Piracy and The Sims pretty much goes hand-in-hand. In previous instalments, you'd pay the full price for the game or buy it after launch at a discount, but then plenty of DLCs would release at later dates, totalling hundreds of dollars more in investment. It's no surprise that plenty of people pirate the DLCs for the full Sims experience.
However, it seems like EA is attempting to put a stop to it with the upcoming entry. Some playtest builds of The Sims 5 for PC have now leaked, with the contents including the controversial digital rights management software, Denuvo. At least, in the playtest version of the game.
Shared on the r/GamingLeaksandRumours subreddit, two image links were shared. One contained a leaked PC build of The Sims 5 playtest from late 2022, which contains the DRM software. This was potentially after it was cracked and playable around the same time. Another link shares a screenshot of the APK file for the Android build.
Unfortunately, there are no images of Project Rene, the codename for The Sims 5, included in these leaks. But there's certainly potential for some in-game screenshots to surface soon. There's no release date for the upcoming The Sims game just yet, but in a fairly smart move, EA is releasing The Sims 5 as a free-to-play game when it does launch.
It's a pretty good business move on EA's behalf. The company re-launched The Sims 4 as a free-to-play game in late 2022, giving players the chance to download and play the standard version of the game. Launching the next Sims title as a fully free-to-play game is a great idea, however, we do wonder how much the DLCs will cost to reflect this.
It's worth nothing that the Denuvo DRM could be in the playtest version of the game solely to stop players leaking the build to others, but we're assuming the full experience will also have the controversial software. At the very least, you can still pirate DLCs for The Sims 4 if you really want.