The Sims 4 might be getting on a bit, what with having launched over a decade ago now, but that doesn’t seem to have dulled interest in the long-running life sim series; EA just announced The Sims 4 has managed to gain over 15m new players this year alone.
To put that into perspective, it took The Sims 4 six years to amass 20m players after its launch back in 2014 – a figure that then skyrocketed following EA’s decision to transition the formerly premium title into a free-to-play game
That most recent figure was revealed as part of EA’s second-quarter 2025 financial earnings report (“Increased engagement led to higher-than-expected net bookings for the franchise in
Q2”, the publisher noted), and helps provide additional context for its announcement earlier this year that, despite its age, The Sims 4 will remain “a foundational Sims experience” as the series moves “beyond linear, sequential Sims releases”.
The Sims 4’s surge in popularity also explains EA renewed focus on the ten-year-old game, with the publisher having pledged more bug fixes more often this May as it looks to address years of ‘frustrating’ technical issues. That’s on top of a range of new in-game initiatives, such as the new live-service style Reaper’s Rewards Event, and a continuing avalanche of new DLC.
Next on the expansion list is The Sims 4’s extremely promising and wonderfully macabre Life & Death expansion, which releases this Thursday, 31st October. Its launch follows a free base game update last week considerably expanding Sims’ ghost-form gameplay (and making it possible to bonk Death), and comes ahead of a new series of creator-designed DLC packs.
Things have certainly come a long way since Swimmingpoolgate.