Today at the Sims Summit, EA and Maxis made several announcements about the future of long-running people simulator series The Sims. Most exciting was the reveal of the next Sims game, codenamed Project Rene, which we'll definitely be calling The Sims 5 until we hear otherwise. The game is in early development and isn't expected for a few years, but at least we finally have confirmation that it's in the works.
In the meantime, there's more immediate news about The Sims 4 (which went free-to-play today). During the Sims Summit, VP of franchise creative Lindsay Pearson announced a partnership with Overwolf, owner of modding hub CurseForge, to create "a new destination for The Sims 4 players to download trusted mods and custom content."
In other words, there will be finally be some mod support for The Sims 4, along with a proper mod manager that will make finding, installing, and updating these curated mods much easier.
"Overwolf operates CurseForge, a mod manager and discovery platform built to support creators and hosting their content," reads the press release sent to PC Gamer. "For years, The Sims 4 community has been expanded by modders & content creators, and today marks a big step forward in recognizing and celebrating their contributions."
That's good news for players who are interested in trying mods for The Sims 4, because installing and managing mods can be a complicated endeavor—not just for The Sims 4, but for any game that doesn't have official mod support or a mod manager. CurseForge is a major modding hub for games like Minecraft and World of Warcraft.
A countdown on the hub is currently set for 27 days, and the video mentions that a beta version will be released soon, so I expect The Sims 4 players will be able to try the new mod manager in about a month, with full integration coming later. In the meantime, you can watch the announcement from the Sims Summit below, which begins at 12:20.
