Not everyone can mess with The Sims. If competition is so rare, it's mainly because it's not easy to offer a life simulation that's as universal as it is solid, especially in its game mechanics. inZOI Studio knows this only too well and prefers to play it safe by first going through Early Access to shape itself according to the community's feedback and desires. The game has never claimed to be a Sim-killer, but rather an alternative for those who are more focused on realism. Less cartoonish art direction, an open world, cars that can be driven, partially customizable neighborhoods... inZOI has communicated at full speed about features that the Sims 4 community desperately demanded. But is it enough to earn a place alongside its rival? We were able to play around twenty hours of inZOi's early access, and while we came away with mixed feelings, the game's enormous potential is definitely there.
Because we know that Simmers will be passing through here and that they won't necessarily be used to early access, I'll allow myself to start with a small aside. When it launches on March 28, 2025, inZOI will be released in early access at €40, with all updates and DLC free until its official launch. In other words, buying it today is like investing in a plot of land where there are currently only the foundations, but the house will be built little by little and with your help. The developers want to design the game hand in hand with the players and are already offering a proximity that is not necessarily found between fans of The Sims 4 and Maxis. Every request, every feedback is scrupulously read, but as it stands inZOI is only a draft and it is impossible to predict when the final version will be available. The creators have, however, been categorical: the game will not come out of early access until they, and especially the community, feel that inZOI is finally what it should be, and it is precisely by letting those who want to play it in advance that they intend to achieve this.
An open world that is both full and empty at the same time
If inZOI has risen to fourth place among the most anticipated games on Steam, it's largely thanks to its attractive visuals and technical aspects. Where The Sims focuses on a more cartoonish artistic direction and is beginning to show the weight of its 10 years of existence, KRAFTON's game shines brightly thanks to Unreal Engine 5. It's the Zois themselves who will benefit the most from the latest generation engine, notably with a character creator that is already impressive and will be even more extensive in the future. Even in such an early version, the possibilities are vast (including the ability to model yourself via an iOS app), although the clothing and pattern creation options could have been left on the shelf for now, as they are so useless as they are. In the future, however, it should be possible to customize hair length and quickly create your own tops or pants, with or without generative AI, but this will clearly not be happening anytime soon. For now, you'll have to settle for a handful of options and outfits directly inspired by Korean fashion, but just being able to customize the color of almost every item of clothing and each of its parts, or even being able to dress in several layers (for example, a coat over a hoodie), should be a standard.
inZOI is also impressive in its open world, which can be fully explored without any transitions or loading. Fast travel or switching to a character who is elsewhere is another story. The two current cities, based on Santa Monica and Seoul, are simply impressive, as are the lighting effects that add real character to the whole thing. The technical base itself is already impressive for such an anticipated release, but you still need the configuration to handle it. With its demanding specs, inZOI has chosen to deprive a large part of the Sims community of the game, and even those with normally good rigs will be struggling because they will need a processor capable of supporting this open world. A world that we are promised will be filled with more than 300 randomly generated characters, but which currently feels rather artificial despite solid modeling. The buildings are mostly empty shells, the majority of objects in the environment are just decorations that can't necessarily be interacted with, and the spaces that can be built are too restricted while the world is full of fake facades, stores, and other things.
inZOI has some good, promising ideas, but they're still in draft form
Despite everything, the game already offers things that that are not found in the competition and which could make all the difference in the long term. The most impressive of these: the ability to instantly control the entire city with two clicks. More concretely, you can change households on the fly without loading (if they are close) just by going to the map accessible with a single button. A small revolution and a real game changer when managing several families. All that's missing is the ability to travel from one city to another like in The Sims, and inZOI will have an ultra-dynamic world.
The studio clearly has no shortage of good ideas to compensate for what The Sims doesn't yet do, but they are too early. Cities, for example, will be partially customizable. There will be no question of creating your own neighborhood or completely renovating existing ones. For now, inZOI lets you control the sidewalks, which you can decorate as you wish, and a few decorative elements. For example, it will be possible to change the type of tree found throughout the neighborhood, the advertising displayed on building signs, add a little more fauna or flora, or even enhance your city with a few effects like fireworks. It's still too superficial to be of real interest, but more in-depth options should arrive in the coming months.
There are some mechanics that with a little polishing will perhaps allow it to make a difference. Yes, you can buy a car and drive it, but it's very incidental given the speed and maneuverability of the vehicles. Here again, the teams are already on the job and are already working on changes. The event creation feature borrowed from The Sims also has potential, allowing you to choose a time, a date, a dress code, and a theme and note it in your calendar. A really well-thought-out little new feature that allows you to create weekly appointments from your schedule. Options are limited in inZOI's early access, but we're already seeing improvements over its rival and some small things with potential.
The souvenir board, for example, is still in draft form, but should compile the history of the Zois in the future, with nice little interactions like the need to buy a first aid kit to treat a cold, and selling your paintings and other creations on the street. Simmers won't fail to notice a catalog of leisure objects and other items for the home with which a character can interact, something not necessarily found in the competition. InZOI's little zest on the simulation side, however, should revolve around two axes: the karma system and the customization of the city's characteristics. The concept of the first is nice on paper, but we're just waiting to see the execution. Our sessions didn't allow us to really see the consequences, one of which is ending up with a city haunted by ghosts. It is above all the customization of the city that will directly influence the psyche of its inhabitants that could really make the difference in the long term with more fine-tuning and an AI that respects our choices more.
Karma's a bitch
inZOI's erratic AI risks ruining your little scenarios. The game being less sweetened than The Sims by its realistic approach, incivilities will not be rare and unless you go and calm their ardor once and for all, strangers, lovers as well as roommates will want to spend most of their time bickering, criticizing or provoking each other. It's funny the first few minutes, quite tiring in the long run. Luckily, you can get closer to a sweeter universe like its rival by lowering the level of negative thoughts, the difficulty in forging friendships, falling in love with others, or the accident rate in the city parameters. Conversely, and this is where inZOI also stands out, you can create a joyful mess by pushing all the knobs to the max. Everyone is fighting, the city is becoming dilapidated, and the majority of the population is turning to the dark side.
The appeal of novelty is clearly nice, although it's not what will keep the community on their toes in the short term. The only time we really had fun with InZOI was when our character decided to cause misery for the entire neighborhood by literally greeting every passerby with punches, flying endlessly in a bottomless bag, or causing car accidents until ending up in jail for half a day. However, as soon as we move away from the "GTAesque" side to return to a more classic simulation, inZOI struggles to excite with this first draft. Because while there are some new features, everything is pretty superficial for the moment, and that's kind of the overall feeling that emerges from this first version of inZOI. Because to compete with The Sims on its own turf, it doesn't just need a more revolutionary open world that takes advantage of Unreal Engine 5, a nice wrapper, and gimmicky features. It's above all the life simulation that takes precedence, and on this point the game is seriously lacking.
All by myself
For its early access launch, inZOI actually looks like a showcase to showcase its characters. There's a photo studio never before seen for a game of this genre with filters, dances, poses, facial expressions. Everything is there to artificially stage your Zois, even selfie spots throughout the city with once again well-stocked options. AI is and will also be used to use your characters as virtual avatars during your streams and in-game so that they reproduce your movements, your poses, etc. On this point, content creators should have a field day as inZOI should deliver on its meta side. The problem is that the heart of the game is the life simulation and that it is very hollow in its current state. Naturally, inZOI takes most of the basics of The Sims, but in a way that is still too superficial to the point that some older installments of the license fare better on certain points. This is especially evident in the interactions. On paper, those relating to social interactions are more numerous than its model, with less general dialogue bubbles, but no more exciting for all that. Farting in secret to lower your karma is fun, but having the possibility of doing something other than chatting with other Zois is better.
This will immediately be obvious to Sims veterans: there are very few things to do together, and the little implemented ones are seriously lacking in intuitiveness for executing them. Watching TV together, chatting with your friend sitting next to you on the couch, is a no-go or very complicated. Even family interactions are scarce, while inviting people to take selfies to show off on social networks is done without difficulty. There is something very individualistic in this first version of early access, a shame for a game whose philosophy is based on sharing. It's gotten to the point where it even lacks things that might seem silly, like the ability to cook for the whole household. Yes, everyone will have to prepare their own food, and if that wasn't tedious enough, you'll then have to select your plate to eat, because your character will never do it themselves.
Unless you want a Zoi who lives like a hermit, you'll quickly get bored for lack of anything better to do than to reel off dialogue choices that will almost instantly hit the mark, unless the person you're talking to isn't in the mood. This was one of the concerns when you first got started at Gamescom, and it's confirmed. More so than in the genre's pioneer, relationships evolve very, very quickly, even with the sliders set to the highest setting to make them more difficult to form. If you start fishing early, you'll have a chance of ending up married by the end of the day. InZOI has nevertheless tried to add levels to the relationships that you'll have to choose from. For example, if you fall in love with someone, then you'll have to decide whether you want to form a couple, or on the contrary, have nothing serious. It remains very superfluous for now, even confusing at times. We have had two people who do not work in the same sector or in the same place define themselves as "colleagues".
100% kawaii
In this first draft, inZOI has a lot of room for improvement, even on small essential things like the animations, re-mapped for all the characters regardless of their personality and whether they are young or old. Yes, grandpa will start making a kawaii heart without warning and dressing like a K-pop star. The game was clearly originally designed for a Korean audience and must now deal with the Sims community eager for new experiences. Due to cultural differences, the dialog and event bubbles may disconcert, or even cringe, more than one person, as they are far from the narrative that its model can brilliantly deliver. However, it is above all its modesty, not to say its puritanism, that could surprise more than one person.
For now, there's only a little kiss as a romance, the equivalent of Crac-Crac isn't animated and is content with a big red heart above the bed even though the characters are dressed and motionless under their duvet, it's impossible to have children or move in with your soulmate before being married, and the poor high school students aren't even allowed to have flings or even a crush. As for the storytelling so dear to the community, we'll pass. Same-sex relationships are definitely there, with the possibility of getting married. However, they are completely stifled, almost non-existent, unless you take matters into your own hands, and it's very tedious. Everything is hidden in the character creation menu, so much so that it's easy to miss it even though it's impossible to change it later. For such characters to blossom in love, Zoi capable of mutual attraction are still needed, and among the 300 generated for the city, there isn't a single one. It seemed as if the lesbians were going to end up alone with the 40 cats, but the animals aren't really present in the game yet.
Several elements still too vague
In this first draft, inZOI has a lot of shortcomings, too many to list. We are thinking in particular of the absence of cheat codes, essential locations for a game of this genre and generally of things to do for it to be a true life simulation capable of existing alongside The Sims. It must be said that when you literally spend between 3 and 5 minutes (yes we timed it) in front of your screen waiting for time to pass until your Zois wake up or come back from work, you get really bored. It's not for lack of having set the scrolling speed to maximum, but it is far from sufficient. Some actions are also unnecessarily too long when others that should be more time-consuming are executed at the speed of light. inZOI clearly still needs some tweaking, and it would also benefit from being a little more educational.
On many points, the game lacks clarity, whether it's the map for taking the bus, which doesn't indicate the names of the stops, the desires and objectives to achieve, which are poorly translated, or the French localization is only 58% complete... players risk being lost. The same goes for the skills that are there, without us currently knowing what they are really for since they don't seem necessary for careers, which are simply a purge to follow as they are since the evolution criteria are not or poorly indicated. If they are few at the moment, certain professions can be played and the initiative is more than commendable. Cashier, firefighter (who will just do paperwork, sorry to shatter your dreams), amusement park employee, the first jobs available can still be counted on the fingers of one hand, and due to a lack of interaction once again, these active careers quickly show their limits.
We'll see how they evolve, because inZOI has some good ideas already in place, but which are either poorly executed or deserve to be reworked. We're thinking in particular of the Zois' traits, which serve to define their personality. This ranges from Diplomat, to Magnetic, to Specialist, including Idealist. All of them come with values and keywords that are supposed to govern their characters and behaviors, except that in reality, we are far from that. A character with the Funny trait can spend his time going to fight with others, hello the party-killer. In the future, the game would also benefit from giving players more freedom to shape the personality of the Zois, rather than assigning default keywords that sometimes do not correspond to the selected Trait, because yes, we choose one and that's it, or to what we want to do with it. We will only very briefly look at the Construction mode, which is a real purge as it is, despite once again high-potential customization options.
We recommend it... to those who want to participate in its creation
Currently, InZOI is betting everything on its looks with a rather minimal service in terms of gameplay. Some of the promises are there, such as the ability to drive cars, directly integrated seasons, a karma system, but everything is still early. Those who come to play and not just dress and make their characters dance will have to deal with a life simulation that is not the most fun as it stands and has numerous shortcomings. And yet, it has all the makings of a serious competitor that could overshadow the giant of the genre when it has deployed its first updates, planned quarterly. The potential of inZOI is simply enormous, as is the work to achieve it.
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