The Sims 4 is "finally freeing the baby" in March with infants update
Also the Sims sequel will have multiplayer, but it isn't an MMO
The Sims 4 didn't have toddlers until they were added in 2017, and sims' early years will continue to telescope when March comes around. That's when infants will finally be added to the game, turning babies into full sims.
The latest update also offered news on Project Rene, the eventual successor to The Sims 4. The key takeaways: it's not an MMO but it will have multiplayer as well as singleplayer, and it's years away from release.
You can watch the full stream here, or a breakdown of the main pieces of news.
Currently, sims go from swaddled immobile baby to walking, babling toddler. The new 'infant' stage, in which your progeny will crawl, cry and cr-- burp, will squeeze in-between. The above stream has a trailer at 14m 32s, but stick around for the behind-the-scenes with the developers at 15m 48s. It does a good job of breaking down exactly how difficult it is to add a new life stage like this - a stage that has to navigate the world different, which can be carried by other sims, which sounds different, and which can't stand up on their own on the character creator screen.
The infants will arrive in an update on March 14th.
Project Rene aka The Sims 5 is currently much further out. EA Maxis are currently implementing changes based on their playtest of the mooted sequel's building tools, with plans for many more playtests to come. Game director Grant Rodiek offered a handful of further details in the video above: it's not an MMO; it'll be cross-platform so you can play seamlessly across PC and mobile; and you should be able to invite friends to your Sims house or just play alone as before.
Finally, there is also an extremely brief, five-second teaser for The Sims 4's next expansion, which introduces a new family called The Michaelsons. It'll be revealed in full on Thursday, February 2nd.
