Life Swap

inZOI is readying up in all its ultra-realistic glory to be the first true rival The Sims series has ever had.

- By Mollie Taylor

As far as Sims competitors go, inZOI is doing something few others are managing to achieve: actually release. Krafton’s take on the life simulator genre is the closest we’ve come to anything on the size and scope of EA’s series, and the first game that could very well give The Sims a run for its money.

Despite that, inZOI director Hyungjun ‘Kjun’ Kim doesn’t view his game as competition. “We see inZOI not as a competitor to The Sims, but rather as another option that fans of this genre can enjoy,” he tells me. “We have great respect for the legacy The Sims has built over the years, since we know that reaching that much depth in such a short period of time is no easy task.”

It’s a noble stance to take, but that won’t stop the life-sim sickos from holding the two next to each other, looking back and forth with one eye squinted to carefully examine every small detail and difference between them. With that aforementioned legacy of The Sims, inZOI needs to stand out. And boy, does it.

With its hyper-realistic graphics – which have seen people making scarily accurate virtual recreations of pop culture icons such as Billie Eilish and, er, Wallace of Wallace and Gromit fame – a seamless open world, AI-driven tools, and a more meta take on your relationship with your virtual families – the game actively acknowledges you as some sort of inZOI overlord, working from an office while managing these tiny people – it feels like a completely fresh take on the genre that could stand on its own two feet.

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I’m more jazzed about some of these aspects than others, mind. The open world is by far the thing I’m most excited about. inZOI is set to launch with three different playable cities: there’s the Korean-inspired Dowon, Bliss Bay which is loosely the US, and Indonesian-style Kucingku.