?
Project Lotus was heavily rumored to be an alternate codename for the already-codenamed Project Rene, which was initially announced as an apparent successor to The Sims 4 (and seemed like it would become The Sims 5 despite EA’s hesitation to use that name). Early looks at the project saw a fleshed-out customization system and multiplayer gameplay. However, the project was seemingly downgraded to a mobile game around 2024, when screenshots showing a game that looked eerily similar to previous mobile installments in the Sims franchise circulated. Rene was also revealed to be free-to-play, and some sources hinted that it might be a platform similar to Roblox. Later playtests of the game even included blatant ripoffs of popular Roblox experiences like Dress to Impress.
We know a lot less about Project Evergreen, which is now developer Maxis’ focus. Sims news website Sims Community reported that it might be the new name for Project X, which is a single-player game separate from Rene that seems to be more of a mainline Sims game. Some fans shared excitement over the news, hoping that Project Evergreen might turn out to be The Sims 5 after all (or at least something better than whatever was going on with Rene).
Either way, it’s hard not to worry about the future of The Sims amid Wednesday’s news. Even if Evergreen ends up being The Sims 5, it feels like an unfortunate codename for a game to have, especially considering how long fans were stuck with The Sims 4, which went free-to-play years after launching in 2014. At least we’ll always have those free Paralives updates, I guess.