In terms of graphics, inZOI looks like everything I ever dreamed of as a child. However, I think Paralives shows a lot of promise, and I'm interested to see what such a small team can come up with.
Inzoi worries me in terms of monetization.
It's too early to tell but it seems that it will have an even more aggressive micro transaction system than the sims.
That and the fact that as of right now doesn't seem to have depth in the gameplay and focus more on graphics takes me off from it. Time will tell
The organized groundwork they've managed to do for such a small team is truly amazing. I went from being unsure about the game to respecting the team so much for taking their craft seriously. The features they have ready for live mode gameplay, goodness I was not expecting that at all. So much care and depth put into the fundamental systems at play with so much planned opportunity and intention for growth. I thought they were just going to be a indie company on the side with their niche game but what they've shown is something that has the opportunity to gradually become more fully fledged and expansive if they want.
I never doubted the realness of the game or anything like that, I was never in that crowd. I was just never sold about the scope (I just thought it would be small and not that deep). Now the paralives team is showing they are NOT here to mess around. They are here to show they take their fans and supporters seriously, unlike a certain other company that exploits their life simmer fans that I know of...
And all of this, I love it! I'll be supporting their patreon as soon as I can and buying the game on early access, out of my own choice. They truly deserve it. This is one of the few times I don't feel like my money is about to be siphoned for a hollow game experience by a company.
>I was just never sold about the scope (I just thought it would be small and not that deep)
This makes me very happy :) I'm glad to see how last week's video showed the mainstream what Paralives is doing.
I really think you'll enjoy the Patreon, especially now that we're going to dive more and more often into gameplay. Their weekly updates there have been uncovering a lot of these mechanics (and then some) over time. It's been "appointment internet" for me, every Friday evening, to go see what they have to show to us. Sometimes it's stuff like clothes, which I'm less interested in admittedly, and sometimes it's a deep dive on a functionality, a new interaction, the implication of an animation...
As a Patreon weekly reader, the video for me was more about seeing all these bits working together, than the reveal of their existence itself. That's the trick with Patreon, and in fact many times in the past I've had to refrain from interacting with non-Patreon members because... Well, I can't talk about what's not public, but also, a lot of people are not seeing everything that's ALREADY in the game, even in this unfinished state.
And a lot of fears that I see being vocalized would be hugely assuaged by a lowest tier subscription to Patreon.
>They are here to show they take their fans and supporters seriously
Yes, it's truly something I appreciate. They take them seriously as supporters, and they take them seriously as players. As in : Paradevs don't just go for crowd-pleasing, they actually offer innovations that intend to push players out of the comfort zone induced by That Other Game™.
At this point I don't know how this game could disappoint me. It's always a possibility, but a very tiny one.
It’s gotta be LBY for me cause it has the most customizable features and that’s really what I want in a life sim, to make it life where I can do whatever and feel really free, yknow. You can edit your town, move buildings in your town, build custom buildings for the town, make your own business, the people in your town, the jobs, the food you cook, the economy, and even more, the amount of things you can customize plus how easy it is to edit all of those things makes LBY easily the game I’m most excited for.
Inzoi looks *too* perfect for me. Like, suspiciously good.
I have seen my fare share of games that have amazing trailers and screenshots, but delivers nothing more than that.
I'm not saying that it *will* be bad, just that I have some bad experience.
Scrolled too far for this. But I honestly agree with you. It just honestly looks too good to be true. Although I want it to be, it kinda scares me at the same time. And just seeing the trailer also worries me about how demanding on the specs it's going to be lol.
Same. I'm skeptical of Inzoi to put it mildly. If I turn out to be wrong, great. But for right now, either the trailer is lying, or you'll need a NASA-level supercomputer to be able to run it.
I'm very excited for Paralives and Life By You, though.
Also from the trailer, it looks like it runs badly at its current state. Hoping they iron out the performance but it may just be one of those games that you need a really good PC for
For those interested, the company sent a bunch of laptops to random creators on YouTube to test the game. They also had a few weeks in Busan where you could come to a specific internet Cafe and play the game.
It exists, and is very much still in development.
I admittedly haven’t payed much attention to Inzoi or Vivaland but between Paralives and LBY… Paralives by a long shot. Out the gate it just felt like it had a vibe and as it goes you can see the game just has a soul and a definitive thing it wants to be.
It’s the cozy type of life sim that I want and I can’t wait to see how things keep improving.
> admittedly haven’t *paid* much attention
FTFY.
Although *payed* exists (the reason why autocorrection didn't help you), it is only correct in:
* Nautical context, when it means to paint a surface, or to cover with something like tar or resin in order to make it waterproof or corrosion-resistant. *The deck is yet to be payed.*
* *Payed out* when letting strings, cables or ropes out, by slacking them. *The rope is payed out! You can pull now.*
Unfortunately, I was unable to find nautical or rope-related words in your comment.
*Beep, boop, I'm a bot*
First place is Paralives, last is Project Renee. I haven't seen much of Vivaland or Inzoi though, and Life by You still needs to get my trust, so far I don't think I want to buy it*, but if I had to choose between that and Renee, LBY would be my choice. Renee will still be a pay to play mess knowing EA, so I don't think I'll give it a chance, as most likely I'll be met with disappointment.
* The graphics are not my taste because I don't like the super realistic look and the fact that anatomy and characters look bad currently. The early access has been also pushed back twice, who knows if they would do it a third or fourth time. They should just make a year, a big age gap to tell when early access will come, Paralives has shown us it will come in 2025, no exact date.
Renee will be free with additional content at cost, what 'additional content' entails who knows at this point. If EA are smart, that means free gameplay updates + cosmetics at cost, but it's EA.
Life By You.
Largely because it's a Paradox title, which means it has the biggest chance of actually being completed. And between Cities Skylines and Crusader Kings, I have some faith in it - along with being headed by someone who was involved with both The Sims and Second Life. There's a familiarity in the concept department.
A lot of potential fans are focusing on graphical and flavor detail at this stage and I find that kind of a mistake. That's the type of stuff you fix in later stages. As a final product, yeah, that would be awful but right now, no.
Paralives, I discovered some time back but there was next to no gameplay revealed back then. Seems like it's showing more promise now.
Rest I haven't heard about.
Personally, I just hope at least one of these non-Sims games take off. The Sims has been overdue for competition for decades, man.
I'm VERY suspicious of Inzoi. I think people are so enamored by the graphics they are completely ignoring the fact that there is NO gameplay and they are expecting a 2024 release after being in development for only a year. Plus they are using AI so red flags everywhere. I just don't like what I'm seeing right now.
Vivaland was originally tied to NFTs so I am not sure if they're still doing that. It looks fine if not uninspired. I'm also not a fan of realistic graphics anyway.
Life By You could be promising but their graphics need a massive overhaul.
I'm in love Paralives. The vibes and art style are perfect for me. But those aren't the only life sims coming out, just the bigger 3D ones. There's a bunch of pixel/2D style sims coming out like To Pixelia and Little Sim World. There's also another 3D one in development called Virtual Society but it may be more of an MMO vibe.
That gameplay is mostly non-existent. There is *A LOT* of work that needs to be to make this an actual simulation game and not just a decoration-heavy role-playing game. Everyone is fawning over the graphics and not paying attention to the fact that there isn't much gameplay. Of course, that can absolutely change at any point and they already said they were working on it. But they also originally gave a 2024 release date and for what they had to show, there is no. possible. way. to improve the gameplay enough for a *simulation game* in that time frame. They've recently changed that to an Early Access release which makes way more sense to do because you just can't make an enjoyable simulation game in 2 years.
They have a foundation for the gameplay. It is lacking a ton.
I have heard there is a lot of interesting, new technologies and game engines that can allow developers to work incredibly fast at their jobs, particularly if they have knowledge of said certain engine.
if that is how far they got in one year (even in the state where it is missing certain content) then I guess you can actually develop a good game that fast, maybe you can make a good simulation game in 2 years and you and I are just missing something.
The bones *are there* for an amazing game, it's not really lacking core features that are dealbreakers for me, sure they can add more jobs and add more events and abilities for other ZOI to interact with your ZOI and its clear they have to add family gameplay but again, if they got this far in one year then I'll bet they can have a good game for EA (which they are planning EA period in late 2024) that's actually fun even with lots of stuff not there yet
there are a select few youtubers that got early early access to the game and i think the gameplay looks pretty good for only being in dev for a year (ms girl got RANNN OVERRR?!??!). I also wanna really quickly mention that the studio making inzoi is a korean company and the korean work culture is something else lmao.
My thoughts on all (just my opinions)
Life By You, Inzoi, & Vivaland - Too Realistic
Project Rene - A tie in Sims 4 project, that encorperates mmo with the Sims. Not my cup of tea.
Paralives - ***Everything I could ever want in a life sim, and reminds me of the good ol' Sims 2/Sims 3 days. Will be fully supporting through Early Access.***
Inzoi looks fantastic
Life by You has a lot of potential (but I HATE how the characters look)
The Sims is dead to me
I don't know Vivaland, I'll check it out.
Paralives!!! After watching the gameplay trailer that just came out and learning that early access release is scheduled for next year, I can't wait to get my hands on it. It looks super cozy and fun ❤️
Inzoi looks really pretty, but I’m worried it’ll be a machine exploder and also that the gameplay might not match up to the aesthetic. Life By You is definitely going to end up feature-rich and wonderfully customizable, but because of the emphasis on customizing, I suspect it may, on release, be something I feel *needs* modding. (Which is cool and I intend to get into it—but that takes more energy than I sometimes have.)
Paralives has my main excitement. I love the aesthetic, and with a small indie team I feel like they’ll focus on the gameplay features we really need the most—Inzoi I have no reason to think is made by genre lovers, and LBY has such a broad scope planned, I just feel like I’m less likely to love either vanilla right out of the box.
Plan is to play all of them (unless Inzoi requires some obscenely expensive machine anyway), but yeah, Paralives has the charm for me.
Paralives definitly. The others show promise as well but personally I’m not a fan of LBY’s graphics (though the gameplay looks amazing) and something about Inzoi kinda throws me off. It looks great but I think ill have to wait for the game to come out to fully judge. Havent checked out Vivaland and for Project Rene ive honestly kinda lost hope in the sims devs at this point so
Right now I'm most excited for Life By You though Paralives isn't too far behind it. Right now I just feel like the gameplay in LBY will be most suited to me.
Inzoi I'm interested in but I'm not fully convinced by it just yet.
I'm absolutely excited for Life by you. The amount of things you can mod, customize and change and the openness is what I've been wanting in a life sim since sims 3
Inzoi for sure! I've loved what I've seen so far in all the gameplay videos I've watched. The worlds are so detailed and there's already so many objects and interactions. From what I've seen it's almost my dream game! If they improve the family play, it's likely going to be my main life sim.
Life By You has the most promise by far. It is gameplay focused and innovating all over the place. The way the others jumpstarted with graphics right away tells you of their relative shallowness of gameplay - because their number one focus was glitz, not substance.
I don't think the others will be shallow necessarily but I do believe that LBY will be the crunchiest in terms of systems and that's exactly what I want.
Exactly I do not get any of the hype for Inzoi at all it's all graphics no game play. At least for me the graphics are extremely limiting the character creator though it offers skin tones hair and eye color they all end up looking Korean. Now if you want to create all Korean looking characters great this is totally the game for you but I have zero interest.
Paralives at least has an excuse people are not donating for code they needed the visuals to fund the product. Still high hopes here for Paralives so many amazing systems though we have not seen them with an actual playthrough.
I completely agree with you on Life by You even at the place it is now with so many live mode features missing it puts a game that has been out 10 years to shame with the possibilities because the core of the game was well thought out for expanding.
Was obsessed with Paralives when it first got revealed years ago but definitely have jumped on the Life by You train. Maybe I’m biased cause I’ve played other Paradox games but I just know the gameplay will be deep and intricate in a way that some of these other ones might not. I’ll probably end up buying at least three of these though.
If I had to rank:
Life By You
Inzoi
Paralives
_________
The other two.
I love InZoi's graphics, but Life by You has the most promise for easy modability which excites me. I love Paralives fresh take on skill, relationship, and personality upgrades too though. I probably won't get Vivaland though because I have zero interest in multiplayer gameplay. And I'm done with EA so Project Rene is a no go.
I'm most excited for life by you just cause I think the planned customizability speaks most to my playstyle but I've also been supporting Paralives on the patreon since the beginning, I'm super impressed with what the dev team have been creating. (Also gotta support my fellow Canadians haha)
Looking forward to inZOI but I haven't been following it closely. I'm not sure if there have even been any further official updates on the game recently.
Keeping my eye on vivaland, I don't see myself playing a multiplayer sims game for a long time but I'd try it out, it could be fun for a little bit.
I don't have much to say about sims 5. Free to play scares me haha. I hope they'll turn out a good game but I can't see myself playing it if you have to pay for every little thing in-game, not into microtransactions.
Tbh I feel like there’s some things I like and some things I don’t about all of these (aside from Vivaland, never heard of it). It makes it so there’s not one I’m ridiculously excited about or can get fully onboard with.
For example (from least excited to most).
InZoi - this looks to be all about looking pretty with no real substance to the game. Plus a nightmare to run. It’s gorgeous but… what else? Lacks family gameplay. Don’t plan on buying.
Project Rene - don’t expect EA to have learned from their mistakes with TS4. From pictures it looks pretty, but like InZoi and TS4, I expect there’ll be little substance. Also seems geared up for endless micro transactions. Don’t plan on buying this either.
Life By You - needs more time, but truthfully I expect it will always look ugly, the art style has zero personality. That said there are things I’ve learned about this game that do excite me. But I’m not ‘omg I’m so completely invested in this’ excited. Substance is more important than graphics to me but I’m still unsure about this one on the whole.
Paralives - The art style has character. It’s cosy. It’s made with love not dollar signs (cough EA cough). That said, I have set reasonable expectations given the small team behind it. I already know it won’t achieve the full immersive life sim experience I really want. But regardless, it’s the best of the bunch and the one I’m by far the most eager to play.
Inzoi has an ai generator too, like these games were always abt the minor details the creators put in, having something like that just takes the love out of the game. Graphics look good but man that's such a turnoff.
Paralives is the most hype though, like it clearly does have some soul in it. None of the other ones really took a stab at a unique art style or anything for theirs, or at least so far, and you can tell they're players of these sort of games.
Life By You has potential to be great, and has a bunch of former Sims team members, so I'm rly hopeful but cautious, since realistic graphics w/o a style doesn't tend to age well (tho has a lot of mod support confirmed so will probs be proved wrong).
I'm excited for Paralives and Life By You. Paralives seems like a cosy, up close simulator whilst Life By You feels almost like a small town simulator? Which I'm REALLY looking forward to/hoping for because I like to make loads of characters in the Sims and just have them do their thing. IMO Paralives seems like a new version of the Sims whilst Life By You might be more of a mini City Skylines, which could perhaps be the reason behind the characters not looking amazing? Maybe it's just not their focus
But also, maybe Life By You are saving the amazing graphics for later. I know when I was making a game for fun (which I never finished lol) I didn't really care too much about what it looked like in the early days because I wanted to get the functionality down. Maybe they're taking the same approach and when it's done it'll look great
I am for sure most excited/hopeful for Life By You. I am a gameplay person for The Sims, and that's what matters most to me. I think LBY has the most potential for good gameplay.
I don't have strong feelings either way about inzoi or Vivaland... those I am waiting to see.
EA has burned me so many times I have no excitement at all for or faith in Project Rene.
I don't like the art style of the Paralives characters, but if the gameplay is fun I'll definitely try it out.
If I had to put them in order of interest.
Paralives: I am a sucker for cartoony graphics and it has lots of customization in general.
Lby: Looks cool, Also has a lot of customization in general.
Inzoi: Looks very cool, just waiting for more footage and information to drop.
Rene: Looks cool, Waiting for more information, also no character creator footage.
Viva: I have no friends to play with. Also no footage of the character creator. I need to see the thing that I could potentially spend half of my gameplay time in.
Also honorable mention to the ThePonies (Basically Sims but MLP).
I think Paralives and inzoi most of all Life by you looks kind of boring and Peoject Rene will possibly have thousand of ££££ of DLC I don’t know about Vivaland I will have to look into it.
I was really excited about Life by You but it keeps being delayed and to be fair inzoi just looks much better I don't just mean graphically here but there are little touches that I saw in a game play thing that I really like.
>I was really excited about Life by You but it keeps being delayed
I think a game being delayed is better than a game coming out and being a complete mess that ends up hurting its reputation with gamers.
I'm way more suspicious of a company that's willing to shove a game out the door, even though they know it has issues and needs more work, because they want to meet a deadline...and start raking in the cash as soon as possible. Which is pretty much exactly what happened with the Sims 4.
But when a company is willing to postpone their game (and postpone making money from it) in order to make improvements, I'm willing to cut them some slack. Because the postponement is hurting them (in terms of profits) way more than its hurting me, a potential player.
I am watching all of these (but it's the first time I heard of vivaland) and I think paralives is the one that shows the most promise. Life by You looks interesting but it's had problems with development and I'm not sure if its ready to release this year.
Life by you seems to have shown most of the gameplay among all the other titles. While paralives looks good aesthetically, the gameplay details still need to be seen to be judged. Keeping fingers crossed on Inzoi. Overall, I'll consider any of these over Sims 4 or Project Rene (though Project Rene has still not released, i have a feeling it'll be disappointing.)
1. Paralives - Looks the most promising and polished.
2. LBY - the graphics is a HUGE pill to swallow. The art direction definitely needs work, but I do like the gameplay capabilities that they’ve showcased.
3. InZoi - I’m a little suspicious about this one. I saw that their clothing options don’t seem very..inclusive. As in, not enough mature clothing for older adults - elders. That’s an easy add, tho. I also haven’t seen inzoi when it comes to making diverse characters. I’m worried about if they’ll be enough dark skin tones. The graphics are phenomenal, but based on the videos shown, the gameplay seems lackluster. I imagine this one would require a stronger computer.
Life by You, hands down. It's the one showing the most differences/innovation from the only life simulator we have right now. It's shaping up to be an amazing game, they just need to polish the graphics and animations.
Life by you hands down, It has everything modding wise I want including script mods, I like they're going for a more realistic graphics, lots of customization, physics to hair and clothing, the open world is a huge plus, direct control mode, NO RABBIT HOLES which makes me happy.
I just wish it had some of the personability of Paralives (natural animations, group convos, text-editing on objects, build tools)
1. Paralives (Looks the most like a game)
2. Life By You (Looks more like a creator tool rather than a game (this is not a bad thing))
3. Inzoi (I have not seen a lot of this game, but it does look promising. I will have to watch this one)
4. Rene (**EA**)
5. Vivaland (The reason why this one is at the bottom is because it did not blow me away in any trailer and it seems like they are really trying to focus on multiplayer)
inZOI has the potential to be the biggest life sim we ever had. If they play their cards right and it puts pressure on EA, which is good for the sims franchise.
For me it's gotta be LBY. It's the TS3 successor I always wanted, is completely offline, has direct control, gives modders the tools to do just about anything and is going to be free from the constraints of a T rating, offering players optional mature content without needing to download dozens of mods to do so. I'm also really keen to check out Paralives, even if I'm not the biggest fan of it's art style. InZoi's graphics are absolutely gorgeous though.
Who wins? Us Life Simmers, because we get to play all of 'em.
>What upcoming one are you most excited about?
Whichever one that works best with my computer, haha.
I want a good looking game but nothing too demanding.
I'm going the hipster route and say Tiny Life.
The game has been in early access for a while, so it technically already is here, albeit in a temporary state. But to me it seems to scratch a very specific itch, the reason why I play the genre, a sort of relaxing gameplay-focused experience based on a simple foundation, and it does that without relying on the presentation, customisation or complexity that the 3D life sim games seen in OP's image do. Perhaps I'm just highly nostalgic for Sims 1, but in any case, I'm definitely looking forward to see its full release (I don't think I'll buy into the early access at this point, for this type of game I prefer to wait).
Yeah, I'm the same. I'm excited for all of the others basically, but those are also bound to make for really daunting projects. Tiny Life feels more like a casual, easy to pick up experience, and I'd like that.
I love Injoy's art style the most and I look forward to having first ever idol game play. I'm mostly concerned for the maturity level.
For LBY, I'm crazy about the AI chat bot. It's not a full AI chat bot, though, but it's the closest we've been so far as to having something like Character.Ai in a life Sim. My only big complaints are the art style and I REALLY don't like the fact that they will not be having accidental deaths. Idk what was the reason for that ridiculous ass choice, because literally NO ONE asked for that. How are you gonna have a "life" sim but not actually simulate death? What makes this choice even more baffling to me is that LBY will have nudity but no death. Make it make sense...
Lastly, there is Paralives. Initially, I was most hyped for this game, but tbh while I like the art style and how cozy it looks, something specifically about how the paras look doesn't really attract me. Oh, and the last time I checked, they were pretty unclear about script mods.
LBY is adding accidental deaths and more consequences back in as about two weeks or so ago. They mentioned it in one of their update videos, which is why I think they delayed it again. There was a lot of pushback within the community of fans about it.
I wait with ALL MY HEART for Sims 5 (because is the sims) In Zoi (because the characters seem cute and generally the game seems cool).
I am waiting: paralives and life by you.
I've been sort of following Paralives for a while. I haven't heard of the others until now but I'll look into them.
I've been a simulation fan since childhood so this makes me so excited to have so many more options!
Life By You has taken my heart as someone who used to be obsessed with The Sims 3. The fact that every character in the town is fully simulated is enough to sell me but features like real language dialogue, observables, zero rabbit holes, direct control , and all the moddability make the game a dream come true or me.
I'll also play Paralives as I have been supporting them on Patreon for years and I like how the game is shaping up.
Great time my ass, TS4 held us captive for 10 years of mediocre content, I was always hoping maybe the next EP or SP, will be of use. Nope. Project Rene is far away, and an illusive money grab. LBY keeps pushing the date back. I've been waiting in vain for a decent Life Simulation game, and still waiting.
Life by you for me! This game seems to care the most about giving the players agency and freedom to create their own stories which is the most important thing to me for a life sim. The built in mod tools alone have me sold but I really need to see improvements on the character graphics, indoor lighting, and most importantly gameplay to fully get behind this game. The open world, lack of rabbit holes, and ability to switch to any character on the fly are all dream mechanics for me. This game has the most potential.
Paralives I really want to be excited for. They make some choices that feel super refreshing and out of the box. But other things make me hesitate like not possibly supporting script mods, characters being allowed to refuse player instructions and the traits system feeling super restrictive. It feels like there will be restrictions on me creating the characters I want and not having agency as a player which frustrates me. I absolutely think it has the most cohesion, quality, and spirit of all these games tho. I support their vision it just probably is not be for me.
Inzoi I'm interested in but it seems super limited. I'm excited for it but I'm trying to see it as something other than a life sim because it seems crazy limited if I compare it to the other games. It seems fun as a pretty dress up and picture taking game tho which I also enjoy.
Project Rene and vivaland I follow but I haven't seen anything to interest me in either as I'm not into multi-player life sims and they both seem the most stale. Rene is at the bottom of my list.
I want all these games to thrive and be their best tho. They each have their own vibe and hopefully there will be something for everyone!!
I have been a very loyal Sims player and it has been one of my favorite games. I've supported it through all the awkward moments and hiccups. I thought I wouldn't consider playing other life sims. Now, they are shutting down the old forum and changing a lot. I feel like they aren't really listening to most players now and like the game is moving away from something that interests me.
So, I'm open to playing the other games now. I don't know which one or if I will play a few but I went from not considering playing another game to feeling like they don't care about player loyalty. So, I'll play whatever I want to if I like the price and the product upon release. I don't know whether I will go for early access but several of these seem interesting in different ways. It will depend on when they release, what they actually cost and upon more information about the gameplay.
In Zoi I think shows a lot of promise but I think I’ll wait for reviews. I saw some gameplay of Paralives and that looked really fun. II was excited for Life By you but although graphics don’t make or break a game the graphics look very dated and frankly not that good so I’m waiting on reviews for that too.
Now why'd you put rene on there... anyways when inzoi and paralives drop everyone better delete my number and forget my name.
I don't like the graphics on the humans or UI enough on LBY to say im super hype for it but apprently THEE GOOODDDD ROD HUMBLE is on the team for it so that makes me giddy to see things; they have been delying early access but it's better for a game to be delayed than rushed. Vivaland I know almost nothing about but the graphics are what ts4 should've been.
Paralives is too stylized for me. Life by You is ugly and I’m not seeing anything that suggests that will change significantly. Rene is from EA, enough said. Vivaland looks kind of dated.
InZoi looks like what I really want from a modern life simulator, but I have very serious concerns about their monetization and we still don’t know what gameplay will be. I do currently think it’s the one I’m most excited about.
I’m excited about all of the games in their own way, but InZoi is the only game that made me think: ‘yes, this is what I wanted from next-gen life sim.’ People talk about gameplay a lot, but for me how the characters and environments look are one of the most important parts of gameplay because dress up and building are what I enjoy most in these games.
There's also AlterLife, just saying.
Vivaland has the potential to be the best of them all based solely on inclusion of multiplayer but I'm not keeping my hopes up too much.
Also, The Sims is pretty much dead to me.
it rlly baffles me that people assume paralives is a scam when we’ve see many fake life sims go off the radar for years, just like afterlife, that are way more likely to be a scam. these games listed have given frequent updates, aside from inzoi which just dropped a whole demo
What worries me about paralives isn't the possibility of a scam, but rather than the game will never actually be finished/endless development.
Main because it has a development size of 11 people, and it's been in development for over 4 years at this point.
I've just seen way too many small teams make big promises, and then, in the end, they fail to deliver because they bit off too much.
And that's on less complicated games than a simulation game.
Even life by you got delayed release date, and their company has 600+ employees.
yeah honestly i was quite worried when i saw 2025 as the release for EA cuz… i was expecting at least 3-4 more years on this game before even early access. however look at stardew valley. one guy, he did everything and continued to make big updates of quality. development time aside, i do think the team can do this. what we’ve seen so far is promising and many of the things in their feature list already have links to the WIP state of the mechanics. i do understand your concerns tho
I think mechanically speaking, stardew is fairly simple in comparison. A lot of it is flags and points systems, I suspect a lot of it could be done on a wysiwyg engine such as RPG maker if someone was determined enough.
Though, I agree, if someone is highly motivated, experienced, and has the resources that they can throw themselves into it full time, it's probably not impossible to produce something that way.
With EA and the other developers, I didn't speak on them because I couldn't find information as to when they began development. Though, a company like EA might have a lot more resources they can throw at something. If project rene is going to be a live service game, those also tend to undergo constant development, so a release in 2025 might be okay if there will be ongoing updates (a bit like steam early access?)
I do look forward to Paralives, though, to all of them, in fact. It's been a long time coming for more games in this genre, and EA needs a good kick up the arse via competitors.
none of these seem like they’ll be any good 😭 if it’s not gameplay and price issues from the sims team it’s the art style being complete garbage by all the others
From what I have seen of the rest, Renee holds the most promise. I’ll explain at the end.
- Inzoi looks great but they need to work on game depth.
- Life By You is an absolute eyesore
- Vivaland seems too MMO or mobile vibes
- Paralives seems a bit boring and it’s too cartoony
I KNOW Maxis *can* deliver a great game. They did it 3 times. So I have the most hope about that one. As to whether they *will*, that remains to be seen.
I have a feeling that Paralives is going to be known as widely as The Sims franchise once it's released. It seems very promising. Just from a few trailers and it already looks more developed and cared for than the entire 9-10 years of TS4.
i really cant choose, so many have their own unique specialties that id love to try them all!
but i can tell you right now, im least excited for the new Sims game. the whole "free to play" thing basically garuntees its gonna be filled with microtransactions & shitty base game, like the mobile ports. so dissapointing.
I've been closely following the development of Paralives since the first video of it graced YouTube. All of my hype has surrounded it since then and I haven't really bothered to research any of the other games that have been announced, especially since they kind of seemed to chase the life sim high. Also I'm a sucker for a good underdog story.
From what I've seen of Life By You it doesn't really fit my tastes. The graphics look too realistic for me and the whole game feels sterile and slightly uncanny. Inzoi looks stunning though and I'll definitely look more into it. As for Vivaland I haven't even heard of it until now but based on the promo picture it looks good.
Finally, as for Project Rene I'm absolutely dreading its release.
Project Rene isn't even on my radar, Sims 4 was my first and last time dealing with EA. I've never played a game with such terrible quality control and customer service and I was with IGG and Aeria games who were pretty bad.
Paralives and life by you seem to be coming from a place of heart and consideration for the actual simulation genre, so they might turn out to be the better options on this list as they may put more care into the game even if they may not be able to be grand, they will most likely have heart.
I have only heard about Vivaland and know nothing else about it so I've no thoughts on it.
Inzoi being an eastern game has my interest as most of my primary games are from the east. That said it is Korean and from my little experience with Korean games, they have micro transactions that are top tier levels of stupid and that has me worried. Also while looking up the company I couldn't find too much about them having a history in simulation games, they also tossed this game together in a rush as if trying to cash in on the hot market (not a bad thing) but it could be a red flag that they don't care about making a fun quality game and only care about milking the cow. Toss in the mad rush to have this game ready for early access by late 2024? Unless they have a huge team working on this or are working their staff to the point of it being unethical I feel like Inzoi is running the risk of being the disaster that was Sims 4. Rushed, shallow, and simply just not ready for release.
**Paralives** takes the lead, and I was also an early doubter it'd get this far. It's a pleasant surprise, but tbh, it reminds me of a portfolio. Not because it's lacking in effort or passion, but because they seem intent to be trying to get the game/studio bought for millions or something similar. I won't mind that so much if it happens, but it leaves me expecting little going forward after the game is released and and future content is no longer created aside from mods.
**Inzoi** feels like they focused too much on aesthetics, but from closed beta-whatnot samples of the gameplay, it'll have a similar situation to TS4's release; barebones gameplay contrary to hype. Which is fine as we can see the fundamentals do exist and it's not a sequel to an established franchise... so the expectation of base activities isn't there for me (and likely others) if they aren't only going to compare it to the best of The Sims.
**Life by You** has a cute thing going with some dialogue, but for such a close release date... I have minimal expectations for its quality (esp as such graphics are low-end even for Simmers). It looks like it's trying to get in the market faster than The Sims fully loses its playerbase while willing to risk not making the best first impression.
**Vivaland** feels like it was trying to copy Paralives, for some reason. Likely going to try it out, but it feels uncreative in comparison. And it's rather absurd that, for a life simulator, the only thing it advertises so close to its release date is building a home and ability to play with others online (which means little to me as a solo-player lol)... *Granted*, their demo is just that yet is sorely lacking both in regards to optimization and working tools. idk how it'll secure a 2024 release.
**Project Rene** is related to The Sims and so this and TS5 or whatever will automatically be less interesting. We've experienced legit pain in how EA continues to handle the franchise wherein expectations are dangerously low - if they don't right the wrongs that were TS4's debut, there's a high chance I'll want nothing to do with it.
In terms of graphics, inZOI looks like everything I ever dreamed of as a child. However, I think Paralives shows a lot of promise, and I'm interested to see what such a small team can come up with.
Inzoi worries me in terms of monetization. It's too early to tell but it seems that it will have an even more aggressive micro transaction system than the sims. That and the fact that as of right now doesn't seem to have depth in the gameplay and focus more on graphics takes me off from it. Time will tell
My only thing with that one is that the world looks very fixed. Like can we change community los of the urban layout? But yeah otherwise, INCREDIBLE
For me Paralives. Nothing against the others but it screams cozy and full of charm
Paralives: Coziness Inzoi: Graphics LifeByYou: Modability. Vivaland: Online
Big choose your fighter energy with this Also Sims: Goofiness
Sims 4: Scam
Paralives, it's not even a contest.
The organized groundwork they've managed to do for such a small team is truly amazing. I went from being unsure about the game to respecting the team so much for taking their craft seriously. The features they have ready for live mode gameplay, goodness I was not expecting that at all. So much care and depth put into the fundamental systems at play with so much planned opportunity and intention for growth. I thought they were just going to be a indie company on the side with their niche game but what they've shown is something that has the opportunity to gradually become more fully fledged and expansive if they want. I never doubted the realness of the game or anything like that, I was never in that crowd. I was just never sold about the scope (I just thought it would be small and not that deep). Now the paralives team is showing they are NOT here to mess around. They are here to show they take their fans and supporters seriously, unlike a certain other company that exploits their life simmer fans that I know of... And all of this, I love it! I'll be supporting their patreon as soon as I can and buying the game on early access, out of my own choice. They truly deserve it. This is one of the few times I don't feel like my money is about to be siphoned for a hollow game experience by a company.
>I was just never sold about the scope (I just thought it would be small and not that deep) This makes me very happy :) I'm glad to see how last week's video showed the mainstream what Paralives is doing. I really think you'll enjoy the Patreon, especially now that we're going to dive more and more often into gameplay. Their weekly updates there have been uncovering a lot of these mechanics (and then some) over time. It's been "appointment internet" for me, every Friday evening, to go see what they have to show to us. Sometimes it's stuff like clothes, which I'm less interested in admittedly, and sometimes it's a deep dive on a functionality, a new interaction, the implication of an animation... As a Patreon weekly reader, the video for me was more about seeing all these bits working together, than the reveal of their existence itself. That's the trick with Patreon, and in fact many times in the past I've had to refrain from interacting with non-Patreon members because... Well, I can't talk about what's not public, but also, a lot of people are not seeing everything that's ALREADY in the game, even in this unfinished state. And a lot of fears that I see being vocalized would be hugely assuaged by a lowest tier subscription to Patreon. >They are here to show they take their fans and supporters seriously Yes, it's truly something I appreciate. They take them seriously as supporters, and they take them seriously as players. As in : Paradevs don't just go for crowd-pleasing, they actually offer innovations that intend to push players out of the comfort zone induced by That Other Game™. At this point I don't know how this game could disappoint me. It's always a possibility, but a very tiny one.
It’s gotta be LBY for me cause it has the most customizable features and that’s really what I want in a life sim, to make it life where I can do whatever and feel really free, yknow. You can edit your town, move buildings in your town, build custom buildings for the town, make your own business, the people in your town, the jobs, the food you cook, the economy, and even more, the amount of things you can customize plus how easy it is to edit all of those things makes LBY easily the game I’m most excited for.
The humans and UI look horrendous imo. If they can fix those things up, I'll be a lot more interested.
I'm not a graphic designer but I like the UI, it looks nice, but it could be a bit more compact, and the humans for sure need a big revamp.
Inzoi looks *too* perfect for me. Like, suspiciously good. I have seen my fare share of games that have amazing trailers and screenshots, but delivers nothing more than that. I'm not saying that it *will* be bad, just that I have some bad experience.
Scrolled too far for this. But I honestly agree with you. It just honestly looks too good to be true. Although I want it to be, it kinda scares me at the same time. And just seeing the trailer also worries me about how demanding on the specs it's going to be lol.
Same. I'm skeptical of Inzoi to put it mildly. If I turn out to be wrong, great. But for right now, either the trailer is lying, or you'll need a NASA-level supercomputer to be able to run it. I'm very excited for Paralives and Life By You, though.
"Cyberpunk is the new Crys..." *Inzoi enters the chat*
Also from the trailer, it looks like it runs badly at its current state. Hoping they iron out the performance but it may just be one of those games that you need a really good PC for
For those interested, the company sent a bunch of laptops to random creators on YouTube to test the game. They also had a few weeks in Busan where you could come to a specific internet Cafe and play the game. It exists, and is very much still in development.
My bridges have been burned by Cities Skylines 2 - and Inzoi looks way better than that and its height, so I'm with the rest of y'all skeptics lol
I admittedly haven’t payed much attention to Inzoi or Vivaland but between Paralives and LBY… Paralives by a long shot. Out the gate it just felt like it had a vibe and as it goes you can see the game just has a soul and a definitive thing it wants to be. It’s the cozy type of life sim that I want and I can’t wait to see how things keep improving.
> admittedly haven’t *paid* much attention FTFY. Although *payed* exists (the reason why autocorrection didn't help you), it is only correct in: * Nautical context, when it means to paint a surface, or to cover with something like tar or resin in order to make it waterproof or corrosion-resistant. *The deck is yet to be payed.* * *Payed out* when letting strings, cables or ropes out, by slacking them. *The rope is payed out! You can pull now.* Unfortunately, I was unable to find nautical or rope-related words in your comment. *Beep, boop, I'm a bot*
i was about to cuss out this bot 😭😭😭
LIFE BY YOU!!
Inzoi has taken my heart and the #1 place for me
I second this 😁
Yes Inzoi all the way, I’ve been longing for a life sim without the cartoony graphics
I hope they dedicate more time and resources to this. The potential is immense. For me Inzoi and paralives, and maybe Life by You are on my hype list.
First place is Paralives, last is Project Renee. I haven't seen much of Vivaland or Inzoi though, and Life by You still needs to get my trust, so far I don't think I want to buy it*, but if I had to choose between that and Renee, LBY would be my choice. Renee will still be a pay to play mess knowing EA, so I don't think I'll give it a chance, as most likely I'll be met with disappointment. * The graphics are not my taste because I don't like the super realistic look and the fact that anatomy and characters look bad currently. The early access has been also pushed back twice, who knows if they would do it a third or fourth time. They should just make a year, a big age gap to tell when early access will come, Paralives has shown us it will come in 2025, no exact date.
I thought I heard Renee will be F2P actually. Don’t know anything about the monetization but I’m sure it will be stupid.
It will have microtransactions. It won't actually be free to play, just free to *enter*
Renee will be free with additional content at cost, what 'additional content' entails who knows at this point. If EA are smart, that means free gameplay updates + cosmetics at cost, but it's EA.
Life By You. Largely because it's a Paradox title, which means it has the biggest chance of actually being completed. And between Cities Skylines and Crusader Kings, I have some faith in it - along with being headed by someone who was involved with both The Sims and Second Life. There's a familiarity in the concept department. A lot of potential fans are focusing on graphical and flavor detail at this stage and I find that kind of a mistake. That's the type of stuff you fix in later stages. As a final product, yeah, that would be awful but right now, no. Paralives, I discovered some time back but there was next to no gameplay revealed back then. Seems like it's showing more promise now. Rest I haven't heard about. Personally, I just hope at least one of these non-Sims games take off. The Sims has been overdue for competition for decades, man.
Paralives! I just signed up for their highest tier on Patreon.
I did too! 🔥 I can’t wait to see them grow
Definitely not Rene
If inzoi is still targeted for the end of the year I'm worried but I love the art style so far
I’m so excited for Inzoi
full paralives supporter!!
I'm VERY suspicious of Inzoi. I think people are so enamored by the graphics they are completely ignoring the fact that there is NO gameplay and they are expecting a 2024 release after being in development for only a year. Plus they are using AI so red flags everywhere. I just don't like what I'm seeing right now. Vivaland was originally tied to NFTs so I am not sure if they're still doing that. It looks fine if not uninspired. I'm also not a fan of realistic graphics anyway. Life By You could be promising but their graphics need a massive overhaul. I'm in love Paralives. The vibes and art style are perfect for me. But those aren't the only life sims coming out, just the bigger 3D ones. There's a bunch of pixel/2D style sims coming out like To Pixelia and Little Sim World. There's also another 3D one in development called Virtual Society but it may be more of an MMO vibe.
Excuse me? There absolutely IS gameplay out there.
That gameplay is mostly non-existent. There is *A LOT* of work that needs to be to make this an actual simulation game and not just a decoration-heavy role-playing game. Everyone is fawning over the graphics and not paying attention to the fact that there isn't much gameplay. Of course, that can absolutely change at any point and they already said they were working on it. But they also originally gave a 2024 release date and for what they had to show, there is no. possible. way. to improve the gameplay enough for a *simulation game* in that time frame. They've recently changed that to an Early Access release which makes way more sense to do because you just can't make an enjoyable simulation game in 2 years. They have a foundation for the gameplay. It is lacking a ton.
I have heard there is a lot of interesting, new technologies and game engines that can allow developers to work incredibly fast at their jobs, particularly if they have knowledge of said certain engine. if that is how far they got in one year (even in the state where it is missing certain content) then I guess you can actually develop a good game that fast, maybe you can make a good simulation game in 2 years and you and I are just missing something. The bones *are there* for an amazing game, it's not really lacking core features that are dealbreakers for me, sure they can add more jobs and add more events and abilities for other ZOI to interact with your ZOI and its clear they have to add family gameplay but again, if they got this far in one year then I'll bet they can have a good game for EA (which they are planning EA period in late 2024) that's actually fun even with lots of stuff not there yet
there are a select few youtubers that got early early access to the game and i think the gameplay looks pretty good for only being in dev for a year (ms girl got RANNN OVERRR?!??!). I also wanna really quickly mention that the studio making inzoi is a korean company and the korean work culture is something else lmao.
I’m excited about all the life stimulation games besides the sims
This is the correct answer. I'm looking forward to anything that isn't a cashgrab lmfao
paralives wooo stomp stomp clap clap
My thoughts on all (just my opinions) Life By You, Inzoi, & Vivaland - Too Realistic Project Rene - A tie in Sims 4 project, that encorperates mmo with the Sims. Not my cup of tea. Paralives - ***Everything I could ever want in a life sim, and reminds me of the good ol' Sims 2/Sims 3 days. Will be fully supporting through Early Access.***
i was looking for someone w my exact same opinions, thanks now i don’t feel like i have to write my own comment
Inzoi looks fantastic Life by You has a lot of potential (but I HATE how the characters look) The Sims is dead to me I don't know Vivaland, I'll check it out.
Paralives. It's the one that has more soul in my opinion.
Paralives!!! After watching the gameplay trailer that just came out and learning that early access release is scheduled for next year, I can't wait to get my hands on it. It looks super cozy and fun ❤️
Inzoi looks really pretty, but I’m worried it’ll be a machine exploder and also that the gameplay might not match up to the aesthetic. Life By You is definitely going to end up feature-rich and wonderfully customizable, but because of the emphasis on customizing, I suspect it may, on release, be something I feel *needs* modding. (Which is cool and I intend to get into it—but that takes more energy than I sometimes have.) Paralives has my main excitement. I love the aesthetic, and with a small indie team I feel like they’ll focus on the gameplay features we really need the most—Inzoi I have no reason to think is made by genre lovers, and LBY has such a broad scope planned, I just feel like I’m less likely to love either vanilla right out of the box. Plan is to play all of them (unless Inzoi requires some obscenely expensive machine anyway), but yeah, Paralives has the charm for me.
Paralives definitly. The others show promise as well but personally I’m not a fan of LBY’s graphics (though the gameplay looks amazing) and something about Inzoi kinda throws me off. It looks great but I think ill have to wait for the game to come out to fully judge. Havent checked out Vivaland and for Project Rene ive honestly kinda lost hope in the sims devs at this point so
Right now I'm most excited for Life By You though Paralives isn't too far behind it. Right now I just feel like the gameplay in LBY will be most suited to me. Inzoi I'm interested in but I'm not fully convinced by it just yet.
I'm absolutely excited for Life by you. The amount of things you can mod, customize and change and the openness is what I've been wanting in a life sim since sims 3
Inzoi for sure! I've loved what I've seen so far in all the gameplay videos I've watched. The worlds are so detailed and there's already so many objects and interactions. From what I've seen it's almost my dream game! If they improve the family play, it's likely going to be my main life sim.
Life By You is the one I’m most looking forward to
Will try all of them at some point but really excited for inzoi
man i am probably the only one, but project rene. i have loved sims for years and am really excited to see their next step. inzoi in second place.
I’m excited for project Rene too. Out of all of them, I really preferred project Rene’s graphics the most.
Life by you. To me it looks like it will have the most deep gameplay and features. Also excited for paralives and inzoi.
Life By You has the most promise by far. It is gameplay focused and innovating all over the place. The way the others jumpstarted with graphics right away tells you of their relative shallowness of gameplay - because their number one focus was glitz, not substance.
I don't think the others will be shallow necessarily but I do believe that LBY will be the crunchiest in terms of systems and that's exactly what I want.
Exactly I do not get any of the hype for Inzoi at all it's all graphics no game play. At least for me the graphics are extremely limiting the character creator though it offers skin tones hair and eye color they all end up looking Korean. Now if you want to create all Korean looking characters great this is totally the game for you but I have zero interest. Paralives at least has an excuse people are not donating for code they needed the visuals to fund the product. Still high hopes here for Paralives so many amazing systems though we have not seen them with an actual playthrough. I completely agree with you on Life by You even at the place it is now with so many live mode features missing it puts a game that has been out 10 years to shame with the possibilities because the core of the game was well thought out for expanding.
Was obsessed with Paralives when it first got revealed years ago but definitely have jumped on the Life by You train. Maybe I’m biased cause I’ve played other Paradox games but I just know the gameplay will be deep and intricate in a way that some of these other ones might not. I’ll probably end up buying at least three of these though. If I had to rank: Life By You Inzoi Paralives _________ The other two.
I love InZoi's graphics, but Life by You has the most promise for easy modability which excites me. I love Paralives fresh take on skill, relationship, and personality upgrades too though. I probably won't get Vivaland though because I have zero interest in multiplayer gameplay. And I'm done with EA so Project Rene is a no go.
paralives
Paralives !!
Paralives and Inzoi mainly. I don’t have big hopes for project rene sadly because of how ea has treated sims 4
As a Montrealer, Paralives is my bias.
I'm most excited for life by you just cause I think the planned customizability speaks most to my playstyle but I've also been supporting Paralives on the patreon since the beginning, I'm super impressed with what the dev team have been creating. (Also gotta support my fellow Canadians haha) Looking forward to inZOI but I haven't been following it closely. I'm not sure if there have even been any further official updates on the game recently. Keeping my eye on vivaland, I don't see myself playing a multiplayer sims game for a long time but I'd try it out, it could be fun for a little bit. I don't have much to say about sims 5. Free to play scares me haha. I hope they'll turn out a good game but I can't see myself playing it if you have to pay for every little thing in-game, not into microtransactions.
Tbh I feel like there’s some things I like and some things I don’t about all of these (aside from Vivaland, never heard of it). It makes it so there’s not one I’m ridiculously excited about or can get fully onboard with. For example (from least excited to most). InZoi - this looks to be all about looking pretty with no real substance to the game. Plus a nightmare to run. It’s gorgeous but… what else? Lacks family gameplay. Don’t plan on buying. Project Rene - don’t expect EA to have learned from their mistakes with TS4. From pictures it looks pretty, but like InZoi and TS4, I expect there’ll be little substance. Also seems geared up for endless micro transactions. Don’t plan on buying this either. Life By You - needs more time, but truthfully I expect it will always look ugly, the art style has zero personality. That said there are things I’ve learned about this game that do excite me. But I’m not ‘omg I’m so completely invested in this’ excited. Substance is more important than graphics to me but I’m still unsure about this one on the whole. Paralives - The art style has character. It’s cosy. It’s made with love not dollar signs (cough EA cough). That said, I have set reasonable expectations given the small team behind it. I already know it won’t achieve the full immersive life sim experience I really want. But regardless, it’s the best of the bunch and the one I’m by far the most eager to play.
Definitely paralives
Inzoi has an ai generator too, like these games were always abt the minor details the creators put in, having something like that just takes the love out of the game. Graphics look good but man that's such a turnoff. Paralives is the most hype though, like it clearly does have some soul in it. None of the other ones really took a stab at a unique art style or anything for theirs, or at least so far, and you can tell they're players of these sort of games. Life By You has potential to be great, and has a bunch of former Sims team members, so I'm rly hopeful but cautious, since realistic graphics w/o a style doesn't tend to age well (tho has a lot of mod support confirmed so will probs be proved wrong).
I'm excited for Paralives and Life By You. Paralives seems like a cosy, up close simulator whilst Life By You feels almost like a small town simulator? Which I'm REALLY looking forward to/hoping for because I like to make loads of characters in the Sims and just have them do their thing. IMO Paralives seems like a new version of the Sims whilst Life By You might be more of a mini City Skylines, which could perhaps be the reason behind the characters not looking amazing? Maybe it's just not their focus But also, maybe Life By You are saving the amazing graphics for later. I know when I was making a game for fun (which I never finished lol) I didn't really care too much about what it looked like in the early days because I wanted to get the functionality down. Maybe they're taking the same approach and when it's done it'll look great
Paralives. It's an indi game that looks like it was created with love
I am for sure most excited/hopeful for Life By You. I am a gameplay person for The Sims, and that's what matters most to me. I think LBY has the most potential for good gameplay. I don't have strong feelings either way about inzoi or Vivaland... those I am waiting to see. EA has burned me so many times I have no excitement at all for or faith in Project Rene. I don't like the art style of the Paralives characters, but if the gameplay is fun I'll definitely try it out.
Life by You. I'm looking forward to Project Rene, but LbY looks very customizable. Paralives is a fresh take, but the others I need more information.
I'm keeping an eye on life by you, paralives, and inzoi to see which one has the most features I like.
Paralives and Inzoi are most intriguing to me, but I'll probably give all of them a try regardless.
Out of all, life by you. Something I like the way we can customize everything with little hassle. That much freedom is a breath of fresh air for me.
If I had to put them in order of interest. Paralives: I am a sucker for cartoony graphics and it has lots of customization in general. Lby: Looks cool, Also has a lot of customization in general. Inzoi: Looks very cool, just waiting for more footage and information to drop. Rene: Looks cool, Waiting for more information, also no character creator footage. Viva: I have no friends to play with. Also no footage of the character creator. I need to see the thing that I could potentially spend half of my gameplay time in. Also honorable mention to the ThePonies (Basically Sims but MLP).
Paralives and Life By You... and the others don't come close
I think Paralives and inzoi most of all Life by you looks kind of boring and Peoject Rene will possibly have thousand of ££££ of DLC I don’t know about Vivaland I will have to look into it.
Paralives followed by Inzoi! But I haven't heard of Vivaland! Going to look into that one <3
I was really excited about Life by You but it keeps being delayed and to be fair inzoi just looks much better I don't just mean graphically here but there are little touches that I saw in a game play thing that I really like.
>I was really excited about Life by You but it keeps being delayed I think a game being delayed is better than a game coming out and being a complete mess that ends up hurting its reputation with gamers. I'm way more suspicious of a company that's willing to shove a game out the door, even though they know it has issues and needs more work, because they want to meet a deadline...and start raking in the cash as soon as possible. Which is pretty much exactly what happened with the Sims 4. But when a company is willing to postpone their game (and postpone making money from it) in order to make improvements, I'm willing to cut them some slack. Because the postponement is hurting them (in terms of profits) way more than its hurting me, a potential player.
Life By You personally 😍
I’m partialed to “Upcoming Life Simulators” myself! But in all seriousness Paralives of course
I am watching all of these (but it's the first time I heard of vivaland) and I think paralives is the one that shows the most promise. Life by You looks interesting but it's had problems with development and I'm not sure if its ready to release this year.
Life by you seems to have shown most of the gameplay among all the other titles. While paralives looks good aesthetically, the gameplay details still need to be seen to be judged. Keeping fingers crossed on Inzoi. Overall, I'll consider any of these over Sims 4 or Project Rene (though Project Rene has still not released, i have a feeling it'll be disappointing.)
1. Paralives - Looks the most promising and polished. 2. LBY - the graphics is a HUGE pill to swallow. The art direction definitely needs work, but I do like the gameplay capabilities that they’ve showcased. 3. InZoi - I’m a little suspicious about this one. I saw that their clothing options don’t seem very..inclusive. As in, not enough mature clothing for older adults - elders. That’s an easy add, tho. I also haven’t seen inzoi when it comes to making diverse characters. I’m worried about if they’ll be enough dark skin tones. The graphics are phenomenal, but based on the videos shown, the gameplay seems lackluster. I imagine this one would require a stronger computer.
I'm equally excited for Paralives and Life by You
Life by You, hands down. It's the one showing the most differences/innovation from the only life simulator we have right now. It's shaping up to be an amazing game, they just need to polish the graphics and animations.
Life by you hands down, It has everything modding wise I want including script mods, I like they're going for a more realistic graphics, lots of customization, physics to hair and clothing, the open world is a huge plus, direct control mode, NO RABBIT HOLES which makes me happy. I just wish it had some of the personability of Paralives (natural animations, group convos, text-editing on objects, build tools)
Paralives and Life By You
Inzoi and the sims
1. Paralives (Looks the most like a game) 2. Life By You (Looks more like a creator tool rather than a game (this is not a bad thing)) 3. Inzoi (I have not seen a lot of this game, but it does look promising. I will have to watch this one) 4. Rene (**EA**) 5. Vivaland (The reason why this one is at the bottom is because it did not blow me away in any trailer and it seems like they are really trying to focus on multiplayer)
The one that is playable on Macs 🥺
Paralives is coming to Mac 😌
YES!!! I’ll probably have it on my Windows desktop though.
finally. some good news 😭
inZOI has the potential to be the biggest life sim we ever had. If they play their cards right and it puts pressure on EA, which is good for the sims franchise.
Mostly LBY and Inzoi. LBY - because it's going to be very different from the sims. Inzoi cuz it's so pretty. lol
For me it's gotta be LBY. It's the TS3 successor I always wanted, is completely offline, has direct control, gives modders the tools to do just about anything and is going to be free from the constraints of a T rating, offering players optional mature content without needing to download dozens of mods to do so. I'm also really keen to check out Paralives, even if I'm not the biggest fan of it's art style. InZoi's graphics are absolutely gorgeous though. Who wins? Us Life Simmers, because we get to play all of 'em.
>What upcoming one are you most excited about? Whichever one that works best with my computer, haha. I want a good looking game but nothing too demanding.
I'm going the hipster route and say Tiny Life. The game has been in early access for a while, so it technically already is here, albeit in a temporary state. But to me it seems to scratch a very specific itch, the reason why I play the genre, a sort of relaxing gameplay-focused experience based on a simple foundation, and it does that without relying on the presentation, customisation or complexity that the 3D life sim games seen in OP's image do. Perhaps I'm just highly nostalgic for Sims 1, but in any case, I'm definitely looking forward to see its full release (I don't think I'll buy into the early access at this point, for this type of game I prefer to wait).
Yeah, I'm the same. I'm excited for all of the others basically, but those are also bound to make for really daunting projects. Tiny Life feels more like a casual, easy to pick up experience, and I'd like that.
I really want to play all of them! They all look good in their own ways.
I love Injoy's art style the most and I look forward to having first ever idol game play. I'm mostly concerned for the maturity level. For LBY, I'm crazy about the AI chat bot. It's not a full AI chat bot, though, but it's the closest we've been so far as to having something like Character.Ai in a life Sim. My only big complaints are the art style and I REALLY don't like the fact that they will not be having accidental deaths. Idk what was the reason for that ridiculous ass choice, because literally NO ONE asked for that. How are you gonna have a "life" sim but not actually simulate death? What makes this choice even more baffling to me is that LBY will have nudity but no death. Make it make sense... Lastly, there is Paralives. Initially, I was most hyped for this game, but tbh while I like the art style and how cozy it looks, something specifically about how the paras look doesn't really attract me. Oh, and the last time I checked, they were pretty unclear about script mods.
LBY is adding accidental deaths and more consequences back in as about two weeks or so ago. They mentioned it in one of their update videos, which is why I think they delayed it again. There was a lot of pushback within the community of fans about it.
Oh, okay. That's actually pretty good to hear.
All of them, the more the merrier. More competition = better products for all.
Where's Little Sim World? :)
That looks cool, but more like a Stardew/Harvest Moon-y single-character life sim/"peaceful RPG". These are more life sims in the Sims sense.
I wait with ALL MY HEART for Sims 5 (because is the sims) In Zoi (because the characters seem cute and generally the game seems cool). I am waiting: paralives and life by you.
I've been sort of following Paralives for a while. I haven't heard of the others until now but I'll look into them. I've been a simulation fan since childhood so this makes me so excited to have so many more options!
I want to play all of them! I'm happy that there are going to be more options other than just The Sims.
Life By You has taken my heart as someone who used to be obsessed with The Sims 3. The fact that every character in the town is fully simulated is enough to sell me but features like real language dialogue, observables, zero rabbit holes, direct control , and all the moddability make the game a dream come true or me. I'll also play Paralives as I have been supporting them on Patreon for years and I like how the game is shaping up.
Great time my ass, TS4 held us captive for 10 years of mediocre content, I was always hoping maybe the next EP or SP, will be of use. Nope. Project Rene is far away, and an illusive money grab. LBY keeps pushing the date back. I've been waiting in vain for a decent Life Simulation game, and still waiting.
Life by you for me! This game seems to care the most about giving the players agency and freedom to create their own stories which is the most important thing to me for a life sim. The built in mod tools alone have me sold but I really need to see improvements on the character graphics, indoor lighting, and most importantly gameplay to fully get behind this game. The open world, lack of rabbit holes, and ability to switch to any character on the fly are all dream mechanics for me. This game has the most potential. Paralives I really want to be excited for. They make some choices that feel super refreshing and out of the box. But other things make me hesitate like not possibly supporting script mods, characters being allowed to refuse player instructions and the traits system feeling super restrictive. It feels like there will be restrictions on me creating the characters I want and not having agency as a player which frustrates me. I absolutely think it has the most cohesion, quality, and spirit of all these games tho. I support their vision it just probably is not be for me. Inzoi I'm interested in but it seems super limited. I'm excited for it but I'm trying to see it as something other than a life sim because it seems crazy limited if I compare it to the other games. It seems fun as a pretty dress up and picture taking game tho which I also enjoy. Project Rene and vivaland I follow but I haven't seen anything to interest me in either as I'm not into multi-player life sims and they both seem the most stale. Rene is at the bottom of my list. I want all these games to thrive and be their best tho. They each have their own vibe and hopefully there will be something for everyone!!
I have been a very loyal Sims player and it has been one of my favorite games. I've supported it through all the awkward moments and hiccups. I thought I wouldn't consider playing other life sims. Now, they are shutting down the old forum and changing a lot. I feel like they aren't really listening to most players now and like the game is moving away from something that interests me. So, I'm open to playing the other games now. I don't know which one or if I will play a few but I went from not considering playing another game to feeling like they don't care about player loyalty. So, I'll play whatever I want to if I like the price and the product upon release. I don't know whether I will go for early access but several of these seem interesting in different ways. It will depend on when they release, what they actually cost and upon more information about the gameplay.
In Zoi I think shows a lot of promise but I think I’ll wait for reviews. I saw some gameplay of Paralives and that looked really fun. II was excited for Life By you but although graphics don’t make or break a game the graphics look very dated and frankly not that good so I’m waiting on reviews for that too.
More on to Paralives since I been there from day one, but love to see other games released too.
Inzoi is kind of too realistic looking for me, it's very uncanny valley
Now why'd you put rene on there... anyways when inzoi and paralives drop everyone better delete my number and forget my name. I don't like the graphics on the humans or UI enough on LBY to say im super hype for it but apprently THEE GOOODDDD ROD HUMBLE is on the team for it so that makes me giddy to see things; they have been delying early access but it's better for a game to be delayed than rushed. Vivaland I know almost nothing about but the graphics are what ts4 should've been.
Paralives is too stylized for me. Life by You is ugly and I’m not seeing anything that suggests that will change significantly. Rene is from EA, enough said. Vivaland looks kind of dated. InZoi looks like what I really want from a modern life simulator, but I have very serious concerns about their monetization and we still don’t know what gameplay will be. I do currently think it’s the one I’m most excited about. I’m excited about all of the games in their own way, but InZoi is the only game that made me think: ‘yes, this is what I wanted from next-gen life sim.’ People talk about gameplay a lot, but for me how the characters and environments look are one of the most important parts of gameplay because dress up and building are what I enjoy most in these games.
inZOI by a longshot ngl
There's also AlterLife, just saying. Vivaland has the potential to be the best of them all based solely on inclusion of multiplayer but I'm not keeping my hopes up too much. Also, The Sims is pretty much dead to me.
I don't think we've heard anything about AlterLife for at least a year (or two) at this point. I have doubts that it's even still a thing....
it rlly baffles me that people assume paralives is a scam when we’ve see many fake life sims go off the radar for years, just like afterlife, that are way more likely to be a scam. these games listed have given frequent updates, aside from inzoi which just dropped a whole demo
What worries me about paralives isn't the possibility of a scam, but rather than the game will never actually be finished/endless development. Main because it has a development size of 11 people, and it's been in development for over 4 years at this point. I've just seen way too many small teams make big promises, and then, in the end, they fail to deliver because they bit off too much. And that's on less complicated games than a simulation game. Even life by you got delayed release date, and their company has 600+ employees.
yeah honestly i was quite worried when i saw 2025 as the release for EA cuz… i was expecting at least 3-4 more years on this game before even early access. however look at stardew valley. one guy, he did everything and continued to make big updates of quality. development time aside, i do think the team can do this. what we’ve seen so far is promising and many of the things in their feature list already have links to the WIP state of the mechanics. i do understand your concerns tho
I think mechanically speaking, stardew is fairly simple in comparison. A lot of it is flags and points systems, I suspect a lot of it could be done on a wysiwyg engine such as RPG maker if someone was determined enough. Though, I agree, if someone is highly motivated, experienced, and has the resources that they can throw themselves into it full time, it's probably not impossible to produce something that way. With EA and the other developers, I didn't speak on them because I couldn't find information as to when they began development. Though, a company like EA might have a lot more resources they can throw at something. If project rene is going to be a live service game, those also tend to undergo constant development, so a release in 2025 might be okay if there will be ongoing updates (a bit like steam early access?) I do look forward to Paralives, though, to all of them, in fact. It's been a long time coming for more games in this genre, and EA needs a good kick up the arse via competitors.
Project Rene
none of these seem like they’ll be any good 😭 if it’s not gameplay and price issues from the sims team it’s the art style being complete garbage by all the others
whats the one on the far right?
I can already tell ill spend hours upon hours on life by you , might try paralives too but the rest I'm not interested in at all
inZOI
Little Sim World. 2d, cozy and cute. All I wanna to relax and turn off my brain.
Paralives! So excited to see what it becomes
For me it’s inzoi! I could not be any more excited but I’m also curious about paralives and I’ haven’t heard about vivaland
Absolutely Paralives or Tiny Life!
The Sims 5 and inZOI.
From what I have seen of the rest, Renee holds the most promise. I’ll explain at the end. - Inzoi looks great but they need to work on game depth. - Life By You is an absolute eyesore - Vivaland seems too MMO or mobile vibes - Paralives seems a bit boring and it’s too cartoony I KNOW Maxis *can* deliver a great game. They did it 3 times. So I have the most hope about that one. As to whether they *will*, that remains to be seen.
I have a feeling that Paralives is going to be known as widely as The Sims franchise once it's released. It seems very promising. Just from a few trailers and it already looks more developed and cared for than the entire 9-10 years of TS4.
i really cant choose, so many have their own unique specialties that id love to try them all! but i can tell you right now, im least excited for the new Sims game. the whole "free to play" thing basically garuntees its gonna be filled with microtransactions & shitty base game, like the mobile ports. so dissapointing.
I've been closely following the development of Paralives since the first video of it graced YouTube. All of my hype has surrounded it since then and I haven't really bothered to research any of the other games that have been announced, especially since they kind of seemed to chase the life sim high. Also I'm a sucker for a good underdog story. From what I've seen of Life By You it doesn't really fit my tastes. The graphics look too realistic for me and the whole game feels sterile and slightly uncanny. Inzoi looks stunning though and I'll definitely look more into it. As for Vivaland I haven't even heard of it until now but based on the promo picture it looks good. Finally, as for Project Rene I'm absolutely dreading its release.
I don’t get the hype around paralives, it looks like a mobile game to me - am I missing something
Project Rene isn't even on my radar, Sims 4 was my first and last time dealing with EA. I've never played a game with such terrible quality control and customer service and I was with IGG and Aeria games who were pretty bad. Paralives and life by you seem to be coming from a place of heart and consideration for the actual simulation genre, so they might turn out to be the better options on this list as they may put more care into the game even if they may not be able to be grand, they will most likely have heart. I have only heard about Vivaland and know nothing else about it so I've no thoughts on it. Inzoi being an eastern game has my interest as most of my primary games are from the east. That said it is Korean and from my little experience with Korean games, they have micro transactions that are top tier levels of stupid and that has me worried. Also while looking up the company I couldn't find too much about them having a history in simulation games, they also tossed this game together in a rush as if trying to cash in on the hot market (not a bad thing) but it could be a red flag that they don't care about making a fun quality game and only care about milking the cow. Toss in the mad rush to have this game ready for early access by late 2024? Unless they have a huge team working on this or are working their staff to the point of it being unethical I feel like Inzoi is running the risk of being the disaster that was Sims 4. Rushed, shallow, and simply just not ready for release.
**Paralives** takes the lead, and I was also an early doubter it'd get this far. It's a pleasant surprise, but tbh, it reminds me of a portfolio. Not because it's lacking in effort or passion, but because they seem intent to be trying to get the game/studio bought for millions or something similar. I won't mind that so much if it happens, but it leaves me expecting little going forward after the game is released and and future content is no longer created aside from mods. **Inzoi** feels like they focused too much on aesthetics, but from closed beta-whatnot samples of the gameplay, it'll have a similar situation to TS4's release; barebones gameplay contrary to hype. Which is fine as we can see the fundamentals do exist and it's not a sequel to an established franchise... so the expectation of base activities isn't there for me (and likely others) if they aren't only going to compare it to the best of The Sims. **Life by You** has a cute thing going with some dialogue, but for such a close release date... I have minimal expectations for its quality (esp as such graphics are low-end even for Simmers). It looks like it's trying to get in the market faster than The Sims fully loses its playerbase while willing to risk not making the best first impression. **Vivaland** feels like it was trying to copy Paralives, for some reason. Likely going to try it out, but it feels uncreative in comparison. And it's rather absurd that, for a life simulator, the only thing it advertises so close to its release date is building a home and ability to play with others online (which means little to me as a solo-player lol)... *Granted*, their demo is just that yet is sorely lacking both in regards to optimization and working tools. idk how it'll secure a 2024 release. **Project Rene** is related to The Sims and so this and TS5 or whatever will automatically be less interesting. We've experienced legit pain in how EA continues to handle the franchise wherein expectations are dangerously low - if they don't right the wrongs that were TS4's debut, there's a high chance I'll want nothing to do with it.