While yes, EA did let them continue the project, after EA's request the project has slowed down considerably. And about FreeSO: FreeSO is a The Sims Online rei

While yes, EA did let them continue the project, after EA's request the project has slowed down considerably. And about FreeSO: FreeSO is a The Sims Online reimplementation. The Sims Online is an improved version of The Sims 1's engine. Due to the similarities, riperiperi decided to make a The Sims 1 reimplementation based off FreeSO's engine, with support for mobile devices. And besides, in theory EA couldn't even request that: The engine is a clean room implementation, the implementation doesn't use any of the original game assets.