For years fans have been saying things like, “Why aren’t there any Sims games on Switch?” and “Will we ever see a Sims game on Switch?” Well, now their desperate pleas have been answered with a port of a a Sims spin-off from 2007. Kotaku understands that a remaster of MySims of sorts is headed to Switch later this year.
This very unexpected news first leaked via several seemingly legit store listings which were rounded up in a thread on the gaming forum ResetEra. Those include a possible launch date of November 19. While Kotaku can’t confirm those specifics, the Switch port of MySims is real and coming soon, according to a source familiar with the plans. EA did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
MySims was a 2007 game for Wii and DS where players marshaled dozens of Mii-like custom characters in an effort to re-develop a town. Blueprints for building stuff are unlocked and a resource called essence is earned and exploited to design cool things. If you want to know what was so special about these games for some people, you can check out the sparse but still passionate MySims subreddit where long-time fans will regale you with tales of their favorite quirks, characters, and story beats.
There were also a bunch of sequel spin-offs with different themes ranging from the medieval MySims: Kingdom to the vehicle-based MySims: Racing. The characters in them offered a bit more of a whimsical approach to the Sims formula then the ever expanding suite of options in the hit Sims 4. Most of the MySims games were made by EA Redwood Shores, the studio best known for Dead Space which was later rebranded Visceral and shut down by EA in 2017.
It’s unclear if the return of MySims means that’s where EA’s ambitions for The Sims on Switch will end, with many fans still holding out hope that The Sims 4 or another version of the mainline series would eventually get ported to Nintendo’s handheld hybrid console. Maybe the publisher is waiting until a Switch 2 is out to announce that, or maybe the MySims revival is the best that Sims fans on Nintendo’s platform are getting right now.