The Sims has seen its fair share of strange development twists and turns over the decades. Projects evolve, spin-offs change direction, and early concepts have morphed into something completely different before release. But outright cancellations are relatively rare for the franchise. This time, a project has disappeared before even the most loyal Simmers realized it existed.
The Sims has canceled a mobile spin-off with the title The Sims: Town Stories. The mobile spin-off has never been widely announced or even discussed in the community, so players are probably only hearing about it now that it's been scrapped. While the cancellation may seem sudden, it also feels like a predictable, unfortunate accident of The Sims' current focus.
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What was the now canceled The Sims: Town Stories?
The Sims: Town Stories hosted a pair of public playtests in the Philippines, Australia, and South Africa in November 2025. People could access the game through their device's app store as long as they lived in one of those countries. However, the project did not take long to face disaster. On March 13, 2026, a LinkedIn post from a former Narrative Designer at EA/Maxis, Franci Dimitrovska, confirmed that the project had ended.
The Sims: Town Stories first leaked online in October 2024. City stories was a free-to-play and single-player game for iOS and Android piloted by The Sims Labs, Maxi's learning laboratory for all existing and future products. The game cast players as the newest residents of Plumbrook – a quaint little town away from the “hustle and bustle of the big city”. Players would have to make their way into their perfect city by gathering resources, developing relationships and achieving goals.
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The art style was a bit more cartoony than a typical one Sims game. Compared to The Sims 4s art style, it was more like a spin-off that MySims. However, many people have noted that the art style would place it in direct comparison to similar mobile games such as Lilly's garden or Garden landscape.
The Sims: Town Stories features
City stories was a spin-off. However, it had many similar features The Sims and MySims:
- Most recurring faces: Only six sims had been revealed in marketing material and official art. Five of six of them were returning faces across the board The Sims franchise: Bella Goth (The Sims), Ms Nicole (MySims), Torajiro (MySims Kingdom)Nancy Landgraab (The Sims 3), and Bob Pancakes (The Sims 4). The only new character was Gizmo Cogspin.
- An open world: To the chagrin of Sims 3 fans, this spin-off featured the first open world in the Sims since 2009.
- Build a dream city: About like Stardew Valley's story, players had to improve Plumbrook from scratch. With enough resources and relationships, players would have been able to decorate their homes, customize their blocks and cities, and improve the overall community.
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Narrative missions: There were two main ways to proceed City stories.
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One of them was through the playing career and lifetime goals.
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The second was by uncovering residents' stories and earning their trust.
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The Sims' new game cancellation may be shocking, but not surprising
As a long-term Simmer myself, every hazy direction or rare cancellation is sad. Even if The Sims: Town Stories was never widely revealed or launched, it still represented an experiment with the franchise that could have grown into something beloved by some fans. The concept might not have been the franchise's most revolutionary, but it was certainly a natural extension of the series' cozy life-sim appeal.
At the same time, the writing may have been on the plumb line regarding The Sims: Town Stories' Fate. EA has focused on the future of the franchise Project Renenext major Sims initiatives that have gradually moved away from their early concepts as The Sims 5. Now, Project Rene is somewhat closer to a mobile-focused experience rather than a traditional mainline. With that change in mind, it makes sense that side projects like City stories can quietly disappear. Consolidating development resources when a new flagship project enters a critical stage is common. And Project Rene seems to be the focal point for The Sims right now.
