Man I just love a game where I move all my little stuff around on my little shelves. I adored the tactile fiddling about in Potion Craft and sorting my store shelves in Tiny Bookshop—though I did skip Unpacking for some reason—and upcoming funky shop sim Thrifty Business is right at the pinnacle of that compulsive fussing-with-stuff fascination. You don't have to wait for next week's Steam Next Fest because the demo is already live for you to try right now.

The folks behind the cute tat design sim Sticky Business are calling their next brightly colored cozy game a "laid-back management sim" because it really is almost entirely about the pixel pushing. Spellgarden Games says there's no "stressful min-maxing" for the best profit, haggling minigame, or rushing to serve customers before they leave in a huff. It's all about curating your stuff, buying new display shelves, and occasionally helping out your regular customers by stocking an item they're looking for or hosting community events.

It's like Tiny Bookshop in that you're running a shop by purchasing mystery boxes of used stuff to sell, and like Unpacking in that all those bobbles are yours to puzzle over placing exactly where you want. Items have lots of different tags like "kitchen" or "toy" for their purpose, "vintage" or "y2k" for their style, and even tags for colors, giving you a rating for your store's level of organization if things are grouped sensibly.

I spent my few days in the demo nudging around the perfect "vintage kitchen ceramics" shelf and deciding if my growing collection of "y2k" backpacks and pouches should get shelved beside the VHS player or with the other handbags. Do people looking for witchy crystal decorations also want vintage candlesticks? As Spellgarden says, I may be putting more thought in here than Thrifty Business actually demands, but I can't stop myself when my Sims 4 spidey sense for cluttering keeps going off. The only stressful part of Thrifty Business for me is going to be trying to make my shop look as charmingly on-theme as the official screenshots.

The current demo has just a few in-game days to play and a couple events to plan like a grand opening and a queer dating night, but there are already heaps of little items to unbox and sort onto my many shelves.

Coming up next, Spellgarden says, are things like character customization—I know you're all going to ask about that—more stories and events, a photo mode, interactable objects, and more. There's no specific release date for Thrifty Business just yet, but it's planning to launch sometime in 2026.

I feel like Bill Murray in Groundhog Day because the year was 2022 when I first watched EA tease the "next generation Sims game" with the codename Project Rene. Two years later it said "actually that's not the Sims 5 though" and spent another year being weird and silent before finally admitting today that yeah, Project Rene is now a mobile game. Simultaneously though, it made sure to mention that a huge portion of the team is working on "the next evolution." Here we go again.

In its start of year blog post today, EA says it is "committed to singleplayer life simulation experiences," and reiterated that it is continuing to work on updates and improvements to The Sims 4. After that, it coyly adds:

"Singleplayer PC and console experiences will always be a part of our future, with more than half of our global development team dedicated to The Sims 4 and the next evolution. More news in the coming months!"

The Sims 4 and "the next evolution," apparently two different things.

The recent rumors point to anything from a Sims 4 code base rewrite to a full remake, though the grist for that mill was mostly unsubstantial vague-posting from unconfirmed sources. After all the hubbub about it, well-known Sims 4 modder SimMattically stepped in to put a damper on things by posting, "there’s no Sims 4 remaster."

So it's likely not working on a remaster and likely not working on The Sims 5, but is working on a "next evolution," and crucially one that's singleplayer, not another attempt at taking The Sims online.

The only other hint we have is EA's investor presentation from 2024, during which it announced (and has still never really explained) a platform called The Sims Hub to unify The Sims 4 with Project Rene and other Sims games. During the same presentation, EA entertainment & technology president Laura Miele said that the team would be "updating the core technology foundation" of The Sims 4. The direction for Project Rene seems to have shifted in that time though, so I'd hesitate to put too much stock in any other plans EA announced over a year ago.

This tiny acknowledgement of something else in the Sims team pipeline feels like a bone thrown to keep all us life sim dogs from snarling over the confirmation that Project Rene really is just the mobile game we don't want. At this point though, this tired old Sims hound will take it.

I'm going to hold your hand when I say this: Project Rene is a mobile game. When EA first teased the next Sims game, we understandably thought the pretty new lighting engine shots it showed off meant we were looking at The Sims 5. After a couple agonizing years of leaks, silence, rumors, and speculation, EA has finally just admitted what we'd all figured out: Project Rene is a "social multiplayer" mobile game.

EA shared a news update about the future of The Sims series today, setting expectations for the new year. After spending a bit more time trying to calm fans down about the EA buyout we're understandably very wary of, it goes on to be, if not what I'd call transparent, then at least more clear than ever before about the relationship between The Sims 4 and Project Rene.

"Thanks to ongoing player feedback, Project Rene has evolved to focus on social multiplayer play, offering a more direct way for friends to share creativity together. It is not the successor to The Sims 4 and is a separate experience from any future deep, singleplayer life simulation experience. It introduces a new way to explore and play together within the growing Sims family of games, welcoming Simmers who want to connect directly with other players."

In case there was any remaining doubt that we're talking about the same online mobile game that we've been seeing leaked footage from for over a year, the image below, included in the post, is titled "SimsLabs_Rene2.png". This is the same little outdoor plaza where we've seen custom characters walking around completing small goals like decorating together or working shifts at a cafe.

Every time leaked images from these playtests make the rounds, fans are pretty bummed. Most of us don't really want a small mobile Sims game. Adding insult to injury, EA has ignored every leak so far and refused to give players any clarity on what we're seeing. So at least in that department, today is a relief.

What I find most interesting is that EA says "Project Rene has evolved" into this current state. It's almost an acknowledgement that we weren't out of line to believe that at one point this was The Sims 5 and got internally rebooted during development.

While Project Rene may not be what most of us wanted from a new Sims game, EA does also remind us that it's still "building a family of new Sims experiences across PC, console, and mobile," and that it's "committed to singleplayer life simulation experiences." The same blog post reveals that over half of the full Sims team is working on "The Sims 4 and the next evolution," though any transparency about what that means is coming months down the line, it says.

"In 2026 you can expect to hear more from us as we continue playtesting new ideas and experiences," it also says. Don't hold your breath though. It would be pretty in character if this is the only clear communication we get about The Sims series future for the rest of this year.