The Sims 4 has enjoyed its most successful year yet in terms of popularity, more than eight years after its original launch.
Publisher EA posted stats representing the year 2022 for a number of its titles, and one impressive figure showed that a total of 1.4 billion hours of The Sims 4 were played this year across all players.
This is up from 2021's figure of 1.2 billion hours, and is in fact the best-ever number of hours played for the life-simulation game in a single year.
Several other stats show how The Sims 4 has grown this year compared to 2021.
436.5 million Sims were created in 2022, a significant boost over 2021's figure of 376 million. The base Create-a-Sim has expanded over the past year, with pronouns, sexual orientation, body hair, and new hairstyles among the features that were added for free. There was also the new werewolves occult for those who bought the pack.
The gallery saw increased usage as well, with 11.5 million gallery uploads and 209 million gallery downloads in 2022. Last year, the totals were 11.3 million and 201 million respectively.
There were also 289 million WooHoos in 2022, compared to 274 million in the previous year. Romantic, Cheerful, and Creative were the three most common traits chosen for Sims.
Lastly, there were a total of 21.7 million deaths. The most common death was old age, unsurprisingly. Death by anger was second, and drowning was third.
The healthy numbers show why there currently isn't any rush to roll out The Sims 5. Despite an official announcement, a working title of Project Rene, and a first sneak peek, we're probably a few years away from the full sequel being released.
Major packs that were released this year include High School Years, Werewolves, and My Wedding Stories. The developers have so far confirmed two new expansions coming in 2023, as well as improved babies.
2022 was also the year when the base game became permanently free.
While the game enjoyed a good quantity of content in 2022, it has notably at times struggled with high-profile bugs that called for priority fixes.
The Sims 4 is available on PC, Mac, PlayStation 4 and 5, Xbox One, and Xbox Series X|S.
