The Sims 4 may be moving forward a bit, having been released over a decade ago, but that doesn't seem to have dampened interest in the long-running life simulation series; EA has just announced that The Sims 4 has managed to attract more than 15 million new players this year alone.
To put that in perspective, The Sims 4 took six years to amass 20 million players after its release in 2014, a figure that then skyrocketed following EA's decision to make the previously premium title free-to-play in October 2022. That business model change more than quadrupled The Sims 4's audience, with EA touting 85 million players in May this year, and we now know that the last 12 months have brought in a total of 15 million new players.
That latest figure was revealed as part of EA's Q2 2025 financial earnings report (“Increased engagement led to higher-than-expected net bookings for the franchise in the second quarter,” the publisher noted), and it helps to provide additional context for your ad. earlier this year that, despite its age, The Sims 4 will continue to be “a foundational Sims experience” as the series moves “beyond linear and sequential Sims releases.”
The rise in popularity of The Sims 4 also explains EA's renewed focus on the ten-year-old game, with the publisher promising more bug fixes more frequently in May as it looks to address years of “frustrating” technical issues. This is in addition to a number of new initiatives in the game, such as the new live service-style Reaper's Rewards Event and a continuous flood of new DLC.
Next on the list of expansions is the extremely promising and wonderfully macabre Life and Death expansion for The Sims 4, which launches this Thursday, October 31. Its release follows a free update to the base game last week that greatly expands the Sims' ghost-like gameplay (and makes it possible to punch Death), and comes ahead of a new series of creator-designed DLC packs.
Things have certainly come a long way since Swimmingpoolgate.