Been speaking with a few people and this is bits and pieces from different people so some info may slightly may slightly contradict as (incase you’re not aware) decisions get made for different reasons and depending on what area someone works in, they may have a different understanding of why something has come to be, while another person knows of something for a different reason.

• The Sims Hub idea has been sort of referred to but no one seems to be actively working on it. The people I used to work with at Firemonkeys know very little of it.

The Sims 4 on PlayStation 4

• The Sims 4 has been quietly improving aspects of the game to improve performance on PlayStation 4 with both graphics and CPU driven tasks, because Sony lodged an internal review due a large amount of complaints about the games performance on the standard PlayStation 4. These changes were rolled out and while performance has improved on the PlayStation 4 (and subsequently PS5 via backwards compatibility), other platforms have taken a hit with performance and EA is willing to wear that rather than be pushed to stop supporting PlayStation 4 as it’s a significant revenue driver for the game. The updates have been rolled out over the last 12 months.

The Development of Adventure Awaits

• The Businesses & Hobbies Expansion sold incredibly well, beyond the top end expectations – influencing future Expansions. Adventure Awaits was originally going to be focused more on a Summer Camp theme, but was opened up to be more diverse in response in the last few months of development.

EA Cracking Down on Piracy

• EA are aware of a large influx of players playing pirated copies of the Sims 4 since the announcement of the Buyout, and will be taking this into consideration for future products. Shutting down the Sims Mobile frees up severs that EA can utilise with future products.

More Creator Involvement

• Expect a huge push for Creator Content for The Sims franchise, beyond Creator Kits. This will be part of a new framework that EA have been setting up, to officially launch in March.

Maxis’ Restructured Framework

• Following the release of Royalty & Legacy, The Sims franchise will be shuffled into a new major framework for the first time since 2000. The new framework will restructure the franchise to heavily involve EA into the day to day operations, and rather than Maxis coming up with ideas to meet the targets set by EA, sections of EA will now be more involved in the game from how content is created, distributed and monetised. Plans include subscription models, digital storefronts with paid and virtual reward currency, deeper engagement events, creative direction and more. This will include creative control on execution of ideas to minimise development costs, with EA being more involved in working with game designers.

Royalty & Legacy

• While this new framework hasn’t officially begun, EA have already been implementing aspects of it with its 2026 content, including Royalty & Legacy. The Royalty & Legacy Expansion was conceived to test this new framework, and was developed predominantly in Europe, but had heavier involvement from established leads from the US to work with the team to meet these new requirements, and to help with any challenges. The team formed a “council” of specific Creators to gather their input on representation, however was utilised to gauge their feedback on the new development approach on minimising development costs, predominately in Animation and Engineering.
• Adventure Awaits was poised to be the final Expansion in development, before plans changed to trial a new framework. It was considering internally as a last hurrah before a pause on larger DLC. A survey was sent out of concepts, and Royalty proved popular while also allowing them to repurpose already built systems and features.

Repurposing Old Content

• This extends to other products in the Sims umbrella, but has been currently built to focus on The Sims 4 moving forward, and the development of Project X. EA want the upcoming game to be as cost effective as possible. Visual quality and Asset creation isn’t a huge jump cost for EA, and this can be largely maximised without changes in budget. EA want this to be a large focus while other areas can be repurposed from the games large back catalogue.

Project Rene as a Mobile Exclusive

• Project Rene being scaled down to an online only game and now to a mobile title exclusively was simply because there was no need for its originall purpose now that X exists.
•  EA want The Sims brand to be available on every popular device, mobile, tablet, PC/Mac and consoles.

Official Mod Partnership

• EA are considering having popular mods be incorporated into games as unofficial “Creator DLCS” so that Maxis and/or the creator are responsible for managing ongoing compatibility, to help manage ongoing issues of mod related bug reports.

EA’s Revenue Stream

• EA do not have faith a singular product will be able to replicate The Sims 4’s success, and hopes multiple revenue streams will aid in a shortfall.

Pets as Future Base Game Content

•  The Sims 4 Cats & Dogs Expansion has outsold The Sims 1, 2 and 3 base game figures combined. EA will be considering making Pets base game in the future to allow monetisation across every DLC for Pets. The launch for the Expansion was the largest sales for any Sims product in franchises history, and is what promoted EA to trial DLC for the Expansion, which ultimately failed. Other Expansions that have also out-performed previous base game sale figures will be included in upcoming base games to take on this new approach of creating DLC for popular content ongoing, rather than creating individual DLCs.

MySims Sales Expectations

•  MySims sold very well on Switch, but didn’t perform as hoped on other platforms.

Future Announcements

• EA are reluctant to make any concrete announcements until it’s under new ownership, and can confirm the plans will go ahead.

Maximising Profit by Subsidising Costs

• EA wants has designed the new framework so that the Sims can be part of a cross-subsidisation strategy, where budgets for the Sims are as minimal as possible, to maximise profit to allow other projects to be less risk adverse in order to allow EA to grow other franchises.

Potential Discontinuation of The Sims Freeplay

• Freeplay may be discontinued if modernisation pushes don’t increase player count.

The Cost of Recent Packs

• Adventure Awaits was the most expensive Expansion Pack to develop of all time, while Royalty & Legacy was the cheapest of the Sims 4 (they didn’t know if it was the cheapest of all time)

Sorry there’s not much positivity, but my overall opinion is that the vibes at Maxis are very low at the moment, and some even said it was the worst it’s ever been.

Firemonkeys are happy overall though Freeplay development is very positive. I won’t go into that much more in-depth because most of that conversation was private.

However, many peeps at Maxis simply don’t care if this information leaks as almost all of them have been cut off from communicating with fans under the EA’s increasing involvement.

It’s more behind the scenes than Info about the actual games internally.