Paralives: A Light in the Dark
The Life Sim genre is curious.
There's various life sim games but today, I'm specifically referring to "virtual doll houses".
Currently, the space is being dominated by The Sims franchise. Many games tried to enter this market and the reason why I chose to write on the topic is the upcoming, greatest hope for the genre in the past few years: a game called Paralives.
At the time of writing, we're a month away from the early access release.
The Sims was rightfully the biggest game for many years, but with the latest generation, The Sims 4, things went bad and the downhill train STILL didn't stop.
Before I dive into Paralives and why I think it has the potential to revolutionise the genre, let's brush over The Sims and by so, my history with it.
Since I didn't really play the first generation of this game myself, I don't think it's fair for me to write too much about it and I'll start where I began: The Sims 2.
I love video games but interestingly, most of my gaming is rather inconsistent and irregular at best.
The only game I ever truly "dedicated myself to" (lacking a better term) was The Sims 2, which a childhood friend showed me sometime in the mid-2000s.
I was instantly hooked and soon had my own copy, followed by (I think) all expansion and accessories packs.
I "mastered" the game-play for a few years and longer than most players, as my computer couldn't handle the successor, The Sims 3.
Unlike many, I never really played with mods until very late, when I re-discovered the old gem a couple years ago. I did however use some custom content that was really enhancing the slightly outdated but still wonderful game.
For many people, myself included, The Sims 2 is the best instalment of the series.
The love for details, the extensive lore and the passion put into the world building was simply unmatched.
The base game world Pleasantview is set 25 after the first game and there's so much to discover!
The game-play and the genetics were sort-of revolutionary and the memory system was pretty huge. It's very sad that they ditched it in the later generations of the game.
The Sims 2 was also just a really unhinged game, partially even creepy.
It was wacky and weird in many ways, which adds to the strong nostalgia I feel for it today.
A downside of the game is undoubtedly the shaky code it's built on. Many actions can crash the game but compared to stuff being released these days, I still dare to call it a high quality game.
I spent many of my younger years with this game and when I decided to give in to the nostalgia a couple of years ago, my love for the game was instantly revived.
The Sims 3 was (nearly) perfect
When I finally upgraded my computer, I was able to discover the insanely beautiful world of The Sims 3 and I love it to this day.
The open world and almost endless customisation possibilities are something never seen before or since in the franchise and I instantly fell in love with the openness of the base game alone. This was such an upgrade that I hoped EA would make this game last longer than TS2.
Its was about the same five years, the number of DLC was a tad larger and there were really nice ones among them.
However, the novelty of the new DLC seemed to have faded a bit quicker than in the previous generation.
The only expansion pack I didn't get was the sheer unnecessary Katy Perry one.
Many fans criticised the amount of DLC (although it was like two more than with The Sims 2). Still, it kind of showed the players what the franchise was heading towards.
I didn't really spend that much time with the game in comparison, as I was already older, had other interests and not that much time to spare. Still, I "wasted" many weekends on a really enjoyable game-play that felt curiously rewarding at the time.
The create-a-sim and building modes could take hours at a time. I paid much more attention to how I made the sims and their houses look than with the comparably limited tools in Sims 2.
The skill-building, career-progression and interactions were way more realistic and I really got to love the style of the game.
The game seemed in many ways more mature than its more chaotic predecessor, but there was enough weirdness in TS3 to keep a weirdo like me happy. The game still had its weird humour, a ton of beloved characters from TS1 & 2 and lots of lore to discover.
The setting of the base game and most of its expansions plays before the events of The Sims 1, making the timeline a little weird at first.
The final expansion pack (Into the Future) introduced time travel which would eventually also explain (a bit too easily) why some of the old and beloved characters were in the game in the completely wrong age stage. More invested people than myself put together the family histories on YouTube if you're interested.
Seriously, I wish some modern TV shows and novels had that much dedication to lore and world-building!
The code was still shaky and the game had its quirks. I've had to re-install it a few times and all that jazz. And still, I have nothing but mostly positive things to say about it and purely from a visual standpoint still think that it's one of my all-time favourite games that I ever played.
This wreck of a game was destined to fail from the very beginning and still, a decade and over $ 1'000 worth of DLC later, it seems to attract enough players to survive.
I'll quickly go over the catastrophic beginning of this game. This part, I pieced together thanks to much more invested people who collected all the bits of information that was unknown at the time of release.
The Sims 4 was never meant to be the fourth instalment, but an online multiplayer experience with a simplified game-play. This game would allow people with less powerful hardware to run the game smoothly.
Generally, I like the idea of a standalone game that is more inclusive of people who can't afford an expensive gamer PC, even if I'd not be the target audience for an online experience.
EA suffered a massive PR disaster with an online game that didn't work properly, a new instalment of SimCity. They could not risk to release another online game with one of their best-selling franchises, which is understandable. In a year (if I remember correctly), they took as much as they could from the scrapped online game and used it as a foundation for The Sims 4. And this was a huge slap in the face of all the fans.
The marketing focused heavily on the emotion-based game-play. They put a ton of emphasis on the Sims emotions and the endless possibilities. It sounded amazing. The promo material never mentioned any other aspect of the game and it was so natural and easy to dismiss it as being mysterious. Nobody would've thought that the game would be a massive downgrade from The Sims 3.
I never identified myself with the franchise or something, but I bought The Sims 4 on release day and was all excited about it. And then, I was instantly put off by what I saw upon installation.
Unlike in the previous games, I didn't enter a new neighbourhood to choose a family to play with, but was instantly brought to create-a-sim without me wanting to.
In all honesty, I liked the way this was laid out and its possibilities. The drag and pull mechanism felt fantastic. But the personality of a Sim was the most limited. The emphasis was clearly on the looks of the Sim and the character traints were limited. A bit of a counter-intuitive to the emotional game-play they advertised with, if you ask me, but OK.
Once you finish creating a household in The Sims, you choose a house for them to move into.
When the game loaded, I saw the neighbourhood and what I saw was… severely underwhelming at best.
At first I thought the game is kidding me.
Like, what do you mean the neighbourhood was so stripped down?!
The cartoonish style is one thing that felt like a downgrade from the predecessor(s), but that is arguably a matter of personal preference. It could've become an acquired taste over time perhaps, would the game be good in itself.
The next shocker came when I tried to make my sim go to another lot. The already limited world wasn't even open. And then, there were no pools or cars or toddlers. Pools are a base game staple in the franchise and source of many jokes. Toddlers were in the game since TS3, and cars, well, in TS3 they were in the base game... So, you tell me this was supposed to be a more modern take on the game, adapted to life in 2014? Ok…
Some aspects of the game, like the Gallery, are undoubtedly nice, but what's the point if the game-play itself is basically castrated?
Now, at the time nobody knew that this game was built on the recycled remains of a failed online game. But it didn't take the seasoned simmer long to figure out how much was off besides the new, shocking limitations.
The wackiness from the predecessors seemed gone for most part. The links to previous games appeared to be mostly inexistent, the timeline seemed to be alternative (at least at first glance, I didn't give it any thought to be honest).
What was very obvious very early on was that the game is meant to be holding your hand while you play it. It's not as reckless, chaotic or funny as the previous instalments.
The emotions system turned out to make things unnecessarily complicated.
I gave it a new go, blamed myself for being too used to The Sims 3, but no. The base being already so limited is a bad start that no extra content can improve. To add fuel to the fire, DLC didn't make the game any more interesting. This, to me, felt like they were breaking up with the franchise's past even more. Expansion packs actually added value to the game in the past.
Both with TS2 and 3, my first expansion pack would completely change my game-play, allow me to discover all its quirks. The novelty of a new pack for TS4 faded within MINUTES and I stopped investing after the first game pack (Outdoor Retreat) and expansion pack (Get to Work) respectively.
The limited mods available at the time didn't help me much, either.
Furious over my waste of money, I returned to The Sims 3 only to dive deeper into it.
A couple years later, I got a few expansion packs on sale to give the game a new chance. Maybe some patch updates would help, too. I even tried some more mods and CC. Just like the first time around, no pack or mod was able to make the game interesting enough to play longer than an hour at a time. Most of that time went into creating the Sims, the only part of the game that was fun.
The emotions system seemed even worse than initially, as the Sims's mood would change at such a rapid speed that a regular game would become insufferable.
I must say that I preferred the functionality of create-a-sim as such, but taking the lacking colour wheel and pattern tool into consideration it was still underwhelming in comparison. And then there's the cartoony art style, the limitations and broken base. I couldn't get warm with the newest generation of The Sims no matter what I tried.
I totally gave up on this game and regret every cent I've spent on it.
Since that one time many years ago (I don't even remember when exactly), I haven't touched that game.
Fast forward to today, the base game is free, but has so much DLC that it should be considered borderline criminal (15 expansion packs, 12 game packs, 20 stuff packs and 29 kits).
Besides, I heard there was some sort of Marketplace launched within the game recently. Per se a cool opportunity for CC creators, but EA earning from their passion rubs me the wrong way.
Just confirming the true intentions of EA: milk the fans. A pattern we know a little too well from popular film and TV franchises these days.
If you bought the game originally and invested in all paid DLC (officially on EA or Steam, no sale), you spent almost $ 1'500.00 for the whole thing and apart from the financial blow you've suffered, you also lost a lot of nerves, probably, as many of the functions in some of the older packs seem to be broken TO THIS DAY. From what I've found out, some packs were released broken and the main functions that the packs were for still don't work despite many patch updates.
I am very happy to have ditched the game pretty much at the beginning and regret trying to give it another chance. At least I had a discount for the packs, I guess.
About two years ago, I spoke to a gamer who occasionally played TS4. He used a cracked version, which feels almost moral looking at the state of the game and how they turn everything into a transaction. So, with all the DLC and game packs and whatnot, how does it play?
Bold as I am, I asked him to genuinely tell me how he manages to play such an effed up game.
He said it's not bad, but it's thanks to the mods that the stays.
Now, if you need to heavily mod the game to make it playable, something's wrong at the core!
Unfortunately, many people still seem to defend the watered-down shadow of a once amazing game and EA's newer tactics with creators collaborations etc. helped keeping the unjustified hype alive. With The Sims 4, YouTube and TikTok got a new genre of influencers, they even helped create some of the furniture kits and the like. Perfect propaganda.
To make things worse, there's now some tumult in the community, triggered by the EA buyout. And STILL people spent money on more useless packs for a game that was broken before it started.
The buyout doesn't surprise me as much as it probably should, but it's still reason enough to turn your back on them. If you already own copies of the games, use them, by any means, but don't promote them and don't spend more money on anything this company offers!
If you don't know what the buyout is about and feel like learning more on it, I'll allow myself to link this video.
Competitors, their hardships and self-dug graves
So, ditching Sims is an undertaking, actually. Because what is there that could possibly compete?
The short answer is that there's nothing. Yet.
For many years, I attempted to play this virtual world called Second Life, but I never got into it for longer than an hour at a time. Nor would I even want to, honestly. It felt off. Maybe I should revisit it some time to see what's going on today.
Perhaps, I was clinging too much to the almost-perfect Sims, which really was a solid game.
In the recent years, the community spoke a lot about three upcoming "Sims-killers".
I was really looking forward to the upcoming game Life by You by Paradox, but after being postponed a couple times, the project was cancelled. The sad thing is that it was made by a studio with enough money to potentially pull it off. They felt like they could not. The previews looked great and of course noone in their right mind would be mad if a new game in early access wasn't completely fleshed out just yet. But alas, the more promising of the two real competitors for The Sims was gone.
Another potential competitor that initially made it, was Inzoi.
The realistic-looking life simulator was released in 2024 and being a Krafton game, there were no larger budget concerns. It seemed to be a good game but I somehow never was drawn to it. Maybe it looked a little too close to realistic. I wanted a GAME after all. But also, it seemed to have no character, was a bit too sterile for my liking. The Sims 4 style didn't speak to me but it had its own weird kind of soul in it.
I decided to wait a little after the initial release and watch some more genuine reviews.
Somehow, gaming influencers unboxing Inzoi PR packages with custom computer keyboards and orgasming over small details in the pre-release game didn't really strike me as authentic and reminded me too much of the simfluencers who'd get money and expensive gifts from EA for showing the game.
Honestly, I am so glad that I was sceptical and waited for things to come.
At some point, I read that there's generative AI used in the game creation and users could use it within the game to customise clothes and whatnot.
My stance on genAI is pretty simple: get out of my face!
So thanks, but eff off with your crap.
Using some AI for in-game FUNCTIONS is commonplace and no biggie. But GENERATING parts of the game and having it in the game for users too? Don't you have any pride in your super cool job as game dev?!
I still loosely followed news on the game here and there. Not gonna lie, it was a little satisfactory to hear that from their million sold games, they had to refund hundreds of thousand purchases.
The publisher's CEO also doesn't help the game being any more appealing to me.
The issue with the game itself seem to go beyond AI, which most people just don't seem to care about.
Here it's partially on the players; too high expectations are a danger. A brand new game in early access can't be perfect, but the people expecting it were part of the problem.
People who compared it to The Sims directly also were in for a disappointment, I guess.
I think the current lack of interest in Inzoi is well-deserved, but it shows a general problem: people don't like change, they cling onto what they know. These days more than ever, which also partially explains why Star Wars fans still watch the new franchise slop on Disney+ although they didn't enjoy anything for years. Sorry, Star Wars fans.
Another general issue is the dominance of The Sims. Over years, the game gained loyal fans (TS1-3) and even the fourth generation has its defenders. The franchise didn't get its cult status randomly.
Thanks to many great ideas being put into code in its early days and for most part smart decisions along the way until money took over completely, we got games that were deserving of their fans' love.
I want to propose a theory: just like some films worked back in the day but any modern film series feels comparably shallow today, I think that the game had its prime time in times when we weren't yet so bombarded with content, information and distraction.
People dedicated themselves to their niches and without the distracting brick in our pockets.
Technology was an addition to our lives back then, not the core we'd spin around.
Like this, people went deeper into their topics of interest, paid more attention to the lore, the little details. The same could be said about game devs, who cared about their own craft.
Similarly to everything else in the life of 2026, the games go less deep (not all of them!) and need to be more stimulating. Long-term satisfaction and the purpose to get to know your stuff better is no longer the standard. What happened to slow dopamine? The feeling of finally achieving something?
I saw this trend with The Sims 3 already, where you could place finished rooms in build mode. I was never much of a house builder but it was satisfying to finish a nice house by myself. The finished room felt like a cheat code that didn't help the game but took away from it.
Unlike in for example Shooter or Jump and Run games, there's no objective in The Sims, except your self-set goals for the household(s) you're playing. You don't have to score points, collect gemstones or complete a mission. By default, this game is chill and is the reason why many people categorise it as a "cosy game".
Sims 4, in that sense, is one of the cosiest, because it requires the least initiative from the player. It's way too safe and unimaginative. Isn't it just sad that all its wackiness was stripped away to be a n inoffensive, assisted game that evokes no fantasy, where you have to put out fires constantly because the overpraised emotion system doesn't work, packs don't fulfil their core purpose? Oh, some modder will surely fix this for me!
This downfall is luckily one that I only witnessed partially, having ditched the game for its predecessors that to this day hold up as some of my all time favourite games.
The Sims desperately need an authentic competitor, one that is made with love and dedication. One that takes the audience seriously, one that respects the gamers and the devs alike.
And I think, we are about to play exactly such a game. Enter…
This is a proposition by Canadian indie game developer Alex Massé and his team.
Mr. Massé started developing Paralives as a solo project in January 2019, but now the team counts around 15 people.
After one postponement, the early access stage will be released on 25th May 2026.
The approach is completely different; the community is helping make things happen with Patreon memberships and in exchange, gets many cool insights in the developing process.
I'm less of a nerd regarding the development itself, but earlier this year I became a member myself.
Seeing what AAA companies do to gaming makes me want to support smaller artists as much as is somehow possible for me. I can only do this much, but I believe that this game has a big potential that deserves even your humblest investment.
The first thing that stood out to me was unsurprisingly the art style.
I must be very honest, at first I didn't think this game could be for me exactly because of it.
But… I don't want it to be The Sims after all. I want it to be different and hopefully dethrone The Sims once and for all. The latter hope is of course overly optimistic but hope dies last.
Comparison is the thief of joy, they say. Slowly, I got used to this unusual style choice and grew to love it.
After reading and watching more on this game, I knew that this might just be the game the world has waited for.
Just like The Sims, it's a "virtual dollhouse" style life simulation, single-player game for Windows and Mac ( I really hope that Steam can make it run smoothly on my Linux! Worked with Hogwarts Legacy…)
For the time being, there's no console game planned and the initial version will be released in 8 languages. The Early Access stage of the game will give us a chance to test the features and give the devs feedback. There's already a list of things that they want to add during Early Access, that weren't done yet for the launch. Some things not being there from the get-go will clearly require some getting used to, but the cooler will it be to see the game grow and improve over time.
This is something that will feel similar to chronologically upgrading the game as the DLC is being released for The Sims 2 and 3.
The game is open to modding and the inclusion of well-wishing gamers who want this game to succeed is huge. I think we have a lot to look forward to.
What I personally love most about the game already, without having played it, is the fact that they insist on the human aspect of development. No AI is being used.
Taking such a stance in the more and more AI-friendly gaming world is really encouraging and reason enough for me to support the team, even if the game would, somehow, turn out not to be to my personal taste.
From what I've seen already, the game is superior to The Sims 4 in various ways; the Paramaker (CAS) comes with patterns and a colour wheel and, this is something that would've improved The Sims a ton, is the possibility to layer clothing items! The clothes seem to be mostly versatile basics that can be enhanced with patterns at will, but there's also plenty accessories and styles so that each Para has its own personality. Massive improvement for the storytelling game-play.
You can choose preferences for your Para, which will likely impact game-play in certain scenarios. If a Para with a talent for music pursues a career in that field, I could imagine the skill-building in that field to be more rapid and the career path going differently than for a Para with different traits. Again, this is a beautiful thing to see for people who enjoy a storytelling kind of game.
The inclusivity of the game doesn't feel performative like it does with The Sims 4 and the love for details shared by the team, such as community events, adds to the endless possibilities.
Of course, not everything will be perfect, we have to remember that we're getting early access.
Honestly, I don't know that much about the things that are coming; I chose not to get too many spoilers about the game. I support the team on Patreon but barely look at the stuff they post. What I've seen so far is amazing, but I'll keep it at it.
I want to be thrown into the unknown as much as possible. Just install the game and see where it leads me, like when I discovered The Sims 2 and 3 for the first time.
The game will be sold for $39.99 during Early Access. The price will increased afterwards.
Future DLC and updates will be free of charge, proving that this is a project of passionate devs, not money-hungry corporations.
I encourage you to check out the website at paralives.com and please, if it's viable, consider supporting the team on Patreon.
With this game, I am a little optimistic about the downgraded world of video games.
Don't Let Expectations Ruin Your Experience!
You may ask: do we need another life sim game?
Good question. It's the same as "do we need another shooter?"
Let's be real, do we need yet another book or film or TV show?
No, because the market is over-saturated. And still, we crave novelty and, perhaps more than ever in our modern day and age, distraction from all the BS that's going on in the world. But we also crave soul in an increasingly soulless world. A new cosy game might be the solution!
The genre doesn't have as much to offer as some others. This game can accommodate the yearning for something new and the gap in the industry that we're currently having.
One Million wish list saves on Steam is not nothing. There's a market for a new approach to this kind of game and people are hopeful. Be it because they're fed up with EA and what they have done to The Sims and the gaming industry in general. Be it because they want to try something new but the genre doesn't have much to offer. Or simply, because they just want to support more independent artists in such uncertain times of creative recession when AI-generated "art" floods the internet and even video games.
Maybe, it's all three of those reasons or some completely different ones. Point is, there's an audience for this exact game.
What I think Paralives stands for (at least in my personal view), is that no matter how small you are in comparison to your opponent / competitor, you should always give your all.
I think, this project stands for passion and dedication, pride in your own craft.
Maybe a bit of luck will be needed, but ultimately, this game stands for good values and represents a feeling of zen that we all deserve in those uncertain times.
The biggest issue I see incoming for the game is unrealistic expectations from over-excited people who expect a ready game. So let me say this:
This game is NOT The Sims and it's great that it isn't!
The game you get to try out on 25th May is in Early Access mode. This means, that the game IS NOT FINISHED and you'll be lacking some "basic actions" that you're used to have from The Sims, Second Life or Inzoi.
Don't let the clearly unfinished state of the game, which you're willingly getting yourself into, discourage you from exploring the game and its possibilities. And even more importantly, don't use the known lacking features as a reason to criticise the devs or give the game a low rating.
Don't be mad at the devs for not having included something. There's so much that goes into a game.
Be patient with the team, be respectful towards them and help them improve where improvements are necessary. Test the game, give constructive feedback, engage. Let yourself fall into this whimsical world and see what you can make happen within it.
I can't wait to try this new form of visually adorable escapism.
