A new The Sims mobile has been spotted on the Play Store (and it looks terrible)

Looking forward to The Sims 5? No such luck, EA recently dashed all your hopes with the announcement of The Sims Labs, a programme designed to test new ways of playing The Sims. At the same time, EA also hinted that a new Sims mobile game was in the pipeline. Thanks to the curious folks on the Internet (and more specifically Techradar), we know that this game is called The Sims Labs: Town Stories and that it's already listed on the Play Store! Spoiler alert: this new opus looks catastrophic.

What does The Sims Labs: Town Stories, the new Sims mobile game, have in store for us?

The Sims Labs: Town Stories is clearly part of The Sims Labs programme, and while you need to be a member of the Labs to be able to try out EA's new projects based around the franchise, there's nothing to stop us checking out the Play Store to find out what this new mobile Sims has in store for us.

In Town Stories, everything revolves around a single town, Plumbrook, which you can build, develop and customise. There will also be 'narrative quests' for characters to discover (Bella Goth, among others) and, unsurprisingly, in-game currencies to unlock plans and decorative items.

Frankly, there's nothing very original about any of this. To add insult to injury, in addition to the leak of The Sims Labs: Town Stories on the Play Store, we've also been treated to three minutes of gameplay in the last 24 hours, and it's painful to watch, to say the least.

The new Sims on mobile: a city-builder on the cheap?

In a post on X (formerly Twitter), we can actually see three videos showing the gameplay of The Sims Labs: Town Stories and... where to start?

From the animations to the dated charadesigns, from the generic graphics to the absence of music and voices for the Sims, everything is reminiscent of the bad, low-budget city-builders that populate the Play Store. Not to mention the assets and interface that have been recycled from previous Sims mobile games.

We sincerely hope that what we're seeing in these videos are just placeholders, and that development of the game is still in its early stages. Otherwise, we might wonder about EA's real objectives when it comes to The Sims Labs. The company has still not commented on these leaks. In the meantime, if like Yaya and me, you grew up with The Sims, this news will certainly make you feel a little sad.