The Sims 5 recently went through a closed playtest with EA, and things haven't stayed very secretive now that several leaked images are doing the rounds online.
It's important to remember that The Sims 5, aka Project Rene, was only announced to the world last month, so the next generation of the life sim is still in the very early stages of development. Regardless, it looks like EA and developer Maxis are eager to test what they've got so far, which includes a playable build of the game. Hence where these new screenshots have come from.
As collated by Sims Community, we can see several shots of the inside of homes, the streets outside, and even an early build of The Sims 5's characters. The screenshots of character prototypes were found in the build's files and are obviously very bare-bones; hell, they don't even have eyeballs yet. But it's still interesting to see what direction Maxis may be taking in terms of NPCs and character customization with The Sims 5.
Project Rene game files were purportedly hacked and then leaked, which is why these screenshots don't look very polished. There's certainly enough there to let Sims fans get their hopes up though, as some of these screenshots have fans hoping that The Sims 5 returns to an open-world setting. It's difficult to tell from these leaked images alone, but the exterior environments do look like they allow for exploration.
Considering that we're probably several years off from actually playing this version of The Sims for ourselves, there's a high chance that the assets in the screenshots we're seeing will dramatically change by the time EA is ready to officially show off more of the project. So wherever you stand, don't get too excited or disappointed just yet.
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