InZoi is a realistic life simulation game that is powered by Unreal Engine 5, as recently announced by KRAFTON, the developer of PUBG: Battlegrounds. Intended to be a direct competitor of EA’s The Sims franchise, if it gets everything right, it does have a chance of effectively making The Sims pull up their socks. Primarily because The Sims has quite a monopoly in this genre and has been a long-standing favorite of players.
KRAFTON revealed this game at South Korea’s gaming event called G-STAR 2023 which is where players can also try out the game firsthand and get their first impressions.
What is InZoi?
In KRAFTON’s words, “InZoi is a life-sim game where players become Gods, allowing them to change everything as they wish and experience endless new stories in various forms of life.” Basically, you can be whoever you want and live the life of your dreams – all of it in some amazing graphical quality. You can choose to be a college-going student, pick a fight with someone, or dress up like the JOKER – anything seems to be possible in this game.
As you’ll see in the video, we get a glimpse of the characters navigating their daily lives, working in offices, convenience stores, and even visiting a PC/internet cafe. All in all, it looks pretty stunning and a step up from the life sim games we’ve played to date. Plus, we also get a sneak peek at the character creation, build mode, director’s mode to control the weather, relationships, and more.
Here’s the 6-minute gameplay demo video where you can see the realism in the graphics, although do note that it’s still in the development stage. The game text is also currently in Korean, and it will most likely be translated into English for its worldwide release since the game has generated quite a bit of hype in the life-sim player circles.
InZoi Game Release Date
While the initial gameplay and graphics have been revealed, the actual InZoi release date is not yet confirmed. It is speculated that the game may be released in late 2024 or early 2025. Such games are always a huge undertaking and to release a game that’s fully finished and mostly bug-free has to be a priority. Hopefully, KRAFTON delivers.
Inzoi Platforms
Information about all the platforms where the game will be released is not yet known, but PC is definitely going to be one of them – so if you are a PC player, rest assured.
If you are intrigued and want to dive deep into the most realistic life sim game with an open world, customization, and lots of features, check out this video by Youtuber RachelPedd (which has English UI elements):
Will this be a killer of The Sims game by EA?
Honestly, I don’t think so. The Sims has a loyal audience and the art style they are going for is funny, cartoonish, but perfectly suitable. InZoi may also have heavier system requirements than Sims 4 and possibly more monetization elements (certainly won’t be free-to-play), but there are no related details as of now.
Since The Sims 4 base game is free to play, its audience grew by a lot and it’s hard to compete with a free game that’s already amazing. If InZoi gets mod support, though, the modding community will surely have a field day with this title.
Community Reactions
Here’s what Reddit users think about InZoi.
u/RareBk says
Honestly I’m really interested in the actual environments, proper streets and the like in the city, I genuinely miss the open world of the Sims 3, and having places to actually explore and walk around to buy stuff with your character, like a proper outlet mall or shopping street is a great touch.
u/Holidoik says
Looks really really interesting that’s a game I always wished for a more realistic sims game. This game definitely has my attention now.
u/Awkward96 says
If Sims 3 gave any lessons is that if you go for photorealism and heavy scenes then you’re losing basically a good chunk of your presumed audience. The characters gives me the vibe that they were just made in Metahuman (and hair kinda screams it is). Also, the editor for clothing uses AI to generate illustrations on them, screw that sh*t.
u/Zorklis says
I saw this earlier on TikTok and I was blown away by how good this looks and looks closer to release than some other South Korean studios with their games (Pearl Abyss with DokeV). EDIT: LOL, Late 2024..
Even if this was early access, this is impressive and very competitive to the Sims franchise for sure.
I do hope they also focus on animations that are well crafted.. something Sims has very much leaned away from when comparing 2004’s Sims 2 to Sims 3 & 4.
Conclusion
Life Sim players have a lot to look forward to in the new couple of years with Life By You being released on 5th Mar 2024, and The Sims 5 to release in either 2024 or the more plausible 2025.
You can head over to the official InZoi Discord to stay updated or check back here for more coverage.