In its annual recap of its biggest titles, EA says that people have played The Sims 4 for a collective total of 1.8 billion hours… not in its lifetime, but just in 2023.
Unsurprisingly, EA adds that this makes The Sims 4 the “most widely played game in the 23-year history of the franchise.” This also means that the game only got more popular this year compared to 2022 as, in last year’s recap, EA said The Sims 4 had accrued 1.4 billion hours.
No doubt this momentum was propelled by The Sims 4 going free-to-play in October 2022, allowing more people to access the base game without spending money. 2023 also saw the release of three new expansions, which not only added more content, but new gameplay features, like the ability to build houses and manage them as a landlord in the recent For Rent expansion. One of the most welcome updates was improved representation for disabled and trans Sims, with EA adding new character creator options like top surgery scars and hearing aids back in February.
Other statistics include 568 million Sims being made (again, this is just for 2023—the lifetime total must be in the billions), 260 million hours spent in the game’s Build Mode, and 4.7 million horses created. Horses were another noteworthy inclusion, thanks to the July expansion.
With the game only growing more popular, I can’t imagine EA is in any rush to get The Sims 5—or Project Rene as it’s called—out the door. This can only be a good thing, since it gives the developer more time to work on it. In addition, The Sims 4‘s continued popularity further justifies EA’s decision to keep supporting it even after Project Rene launches, so players will have two Sims games to juggle.
Although another reason for that could be because Project Rene will launch with less content than The Sims 4, which developer Maxis admitted to in September. Shutting down The Sims 4 and taking away everyone’s progress to push them into a less content rich game would only upset the player base.
