(Read Part 1 Here: My InZOI Review - Part 1: Create A ZOI )

(Read Part 2 Here: My InZOI Review - Part 2: The World )

NOTE: This review may have things edited here and there over time for any updates/patches that fix and addressed those things, to prevent misinformation!

Time for some gameplay! I'll try not just bring my own opinion, but also cover if InZOI is a fit for your gameplay style!

I'll keep these gameplay styles in mind:

• Legacy: Simmers who love generational play. Often challenge themselves with the 10 generation challenge.
• Storytelling: Simmers who love to take pictures of their characters and even make stories about them.
• Rotationary: Simmers who love to play multiple families in one world/neighborhood.
• Chaos Play: Simmers who love to kill sims or plain up love chaos in their sims lives.
• The Super Uber sim: Simmers whose sim is older than all our sims combined and at this point they're probably immortal with all the knowledge in the world.
• Hands on: Simmers who love to control every tiny aspect of their sims.
• Hands off: Simmers who are the total opposite and often like their sim to autonomously do things themeselves. Sometimes this is also done through whims (or wants/fears in the sims 2).

Obviously some of these gameplay styles can be combined together, but I figured for ease of the review, to simply keep it this way. 😉

Profile, Traits and Desired Life

Before we can fully play the game, we still need to stick around in the character creator to finish things up. Here, we'll be checking out some profile options, Traits and what exactly desired life is.

The first thing that struck me as really cool was the gender options! It comes with a way to select your character's Gender identity, Romantic relationships and Attracted to.

While I don't think many people will untick "Interested in Romantic Relationships" in a life sim game, I can totally see this work for Zoi-selfs.

Additionally, we can also change the name by randomizing the first and last name. While the random options are totally okay, I was hoping to see more korean names given that the game has a south-korean inspired world! So, if you're making a korean ZOI like me, keep in mind that you might have to do some googling 😉

Another thing I'd love to see is nicknames! I know InZOIs townies has the ability for them to have nicknames, but I have a feeling that's not entirely setup properly yet.

Traits

This is where the game really starts to shine with its foreign approach to personality and gameplay—especially compared to The Sims.

In The Sims series, we’ve gotten used to picking traits like Friendly or Clumsy (or, the infamous Lactose Intolerant trait 😅). And if you go back to The Sims 1 and 2, personality was handled more like a point-based system tied to zodiac signs—almost RPG-like in how it shaped social behavior and interactions. In InZOI that's all a bit different.

Instead, the way it works here, is that each "Parent" trait (Entertainer for example), has a couple of, let's say "Sub-traits" called "Values".

Values we'll get more into soon, but know that these are very based off what your ZOI finds important. Often the whims will refrect their values and even what they like to do themselves if they can.

Each trait also have their own "Characteristics". The cool thing here is that occasionally they'll have penalties and/or bonusses. I really like this way of doing it! The sims Medieval intially had you choose 2 good traits and one bad flaw and that actually made gameplay much more fun, and your sim more alive!

So, I was really curious to see if this will depict gameplay strongly, or if it's going to be a scenario where ZOIs pretty much are carbon copies of each other and traits being useless.

For Hye-kyung, the ZOI in the pictures, I chose Entertainer. I heard some good things about the K-pop career and wanted to check that out.

Desired Life

While optional, I honestly think it’s a pretty cool touch! It’s basically the “Lifetime Wish Lite” version—if you're familiar with how The Sims 3 and 4 handled that kind of thing.

For Hye-Kyung, I leaned into the full-on K-drama protagonist vibe and went with Life of Romance. I liked that each “life goal” card shows whether it aligns with your chosen trait, which is a nice bit of feedback.

That said, I think it would be even better if there were a checkbox or toggle that let you filter and see only the cards that align with your ZOI’s trait first. And then, if you want to branch out and pick something totally different—great, go for it!

Basically, I’d love to see something similar to how The Sims 3 handled it, where you get four trait-based lifetime wishes to choose from, but you can still override them if none of them click. That balance of guidance and freedom just works really well.

Each Desired Life path has a predefined option for your ZOIs that define their personality more:

1. Values: What your ZOI finds important
2. Ambitions: What your ZOI wants to accomplish. This is pretty much the same as Lifetime wishes.
3. Skills: What skill they want to pursue and like
4. Preferences: What your ZOI loves to do. These are more hobby like.

While most of these are very gameplay-oriented and I will get into in a bit, I was hoping that you could tailor your own preferences and skill from the start.

Do note though that these are not hard set in stone, though. They're just guidelines! That was something I initially didn't understand as well.

Create Family

InZOI allows you to have up to 8 family members, which some of you might be familar with in your own sims games. I personally think 8 is totally okay! Often that limit only starts to become a problem during gameplay (especially when pets are involved).

Relationships can also be edited right from this screen, just like in previous Sims games—which is always a nice touch. That said, I do find the options a bit lacking.

You can choose between roles like Roommate, Spouse, Parent, and Child, which is cool. But it suffers from the same limitation that always bugged me in The Sims 3: you can’t set anyone as a boyfriend or girlfriend by default! It’s a small detail, but it makes a big difference if you're trying to set up specific storytelling dynamics right from the get-go.

One thing I do appreciate, though, is that relationship options are somewhat age-aware. For example, if one ZOI is a child and the other is an adult, you’ll only see appropriate roles like Child or Roommate pop up. That level of logic is definitely appreciated.

A few cool features that would be nice in the future:

A tiny shout out to my own RPG Manager Mod that I did that tackled this exact issue for the sims 3, but I know the other sims games struggle with this too, it would be nice that at the beginning you're presented with more options.

What I'd love to see in the future:

1. Setting starting funds
2. Pre-setting skill levels
3. Pre-setting Degree
4. Pre-setting Careers
5. Pre-setting pregnancies

Unfortunately, I've only seen a couple of these tackled rather nicely in Life By You (RIP my boy).

I can tell that Legacy players and "Hands-on" players would definetly benefit from these options already pre-made 😉

The Karma System

While this is not exactly done yet as a system yet, InZOI comes with a Karma system that is a completely new concept to life simming.

Long story short, what it basically is, is a way for you, as the player, to make the world a better place. InZOI wants you to get out of your way and specifically focus on complimenting people with a bad karma. Or do good (or bad!) interactions with the world, by donating to a good cause for example. Alternatively, as a last resort, you can "scold" ZOIs for having such bad karma to turn their lives around.

Eventually the karma system comes into play when a ZOI dies. A ZOI with a good karma score, will move on to the next life, whereas a ZOI with bad karma will be a lost soul, stuck in the world. If you have too many lost souls floating about, then ZOIs will struggle with reproducing new ZOIs.

... Except that this feature is rendered completely useless as "ghosts" (or souls in this case) aren't included in the game yet. So even if Psycat will warn you that you need to solve the karma in your City, feel free to ignore it completely.

While I can totally see this feature being cool with people who play rotational or even want to impact their cities whether for good or bad, I think most simmers will find this a huge turn-off since we often really only want to focus on our own sims (or ZOIs in this case) that we're playing! 😉

If I have one good thing to say about the Karma system in its current state, it’s this: it seems to slightly boost your chances of winning the lottery. 😄

You can actually compliment your ZOI through the Karma Manager for doing well, and in return, they’ll get an autonomous message asking what they’re wishing for. It’s a cute little interaction that adds a touch of personality.

As for the other response options you can give during these karma moments—I haven’t really noticed much of a difference in gameplay. But that might just be the way I play, so your mileage may vary.

Allright... now it's time to actually face some proper gameplay!

The ZOI Card

Now that we’re finally in the world, we can take a closer look at some of the deeper systems tied to our ZOI—like Preferences, Ambitions, and Values.

One thing I really appreciate: even after you finish creating your ZOI, you can still go back and tweak things. Don’t like the preferences or the life path you chose? No problem—you can change them easily. That’s something InZOI does really well across the board: it gives you the freedom to switch things up without punishing you for it.

The Sims, by comparison, has always been a bit stricter about that. Your Lifetime Wish was often locked in after leaving CAS, and unless you used cheats or mods, it stayed that way. The Sims 4 improved this a little by offering you a new aspiration once you completed your first one, but InZOI’s flexibility feels much more fluid and player-friendly right from the start.

Ambitions

Ambitions are initially assigned somewhat randomly, which struck me as a little odd. But since you can easily change them at any time, it ends up not being a huge deal. That flexibility really helps keep things from feeling locked in too early.

Each ambition comes with different “sub-pursuits,” displayed as tabs within the ambition window. It’s a nice layout… but to be completely honest, I found the ambitions themselves to feel a bit lackluster.

Most ambitions are broken into three levels, but when you look at the actual goals, they often feel more like filler than meaningful progression. For example, with the Pursuit of Love ambition:

• Level 1 asks you to hold hands and talk with a mutual crush three times.
• Level 2 then asks you to do that ten times.
• Level 3 finally brings in some variety, but even then, it’s pretty minimal.

Compared to something like Lifetime Wishes from The Sims 3 (and to a degree, Sims 4's Life time Wishes), InZOI’s ambitions just don’t feel as challenging or rewarding.

I think there’s so much untapped potential here. Imagine if ambitions were tied not only to social tasks but also to skills, career milestones, or even values—so that you actually had to work toward something meaningful. It could add real weight to your ZOI’s life path and help make each playthrough feel unique.

Preferences

Each ZOI—including the ones you meet in the world—has their own preferences, and this system actually does have a meaningful impact on gameplay.

For example, if a ZOI hates yoga, they won’t exactly be thrilled if your ZOI tries to recommend a new yoga pose. Your ZOI will also often get whims (or urges as the game refers to it) tied to the things they personally love, which makes them feel a bit more dynamic and connected to the world.

Preferences can be either loved or hated, and you get to choose a few of these right at the start. While your chosen trait and life path might influence the first few, you’re also able to manually set up to five additional loves/hates to flesh out your ZOI’s personality even more.

Here’s how preferences are broken down:

• Fitness — The types of workouts they enjoy (e.g., yoga, ball sports, jogging)
• Food — Dietary preferences or favorites (e.g., coffee, fast food, vegetables)
• Nature — Whether they like plants and/or animals
• Hobbies — Personal interests (e.g., dancing, art, gaming, singing)
• Reading — Book genres they enjoy (e.g., self-help, romance, health, art books)
• Instruments — What they like to play or listen to (e.g., piano, guitar, drums)
• Activities — Everyday things they enjoy doing (e.g., cooking, cleaning, repairing)

I personally really like this sytem! It does bring a lot more live into your zoi, and often you'll notice when they're doing something they hate, that they... well, hate it!

Often if there are items around them that they love to do, they will automatically use them more often too, which is really cool! 😄

You'll also see if your ZOI likes/hates to do a certain interaction in the interaction menu

Townies seem to also invest in this system a lot too if you're on a lot. ZOIs who love fitness, will often find themselves using those equipments more and it's a great way to find a ZOI that are common to your ZOI.

Not only that, but ZOI townies will also visit lots that have specific things they like as well! A very prominent example is the art gallery. ZOIs who love photography and/or art will often find themselves there.

So if you're looking for a fitting partner, know that InZOI keeps in mind that ZOIs should pop up in places they actually like going to! 😉

You can always tackle this differently I've noticed. Apparently, if your ZOI eats something a lot, or does something a lot that they don't yet have a preference for, Psycat will prompt you to maybe set that as their preference. I do like this, since it means you can have your ZOI choose what they want to like.

Values

This system is honestly really interesting—and totally new to me compared to The Sims! Just like how autonomy and ZOIs handle preferences, they do the same with 'values'.

For example, if your ZOI has a low Rule-abiding value, they’re far more likely to try and sneak off to steal something on their own—compared to a more law-abiding ZOI who wouldn’t even consider it. That kind of behavior-driven autonomy makes them feel like they have actual personality rather than just scripted traits.

Even better, it adds gameplay events! While playing Babette, my ZOI had a pretty high Coexistence value—and because of that, she got a notification about joining a climate change protest happening in the park. That little interaction felt super organic, and it tied directly into who she was as a character.

Often you'll see if an interaction helps promoting a ZOIs values. The more they do these interactions, the more points they'll get into said value. Do note that most of these interactions only show up if they have points into those values! At least, from my experience. 😉

I personally couldn't find any real differences between what a 'core' value and 'other' values really do to the gameplay of the game. All I could see is that if the value points are on the higher (or low) side, they're far more likely to pursue a value interaction by themselves more.

Traits

As discussed a bit before, ZOIs can all have traits that come with "sub-traits" such as "extraversion" or "Ambitious".

These traits do seem to translate into the world relatively nicely, but also come with some "weaknessess" i've noticed. Currently, because the relationship system is so easy, no matter the trait, your ZOI will talk to anyone and be friends without a problem.

I also haven't quite seen much differences in my ZOIs in regards to their autonomy unfortunately. You'd think Ambitious ZOIs would do their homework more often, or do more skill-related interactions, but I wasn't able to see much differences between ZOIs in that department.

Often traits will also have a "bad" side effect (feeling sad more often, legthagic, etc), which is a nice touch! Though in most cases I wasn't really seeing much effect in those in regards to penalizing their skill building (some moods do this).

I'd say right now, it's still in it's early development progression and still needs a lot of balancing to do before we'll see much more impact in traits.

Gameplay

Generally, core-game-mechanically speaking InZOI plays exactly like the sims. Your ZOI has needs that need to be fulfilled, as well as moods that they can feel. the world around them can also affect their moods, but not as borderline as The sims 4 has without mods.

ZOIs also need to find a way to make money and pay the bills, so careers can be important to have if you don't want to be self-employed by making money off of skill-related objects.

ZOIs can meet other ZOIs, and make friends, romance with them and create memories with them as well.

Generally speaking, InZOI has some really great choices made here, but also a lot of... well, odd ones.

Needs

Aside from the basic needs, Inzoi comes with a couple of new needs compared to the sims games. The total type of needs are:

• Hunger
• Hygiene
• Sleep
• Bathroom
• Fun
• Social
• Recognition
• Energy

Now, if you’re like me and saw the needs panel and thought, “Uh... isn’t sleep and energy basically the same thing? And what the heck is Recognition doing here?”—then know that... I still have no idea either 😄

Okay, to be fair—I sort of get the difference between Energy and Sleep.

Energy seems to be more about physical stamina (think: feeling lethargic after sporting), kind of like the old Comfort meter from The Sims 1 and 2. Meanwhile, Sleep is the classic "go to bed or pass out" kind of thing. So I guess there’s some logic to it.

But Recognition? Now that one had me squinting.

I get what they’re going for—it’s about feeling seen, validated, and acknowledged. But it feels weird for it to be treated like a core survival need. Except... apparently it is. I found out that if your ZOI’s recognition drops low enough, your ZOI just runs away apparently. You can't play with them anymore nor are they in the world after that.

Fulfilling Needs:

This system works pretty much the same as you'd expect: certain objects and furniture fulfill your ZOI’s needs and help keep them happy—and, you know, alive.

You simply click on an object and select an interaction, or alternatively, you can click directly on a need icon to figure out what your ZOI can do to satisfy it. 😉 Super intuitive if you’re used to The Sims.

That said... one thing that really struck me as odd was how fast the hunger bar drops. I get the intention—it’s probably designed to encourage a natural flow of breakfast, lunch, and dinner—but the decay is so quick that if you forget just one meal, your ZOI can die of malnutrition alarmingly fast.

(A ZOI suffering from malnutrition will actually start to walk uncomfortably when they're starving.)

I’ve had multiple moments where my ZOI was actively cooking lunch, and by the time they finished, their hunger bar was already completely empty—and I barely saved them from starving. 😬

In comparison, I think The Sims handles this much better. Once a Sim’s hunger bar reaches the 'bad side', it decays much more slowly, giving you time to react. From what I’ve seen, it usually takes a good 24 in-game hours for a Sim to actually starve. InZOI, on the other hand? Miss one meal and it’s panic mode.

A quick note regarding hunger: Currently your weight isn't affected by eating too much/less. But judging from their road map, that should be implemented by May!

Cooking

InZOI comes with quite a few skills that I won't all individually review, but i figured since we're talking about hunger here, why not check a bit how cooking actually works? What my disappointments were and some good bits of it.

ZOIs can choose to learn how to cook, or simply take some standard "Quick bites" from the fridge. Now, if you're not really familar with korean culture, a portion of these dishes may be completely new to you. I personally really loved this touch though!

Just like the sims, cooking is a skill that you can develop, and the more you cook, the more recipes you unlock to cook!

One thing I really liked is how the food menu visually displays each dish. When I was playing with Babette, who’s a vegetarian, this was especially helpful—since I wasn’t always sure whether certain Korean dishes were vegetarian-friendly or not.

That said, I think it would be even better if preference-based icons were added to the menu. For example, if your ZOI loves meat, meat-based dishes could show a little meat icon; or if they’re vegetarian, dishes that align with that preference could be flagged as well.

Sure, with something obvious like sausages or bacon, you can tell it’s a meat dish just from the image—but there are definitely other meals where it’s not as easy to tell at a glance, especially for players unfamiliar with the cuisine. Having a visual cue would make the system feel more intuitive and inclusive. Even though the food already looks really tasty and graphically pleasing!

You can, however tell, that cooking is still in it's early stages, as the dishes currently available, while nice, aren't really that much. It also only goes up to level 5 till there are no dishes available to learn anymore.

Another thing that shows the system is still in it's early stages, is that, no matter how hard I tried, I couldn't get a fire going! Leaving the stove while cooking pancakes removes the pancake from the pan and turns off the stove.

In a way this is nice, I mean... how often have we had cases where our Sim sees, I don't know... a shiny thing and all of a sudden you return to a burnt down house? Obviously I'm exaggurating a bit, but you get what I mean.

Speaking of burning, I also haven't exactly seen my ZOI burning their foods? I saw it in the trailer before, but I haven't been able to recreate that myself.

So what about a ZOI that hates cooking? Well there is a feature for that too! I actually have used this quite often for Kye-Kyung, who I figured would rather eat take out everyday than actually cook anything herself.

It's quite easy, and I can totally see how this system might change in the future. What it does, is once you order your food, there is a package at your door which teleported there after you ordered your food. You open the package and it's time to eat!

Obviously a proper delivery system would be nice in the future, but for an early access game I'm totally fine with how it's done now!

Urges

Instead of the good old whims system from The Sims 3 and 4 (RIP whims 😔), or The Sims 2's iconic wants and fears, InZOI introduces a similar mechanic called Urges.

Urges serve as your ZOI’s short-term desires or impulses—little nudges that reflect what they’re feeling or wanting in the moment. Whether it’s wanting to talk about something, use certain items, or do something that lines up with their values, urges help guide your ZOI’s behavior and offer a bit of direction without forcing a rigid gameplay path.

Initially, I was actually liking that this was included. I figured I'd use this a lot. You see, when I play the sims and I'm not quite sure where I want to go with my sim, I look at their wants or whims to see what they'd like to do. Especially since wants/whims often have more "life changing" things in it (getting married, have a child, etc). It adds a goal even to what your sim wants.

So... what about InZOI? Well... you remember how I said "initially liking it"? half way through I completely forgot about it.

You see, Urges don’t just reflect your ZOI’s desires—they also give your ZOI's family “Meow Points”. These points can then be spent on something called Donuts, which are used to purchase mood-related bonuses.

Now, in theory, this is a pretty cool system. But... because the game is relatively easy right now, I haven’t really felt the need to use it. The bonuses don’t feel essential—they’re just small boosts tied to emotions or skill gains.

But here’s where I think this system could really shine: make Donuts more rewarding and personalized, like The Sims 3’s lifetime rewards. Instead of generic boosts, imagine using Meow Points to unlock something truly impactful—something that gives your ZOI a unique advantage in their life. Whether it’s helping in a career, improving autonomy, or unlocking fun new features (bring back things like the Moodlet Manager or Food Replicator!), it would make earning and spending Meow Points actually feel exciting.

🍩 Donut Upgrade Ideas

Obviously these are NOT included in the game! Just some I came up with to enhance gameplay.

Morning Person / Night Owl Your ZOI gets a bonus to skill-building and energy during specific hours of the day.

Career Hacker ZOIs will now get more progress points into their career progression than usual.

Hologram Helper Summons a floating mini-assistant that can entertain kids, clean up messes, and repair things for a day! (or so?)

Life elixer Get back those youthful days!

Eco Breeze Air Purifier Keeps your house clean, prevents illness, boosts happy moodlets indoors.

The Chaos Remote Gives your ZOI a literal TV remote that lets them influence townie actions within range—make someone flirt, slap, nap, or dance with anyone you want them to.

Just to name a few 😉 I think it also adds a bit of soul to the game, a silliness that the sims did really well!

Social Life

Just like The sims, your ZOIs can have a social life, but this is actually where it still has a bit of it's teething issues. Which is understandable from an Early Access game.

Relationships with family and non-family members have the following different relationship types:

1. Friendship
2. Family (only family-members )
3. "peers" (Or rather, work network. This seems more of a mistranslation)
4. Love

Relationships in InZOI are completely separate from one another, meaning your romantic, friendly, and even professional relationships don’t have to overlap at all. So, for example, you can build a full-on love relationship with someone without ever becoming friends—just by using romance interactions exclusively.

And honestly? I don’t mind that approach! If you’re playing a ZOI who doesn’t believe friendships are a prerequisite for romance—maybe they’re more into impulsive, lust-driven connections—that path is totally viable. Or if you want to create a more transactional relationship, like a business partnership without emotional attachment, that’s also possible. I mean, let’s be real—we’ve all had coworkers we get along with but wouldn’t exactly call proper friends.

So in theory, this system is really cool and allows for a lot more narrative freedom.

However—where it starts to fall a little flat is if you rush into relationships too quickly. InZOI gives you the freedom to fast-track a romance or friendship, but doing so skips a lot of the natural buildup, which can make those connections feel kind of shallow or mechanical.

What makes that especially noticeable is that InZOI actually comes with a surprisingly good “keep in touch” system. ZOIs you’ve befriended will send you messages, check in, and even ask to meet up at the park or drop by your house. It’s a great feature that adds life to the relationships—but it really shines when you take your time to build those connections more organically.

Crushes will also often try to reach out to you and come with flower bouquets!

Friends will often also give you gifts! These are online orders that get brought to your door (well, the package "teleports" to your porch). They will let you know about this through a message of course!

The gifts will often include clutter-y things though. So far i've gotten a cat statue, a vase and slippers and a plant. This is a really nice thing initially, but once your family is growing, you'll have piles of gifts you need to store somewhere, or sell. That was something that got me to annoy the system a bit.

Keeping in touch

Another thing I struggled with is the lack of proper tools to stay in touch with your friends, crushes, or business partners. Every ZOI has a phone, but oddly enough, only friends and romantic interests can send you messages—and even then, you can’t initiate a call or text yourself.

There’s currently no way to casually text or call someone—no quick “Hey, want to hang out?” or simple chat just to stay in touch. If you want your ZOI’s friend to come over, you have to go into the relationship panel, click the tiny “Come Over” button at the bottom, and then—poof!—they instantly appear wherever you sent them.

While I genuinely enjoy InZOI’s fresh take on relationships, this part feels strangely robotic. It strips away the natural back-and-forth that makes relationships feel alive. Instead of meaningful or spontaneous interaction, it starts to feel more like managing NPCs than building connections.

Over time, it gets a bit tedious—especially when all you really want is a simple way for your ZOI to stay connected without having to perform summoning rituals from a UI panel.

However, I do want to add to say that this isn't an issue the other way around. As previously mentioned, friend/crushes/peers can send you messages though or invite you to places or even ask to come around to your place. So as long as you don't rush relationships, you will see these pop up! :)

Relationship Logs

Relationship logs appear the moment you meet a new ZOI, and from there, you can immediately read how your ZOI felt about that first interaction. Even if the animation looks friendly and positive, the log might still say something like, “I wasn’t feeling a connection with them.”

I genuinely love this system. It adds a really lovely layer of depth to social interactions, and from a “what does my ZOI actually want?” perspective, it helps shape decisions in a more personal way. It’s not just about grinding friendships or romance points—it’s about chemistry.

I used this a lot with Babette while she was on the lookout for a potential bachelor. I wasn’t just chasing flirty interactions or good looks—I wanted her to end up with someone she felt naturally at ease with. Someone she clicked with right away. These little reflections helped me guide her story in a way that felt emotionally authentic, and I really hope this system continues to grow.

💟 Romance

A Quick heads up for LGBTQ simmers:

Currently, the devs are working on fixing an issue where every ZOI you meet wants to pursue a, well, heterosexual relationship. So right now playing as a Bi or Gay character is simply not possible, since they will reject your romantic interaction if you do so.

I actually really love the romance system in InZOI! Of course it depends on how you like to play. As I mentioned, the relationships types are completely apart from each other, but I felt I had a more meaningful experience when my ZOIs went from friends to crushes because of the "keep in touch" features InZOI has.

Let's take my ZOI I made for this review, Hye-Kyung Park, as an example of what that may look like!

Hye-Kyung Park meets herself another ZOI in the park. I figured I'd talk enough to them that both their romantic and friendship meter is okay enough to even ask him on a date!

The Date

Once you ask a ZOI to go on a date with you, you'll be greeted with a popup. (or, do it yourself by deleting the default date scheduled item and make a new event).

Here you can choose the venue to go to, and what interactions are prohibited from performing (or what should be encouraged!) More on that a little later 😉

On said date, I made them go to a karaoke booth and planned to have their first kiss there. But before doing that, I had to first have them "Confess love" to each other. That went pretty allright, as their Love level was already at the "Mutual Crush" Level.

Now the way that Dates work, is that you have a couple of "scripted" interactions you can perform. I actually love this! Since it makes it less tedious to click on all the interactions you'd want to perform on said dates. Though, if you completely miss doing those, it doesn't make the date bad. In fact, dates don't seem to be coming with a "quality". Whether good or bad.

Now where dates are pretty lacking, is that if you expect your ZOI's date to do anything romantic (while encouraged this), they... don't actually do anything. They just stand there, or will perform on some karaoke machine by themselves like in my case. Let's just say, a lot of it is very "solo" autonomy.

Moving on, followed pretty quickly was the first kiss! Now, because I was doing the review and playing this save at the same time, I wasn't lying when I said: TAKE THINGS SLOW!

Because after this, I had her propose to him. Which is lovely! But here's the thing: InZOI comes with some really lovely messages and meet-up couple-y things, that I did miss because of this!

Ironically, I was getting these messages on the day of the wedding! So while you'll still see some messages appear like I did, you won't be getting other ones that are related to relationships if you rush through things.

The Wedding

The wedding planner will directly appear whenever your ZOI proposes. Now a thing to remember is that your ZOI does need to know a couple of ZOIs before this will properly work (preferably an older ZOI to oversee the wedding). Plus, having some guests here and there would be really nice 😉

Now, unlike the sims games, your ZOIs do need to host a wedding before calling each other husband and/or wife. There is no other interaction where you can get married without hosting a proper wedding.

This works just like planning a date! Except, weddings have to be manually made as an event through your phone (events > Make New Event). This threw me off initially, because with dates, they often are already in your agenda (and a popup shows up to plan said date), but with weddings it didnt.

Either way, planning a wedding is simple! You invite over some guests, wedding members, and when it should happen.

When your ZOI is at the location, and it's time to start it, InZOI presents you with, just like dates, a bunch of scripted interactions for you to play. Here it makes a lot of sense! Basically, it goes from "Walking down the isle" to "Say yes". It's a nice system in my opinion!

Now i'm not sure yet if your partner can actually say no and run off, like we all remember from The Sims 2, but I will update the review if i know more about that 😉

After that, it's time for you to enjoy the remaining time and celebrate the newly weds!

I really really liked the wedding experience this game comes with. Even if I didn't realise that I had to change my ZOIs outfit into a wedding dress myself 😅. But it's cute, and actually all I've ever wanted in a life simming game! Plus it's all well-fleshed and as far as I could say, bug free experience with good pace!

(A ZOI wearing their wedding ring by default.)

After the wedding experience, your ZOIs will have their Love level replaced with a family one! And, your ZOIs will be wearing their wedding rings as well!

What about infidelity and divorce?

This is an interesting part to say the least. I did a test run with this on Kye-Kyung and her husband. I had her flirt a lot with a coworker right in front of him and nothing happened.

Then, once I decided to select the "Kiss" option and see if that triggers something, things did happen! Her husband went over, and decided to call her out on her behaviour.

Except... the interaction itself was a bit... extreme? Because they'd be argueing and he slapped her in the face for her behavior. I gasped out loud when that happened, but that's totally your call to make if you're okay with that.

Divorce doesn't happen in itself, and it can only happen if their family relationship level is rather low. After the interaction has played, they will be considered roommates with a really low love level. From there you can decide as the player to move them out, which I think is fair!

My Additional Gameplay Notes On Social Features

For this part, I figured I'd share a bit how that went with Babette, my ZOI I play in Bliss Bay. She's been now with 2 guys.

The first one, Harrison, she met on the beach and the two quickly became friends, as well as a huge mutual Crush level in their "Love" bar. Now, this was before I fully understood the relationship system, so I didn't think much of it at first.

A few days passed and Harrison sent Babette a message, saying he would love to meet up at her house. Cool! I thought. Let's have him over.

I scheduled their visit for around 8pm and he did show up at that time! The two got talking and things went great! Though, Harrison did appear tense and would idle often rubbing his head and generally looking fustrated at some point.

Which he did eventually take that out on Babette by critizing her—and that honestly surprised me!

In The Sims, NPCs often suppress their emotions and just keep being their happy, quirky selves regardless of what's going on. The Sims 3 does take it a bit further—like a townie might not respond as well to romantic interactions or won’t laugh at your jokes if they’re in a bad mood—but they rarely ever redirect their frustration onto others.

So seeing a ZOI actually project their mood onto someone else? That felt like a really realistic touch. It made the world feel more reactive and alive, and gave interactions more emotional weight than just colored mood bars or floating icons.

Now, the downside is... I think having an interaction that reflects that, saying something like "Tell them to apologize to you", and depending on the ZOI, that could have a 50/50 outcome, that would be nice here! Right now, ZOIs cannot apologise to other ZOIs, nor can you tell them to,

To be continued

Where does it show it's issues?

Now, you might be wondering—is it difficult to build relationships in InZOI?

Eh… not really.

Most social interactions don’t really reference your ZOI’s preferences or values, so it’s pretty easy to just avoid any friction entirely between a ZOI who hates a certain preference. As long as you stick to positive interactions, things move fast.

Kind of like The Sims, you can still go from total strangers to married within a single in-game day if you really want to. Same goes for friendships—there’s not much resistance, and it’s surprisingly easy to max out a relationship bar quickly.

Of course, just like in The Sims, you can make the conscious decision to take things slow—chat briefly with another ZOI, meet up again the next day, and let the relationship progress naturally over time.

But even if you do pace it out like that, just know that your ZOI can still become full-on friends after, like… three positive interactions. 😅

So while the option for slow-burn relationships technically exists in how you choose to play, the actual mechanics still favor super speedy progression. Hopefully, that’s something that gets tweaked in the future—either by default or through optional settings that let players slow things down a bit if they want more gradual development.

InZOI currently has a bit of a strange and definitely unfinished-feeling Conflict system.

During testing, I decided to see what would happen if my ZOI went on a date—but instead of being romantic, I had them offend and berate their partner. What followed... was odd. Even after tanking their friendship bar and essentially trash-talking the entire time, they were still totally fine with sharing a kiss and even confessing their love. 😅 However, that time he did reject the proposal, so it's not all that terrible.

Sure, you could say that’s just roleplaying a toxic relationship—which is valid! But I’d really prefer if that kind of dynamic were only possible for certain ZOIs, not the default behavior across the board. Right now, it just feels like the game isn’t fully registering emotional consequences across different relationship types as well as it could.

Jealousy also feels a bit off. While I get that reactions might vary depending on relationship depth, it’s strange that a ZOI’s partner won’t react at all when you flirt or hold hands with someone else right in front of them. The only time they show any reaction is when you kiss another ZOI—that’s when the jealousy finally kicks in. The other partner will confront them after it.

I think this whole system could really benefit from a more nuanced emotional and relational framework. For example, if you want to play a toxic diva character with a submissive partner, there could be additional traits or values that define those behaviors. Let ZOIs have stronger or weaker boundaries, different emotional thresholds, or even unique reactions based on their personality makeup. It would not only enhance storytelling but also make relationships feel less like scripted templates and more like complex, human dynamics. But, it's also possible I'm asking for too much here.

Kids also do not react right now if they witness their parent cheating on someone else.

Right now, one of the things that stands out in InZOI is that traits don’t quite translate into social behavior the way they do in The Sims—at least, not yet. Because of this, ZOIs can start to feel a bit same-y, regardless of their personality setup.

Take Evil Sims in The Sims, for example—they’d often go out of their way to pick on others, be harder to befriend, and would even enjoy making other Sims upset. But if your Sim was also evil? Suddenly, they’d thrive in the chaos and love the drama. That kind of trait-based behavior added flavor and unpredictability to interactions.

In InZOI, though, we don’t really see that kind of distinction just yet. A ZOI with a trait that sounds like it should affect how they act socially might still behave like any other ZOI. (i.e there is no real difference between introverted and extraverted zois) It makes the world feel a little more uniform and less reactive—something that could definitely be improved with deeper trait integration in future updates. Especially since it would make socializing way more fun and challenging! 😄

With all that said, I do think I'd love to see an option to maybe convert a relationship to allow Polyamory in case other simmers would love that 😉

Another thing that started to bother me while playing was the seating behavior during social interactions. ZOIs do this odd little chair dance ritual, where instead of just staying seated, they keep shuffling around—constantly standing up, scanning the room, and finding another chair to sit in with every new interaction.

It breaks the flow and makes conversations feel a bit awkward and overly mechanical. Multitasking would really help against this! This is currently not present in the game.

What would really help is some clarity on which interactions are designed to be seat-friendly, and which ones aren’t. I had a few moments where an interaction sounded like it should be done seated (like telling a joke), but the ZOIs would suddenly stand up and do it from across the room. It’s a small thing, but smoothing out those moments would go a long way in making interactions feel more natural and grounded. The sims 3, for example, will show a tiny chair icon next to the interaction name, when your sim is seated. That could be a good solution! :)

Overall, in it's Early access state, it is still pleasable to have social interactions though, especially since the messaging system and gifting system adds a certain fun aspect to it.

Aging and Family Play

InZOI wouldn't be a life-simming game without it's aging mechanics! So why not review the "flow of life" as well 😉 Do note that the game is in early access and this is very visble in the younger lifestages! However, the devs have let us know that they are working hard on this.

Another thing to remember, is that aging currently is not displayed anywhere. We know how old the ZOI is, but we don't know how many days they got till they get to the next life stage. I really disliked this, since it makes it hard to know if I can throw a birthday party or not.

Pregnancy

ZOIs get pregnant by asking their partner about making a baby. They'll automatically go over to the bed and a HUGE heart appears. This basically is the 'woohoo' of the ZOIs.

Except that instead of giving it a censored name like the sims, they tip-toe around it (for example, instead of saying "woohoo" it would say "have fun in front of bed".

That all aside! After your ZOIs are done doing the deed, your female ZOI will get prompted to take a pregancy test. Now I haven't tested yet what happens if you don't, but I'd assume it's similar to how The Sims 4 does it, where they eventually find out.

Once your ZOI is pregnant, it’s time to wait and go through the trimesters. From what I can tell, pregnancy lasts about 3–4 in-game days, which moves things along pretty quickly.

One thing to keep in mind: pregnant ZOIs can’t change their outfit once they’re showing. So if you’re planning something like a wedding during pregnancy, you might want to schedule that carefully—unless you're totally fine with walking down the aisle in everyday wear!

In my experience, getting pregnant in InZOI is incredibly easy. Like, The Sims–level fertility levels. One try and boom—pregnancy. 😅 That might just be me wishing for a bit more realism, but I think it would be interesting if the system had more variability. Maybe even introduce the possibility of accidental pregnancies! I personally love when gameplay throws a wrench in your plans—it adds drama, surprise, and depth. 😉

And speaking of realism, I’d also love to see pregnancy reflected more clearly in a ZOI’s needs. The Sims 2 handled this really well—pregnant Sims would get hungrier more often, need to pee constantly, and fatigue faster. It added a layer of realism that made pregnancy feel impactful in day-to-day gameplay. I’d love to see InZOI take that opportunity too—it’s those small changes that help the experience feel grounded and immersive.

Another thing that I'd love to see in the future is maternity leave! Currently, that's not in the game.

(A pregnant townie)

Townies can also get pregnant! You may occasionally see a townie here and there with a belly, and I really love that.

Birth

Birth will happen on the last day of the pregnancy (day 3) and comes with an exclamation mark. Now, I didn't know this when it showed up, because I thought pressing it won't do anything and instead wanted her to go to her home to... well, you know, be somewhere more comfortable!

But nope, I accidentally had her have it at the spot. Now it's nothing graphic or anything. Your ZOI will stand there looking uncomfortable and after that, you'll see both mom and baby in the cutscene, which is really cute!

One thing I really want to mention—especially for fellow Simmers—is how birth scenes play out in InZOI.

In The Sims, when a Sim goes into labor, everyone around them freaks out. There’s panic, chaos, and the classic “what do I do?!” energy. It might be a bit over-the-top, but it adds some fun drama and reactivity to the moment.

In InZOI… that doesn’t happen.

When my ZOI went into labor, I had the dad go back home to be with her, thinking maybe there’d be some kind of supportive interaction—maybe a “bring her to the hospital” option, a comforting hug, something meaningful. But nope. He just kind of… stood there.

I tried clicking on her to see if any special interaction would show up, but all I got were regular, unrelated conversation options. No support. No urgency. Just him casually chatting like she wasn’t literally about to give birth right there.

It honestly made me laugh in that “this is so awkward it’s funny” kind of way, but also made the moment feel pretty hollow. Birth should feel like a moment, and right now, InZOI treats it more like just another event in the day.

Infants

The second your ZOI is out of the cutscene, they will be home and the baby is now somewhere in the house in a crib (took me a second to find them, but an apartment helps in this case :p)

Unlike The Sims 3 and 4, you cannot choose your child's trait. But you can choose their preferences. Which... since they're babies, feels a little odd? I mean, what baby is out there reading and liking self-help books, or lifing weights! :p I somewhat understand it though since it means you pre-define them, but it might be good to look into that once they're toddlers.

Babies in InZOI are nothing more than what they are in The sims 4: Crib hoggers. You can't take them anywhere, take them out of their crib, they're just lying there.

Leaving your baby alone will automatically spawns in a babysitter to show up and take care of them—which is definitely a nice touch. It allows your ZOIs to leave the house without worrying about micromanaging infant care every second.

That said, there’s one limitation that I know the devs are already aware of and working on: you can’t really take care of your infant just yet. There are a few basic interactions, like talking to them or cooing at them, but you currently can’t change diapers or feed them.

This is likely a temporary limitation, and it seems to be balanced out by the fact that infant needs decay very slowly—probably to avoid major issues until toddlerhood kicks in.

It’s definitely something to keep in mind if you’re excited for that early-parenting gameplay—but good to know that improvements are likely on the way!

Toddlers

This is where things finally start to get interesting!

Once your baby becomes a toddler, you're not just passively caring for them anymore—you can now interact with them in meaningful ways. You can change their diaper, feed them, and help them build their skills, which adds a nice layer of gameplay that feels more hands-on and developmental.

As of now (unless it’s been tweaked in a recent update that I have no idea about), toddlers take about 3 in-game days to age up. It’s a short but fun window where you can start shaping their personality and routine a bit more, and it gives a taste of that classic life sim progression we know and love.

Toddlers come with a few skills that i'm not quite sure what would happen if you max these out (the max seems to be level 5). Though, because the life stage is so short, I wasn't able to fully figure this one out if it carries anything over to the next life stage.

For example, in the sims you know you have to teach them how to walk, potty and talk. Which InZOI has as well, but no matter how much time I spent into getting So Mi to walk or talk, I couldn't get her to... well, walk!

Either way, I’m hopeful that as the game continues to evolve, these early developmental skills will eventually have more meaningful impact as your ZOI grows up. It has a lot of potential to tie the life stages together in a hopefully rewarding way.

(For example, this toddler bouncer cannot be used as of right now)

Another place where toddlers as of now feel underdeveloped is that the furniture for them exists, but it cannot be used for them. The same counts for the feeding chair and the changing table.

Since we can grab and hold toddlers now, I was curious—does that mean we can bring them places with us?

The answer is… technically yes, but you can definitely tell InZOI doesn’t fully expect you to do it. I had Kye-Kyung take her toddler to the lounge, where I saw what looked like a play area—only to realize (surprise!) it’s a play area for children, not toddlers. 😅

And getting there? Not exactly smooth. You can’t take the metro while holding your toddler, so I had to manually run all the way to the venue.

To make things even more awkward—when Kye-Kyung tried to leave the venue, the game just teleported the toddler back home and spawned in a babysitter. Which, I get—it’s early access and the system doesn’t yet track toddlers as active travel companions—but it still felt a little clunky and disconnected from what could’ve been a more immersive moment.

Overall, while the toddler experience in InZOI was a little underwhelming in terms of depth, it was also super adorable. Watching little So Mi try her best to stack blocks or encouraging her to take her first steps genuinely made me smile!

Toddlers in InZOI are incredibly cute, and they look like actual toddlers too—chubby cheeks, slightly wobbly movement, the whole deal. It’s moments like these that show the heart behind the game, even if some mechanics still need fleshing out.

Child

Children are much more developed, despite there being much room for improvement of course. Just like the sims games, children are quite independant and do things themselves much more often.

A child ZOI also comes with some skills as well!

Child ZOIs automatically enroll in school, and about an hour before it starts, you’ll see them put on their little backpacks and walk themselves there. It’s such a charming and subtle detail—but one I absolutely loved.

School however, is merely a rabbithole. I was totally okay with that! If they want to make it an active career type of thing in the future, I'd love that too! But either way is fine in my book.

After school wraps up at 3PM, your child ZOI doesn’t just head straight home. Instead, they’ll often hang out and chat in little groups with their classmates—which is not only adorable, but honestly something adult ZOIs could definitely learn from! 😂

It’s a lovely detail that gives kids a real chance to form friendships naturally, without needing constant player direction. And from a gameplay perspective, it’s such a smart touch. In The Sims 3, child Sims would exit the school building and immediately sprint home, making it way harder to meet other kids their age unless you set it up yourself.

InZOI’s approach feels more organic and playful—like kids just being kids—and I really love that.

After school, child ZOIs can do homework assignments. This goes from practising the piano, to researching their favourite animals. Though, for now, I haven't really seen much of a performance bar that shows if you have any precautions if you don't do your homework assignments.

Child ZOIs can also play and interact with various activity objects, like a cooking station or a worktable, which is a really cute addition! It gives them something age-appropriate and creative to engage with after school, and helps their world feel a bit more interactive.

That said, I do think these features are still heavily under development. Right now, interactions like having parents or friends join in don’t seem to work as expected, which is a bit disappointing—especially if you’re trying to build bonding moments between ZOIs.

I was also hoping that using something like the cooking station might increase their cooking skill or tie into long-term skill development, but so far, I haven’t seen that happening either.

I'd love for children to be able to hang out more with their parents. Right now, they can chat and get closer, but nothing like playing tag or hide and seek that they can do either with their friends or parents.

Adolescent (Pre-teen)

Before we get to the teenage years, InZOI has a additional age before it gets to it's teenage years, the "Adolescent age".

Just like any minor ZOI, Adolescent teens go to school as well. The same building as we're all used to since your ZOI is a child.

Another thing worth noting: child ZOIs now use the same skill system as adults. On one hand, this is great—it creates consistency and opens up more possibilities for early character development. But on the other hand… it kind of messes with the pacing.

Because skill-building isn’t particularly fast (especially if you leave the game speed on default), a child who starts working on their skills early can easily hit their max level (10) by the time they’re a teenager—or definitely by the time they’re a young adult.

And honestly… where’s the fun in that?

It removes that natural feeling of progression and growth across life stages. Skills are supposed to be something your ZOI develops over time, not something they’ve already mastered before they’ve even finished high school. A slower or more age-tiered skill system would help preserve the sense of achievement and make those adult milestones feel more earned.

Obbviously, this is more or less a issue that requires a bit of tuning. Especially right now, InZOI has many areas that still need some tweaking and tuning in regards to phasing.

Teenagers

Nothing really new to add other than that they go to school and the skills are the same as Adolescent. I actually would love in the future to see Teens be able to have part-times, as that's currently lacking.

Death

Whether this is from finishing the elderly stage, or dying from natural causes, ZOIs can obviously die in this game.

There are a couple of ways that this is done. First, townies can die and when this happens

Careers

InZOI comes with a couple of careers and active careers also make a comeback in this life-simming game!

Now, the quality and fun of the career really depends on what you'd like to do. if you want to stay busy and join your ZOI to their job, you totally can! If you rather want them to have a job where you don't have to worry much about them (aka, they disappear from the world for a little bit, just like how that works in The Sims), you can do that as well.

When wanting a job, there's not much really necessary other than clicking on your phone and opening the "Career" App. There are no requirements for joining a career, but often age is a factor (for example, you can only join the k-pop career if you are a young adult).

If your ZOI does get to old for their jobs, it will automatically resign them.

Active Careers

While I haven't tried them all, they do all function very similarily! So far I've only played as a Cashier and a K-Pop star. So your experience could be slightly different for a different career 😉

Each active career has a list of things you need to do within a timespan. Often the first block is in the morning, and the second block of tasks is in the afternoon.

Missing a task will result in a slight penalty in your performance. It's not much though, but if you decide to skip all tasks in one entire day, then you may have to work longer to get a promotion!

A thing that I did quite like was that ZOIs will automatically often do these tasks themselves anyways. So you don't need to babysit them or intervene as much. Though, keep in mind that they probably won't be able to do all these tasks autonomously by themselves. But! A few things about this:

For me, Kye-Kyung and her husband both had active careers (he was a firefighter, she was a K-pop star). Once I completely forgot about Kye-Kyung for 4 hours into her job, and as I eventually went over to check on her, she apparently had done her tasks perfectly fine, except for one task.

So the autonomy for multiple ZOIs in your household with active careers are really well done in that regard! I was not at all expecting that, since with the sims, you find yourself having to manage quite a bit of their active careers yourself.

Eventually, if your ZOI is doing well enough, they'll get promoted! This will happen the next day they enter the office. Your ZOIs can also overwork to get extra Meow points.

Regular Career

There's not much to say about careers, other than that they work just like the sims. Your ZOI goes outside of their house, finds the nearest taxi and then just sits there till the work day is done. Which, in itself is a little silly, and judging from the amount of shell buildings, they could've made a few of those rabbitholes to make it somewhat realistic.

Often these regular careers though will be 3 days long, rather than a proper full-week 9-5. So if that's something for you instead to make some quick money, then maybe a regular career might not be so bad of an idea!

You do occasionally have chance cards with dilemmas, just like you do in the sims. Though, I haven't yet had a chance card make my ZOIs career go bad or even getting fired for making a bad choice.

My Overall experiences with Careers:

You can definitely tell that careers in InZOI are still in their early stages. While I haven’t tried them all yet, I did test out the Firefighter career—only to discover that it’s basically just pretending to be a dispatcher. I was hoping for something a bit more hands-on, like responding to actual emergencies or putting out fires, but right now it feels more like roleplay than real gameplay.

Even beyond the active careers, I found the overall career system to be a bit underwhelming. Skills currently don’t seem to have any influence on your career progression. And unlike in The Sims—where promotions often require specific skill levels, social connections, or off-duty tasks like writing reports—InZOI lacks those structured requirements. This makes the experience feel a bit too easy and, at times, aimless.

I also think introducing special events in active careers (e.g, dealing with a complaining customer, making dillema choices, etc). would also make this much nicer of an experience!

That said, I was genuinely surprised by how solid the autonomy is when playing with two ZOIs in an active career! They actually completed their tasks on their own, and I was totally okay letting them do 9 out of 10 things without any help from me. It made managing multiple ZOIs much more enjoyable and less overwhelming.

Hats off to the devs for that part—it's a small but really promising touch of polish in a system that otherwise still needs a lot of depth.

My own Experiences With Gameplay

So, while we've adressed quite a lot of InZOIs features, I haven't at all scratched most of the experiences since there are so many! So I hope to give it a nice ribbon right here.

Money

Unlike other Sims games, money just isn’t that interesting in InZOI right now. This is one of the many areas that really needs some balancing.

For example, when I created a single ZOI, they somehow started out with 50k—and most houses in Dowon cost between 10k and 20k. Even in Bliss Bay, where things get slightly more expensive, you’re often still left with 10k+ after buying a house.

That’s not necessarily a bad thing—but it also removes a key element that The Sims actually handled really well: urgency. In The Sims, especially earlier versions, starting out poor gave you a reason to grind, hustle, and work for your food. There’s a reason why the "Rags to Riches" challenge became such a beloved staple in the community. That struggle created gameplay.

InZOI, on the other hand, starts you off comfortable. And without a real cost of living pressure or financial obstacles, the gameplay loop feels a little flat.

That said, I do appreciate that even in early access, InZOI includes a variety of ways to earn money—whether it’s through hobbies or even some… less legal side gigs. 😉 But those systems still need some fine-tuning, especially in the early game. Right now, it’s just too easy to make money without having to build up skills, connections, or take risks. And that removes a lot of the satisfaction from "making it."

Autonomy

InZOI handles autonomy really well—at times, even better than The Sims does. Beyond just taking care of basic needs, ZOIs will form relationships, develop friendships, crushes, or even enemies entirely on their own, without constant player input. That alone brings a nice sense of life to the world.

In fact, over the course of playing through an entire family’s lifespan for this review, I intentionally stepped back to see what would happen. And sure enough, the parents eventually ended up with a “dysfunctional” family score—a direct result of me not having them interact much or work on their relationships, since I figured they'd figure that out. Obviously, the reason it got to that state was because they were both seeing other people behind each other's back and so they weren't feeling much for each other. At least, that's my explanation to that happening.

ZOIs won't actually make an effort to not offend each other though. That's something I thought was a little funny, that out of nowhere my characters would just casually offend someone they just met. The downside is that this never really aligned with their traits and I couldn't quite understand why they just decided to be complete jerks.

That said, autonomy still needs work when it comes to how ZOIs choose to spend their free time. For instance, Babette hated cleaning, but despite having multiple more enjoyable activities available—TV, painting, you name it—she’d still constantly go clean the house. And this wasn’t even when things were particularly dirty.

I get that some basic maintenance behavior might kick in under certain conditions, but when it overrides preferences, especially in a chill, well-kept household, it starts to feel like the autonomy system isn’t fully aligned with personality traits yet, including social interactions.

The Overall Experience

InZOI is a beautiful game. The graphics are stunning, the animations feel incredibly lifelike (with the exception of some expressions that still need tweaking), and the world is just nice to exist in. But as I continued playing, something started to sink in—and for me, it’s the game’s biggest issue right now: InZOI lacks what the game industry calls “Core Gameplay Loop.”

What I mean is—what’s the actual flow? How do you move from A to B? What’s the structure guiding your progression? Or even more broadly… How do you get to win the game?

In The Sims (especially in earlier installments), while you couldn't win, this was clear—if not explicit. You’d often start with a broke Sim, dream about that mansion on the hill, and know that to get there, you needed to work hard, build skills, make connections, and climb the career ladder. You had goals. Whether it was reaching level 10 in a job, completing a lifetime wish, or just surviving long enough to pass the torch to the next generation, there was always a sense of direction.

And yes, I know The Sims has become more diluted with each generation. But even in its more current forms, it always provided some form of structure to support that. Whether it was lifetime wishes in TS3, or career mechanics that required you to befriend coworkers and master skills—there was always a gameplay loop driving you forward.

InZOI, by comparison, feels like it’s still figuring that part out.

Right now, the game doesn’t seem to be trying to play like a Sims-style sim. It’s more like: "Just have fun! Make a beautiful ZOI! Maybe have a baby. See what happens!" Which is great for players who just want to vibe—but if you’re someone who enjoys the generational, goal-oriented progression of classic life sims, this can feel... empty. let alone making the game feel too easy.

Careers, for example, don’t offer much in the way of challenge or progression. The task lists are a nice touch, but there’s no real sense of difficulty or payoff, or even grind. There are no skill requirements, no relationship gates, no side activities for after work (like writing reports for Journalism in TS3) that make a job feel like something you earned. And because of that, it doesn’t feel like your ZOI is growing toward something.

What I’d love to see is a layer of purpose added to the experience. Not necessarily “winning”—because life sims aren’t about beating the game. They’re about reaching a milestone, wrapping up a chapter, and getting excited to try a slightly different path in your next save or generation. Like, instead of becoming a firefighter this time, maybe you go full K-pop star. Different path, same fulfilling arc.

And right now, InZOI doesn’t have that arc. It’s beautiful and full of potential—but it still needs the gameplay glue to give it purpose beyond aesthetics. I think once those things are covered, it also may find itself a bit more soul and silliness that the sims does so well. But for now, it plays a bit like a technical demo rather than a proper life-sim contender.

And that's okay! As long as it shows it's growth overtime of course.

Who would I recommend InZOI to

So after covering QUITE a bit of ground, and what I think InZOI should do in order to fully be a great competitor to the sims, I do want to go over who the game currently is for. Do those types of players I was talking about in my introduction fit in? Or should they maybe wait, or even leave the game for a couple of months before picking it up again?

Legacy Players:

The gameplay foundation is somewhat there, but the world around it doesn’t quite feel ready for long-term legacy play—yet. As I mentioned earlier, by the time you hit Generation 5, the world will likely be out of usable lots—either already occupied or just not designed for continued building or storytelling.

Now, yes—you can work around this by saving your family and starting fresh in a new save file. That resets the world and gives you a clean slate. But if that feels like a dealbreaker to you, then InZOI might not be the generational sim you're looking for... at least not right now.

After going through a full generation myself, I found the idea of doing it all again to be a bit underwhelming—and that’s where I understand why some players feel like the game is still lacking. On the one hand, InZOI has some lovely legacy features—weddings, dates, active careers that are in the grand scheme of things non-tedious—and those are things that don’t get old quickly. They're fun, flexible, and give you more control over your ZOIs’ lives.

But when it comes to true family gameplay—generational depth, evolving family bonds, life milestones that feel earned—it’s just not all there yet.

So to those looking for a rich, legacy-driven experience: I’d say... wait. The core is absolutely there, and what exists already shows some real promise. But it still needs more time in the oven, more systems, and more love to really become the kind of game that legacy players can lose themselves in for years to come.

Storytelling:

Aside from the fact that we have a limited way of posing our ZOIs, let alone moving them around in photo mode as of right now, InZOI is amazing if you want to take lovely pictures of your character, and making a more "Legacy story" like thing out of it like I have done!

For that, I think the game will be just as fun as the other sims games, and definetly worth checking out!

This is of course assuming legacy isn't a big thing for you and you love taking pictures of your characters and place them in the world. 😉

Rotationary:

As I mentioned in my previous review, InZOI does show hints of supporting rotational play—but now that I’ve explored it more deeply, it’s clear that families currently don’t develop much on their own, outside of aging.

While it's possible for townies to progress without your direct involvement (I did notice a few pregnant ZOIs while playing other households), it doesn't seem like your own families will do much in terms of evolving independently. They won’t switch careers, develop skills, form new relationships, or pursue life goals unless you’re actively controlling them.

Even adjusting the City Management sliders, which I thought might influence this kind of progression, doesn’t seem to have much noticeable effect—at least not yet. That said, this is something that could easily be improved in future updates, or it’s possible I’ve just missed some subtleties in how it plays out over time.

Still, for now, I’d say rotational players should keep expectations in check—InZOI’s world feels beautifully reactive in the moment, but it doesn’t yet simulate long-term development across households in the way that truly supports a dynamic, living neighborhood.

If it's premade townies you're concerned about, please also check my previous review about the world: My InZOI Review - Part 2: The World

Chaos Play:

If you’ve got the money to spare, InZOI might be worth checking out just for its criminality system—which, from what I’ve heard, is already showing a lot of promise. While I haven’t explored it fully myself just yet (and might come back to update this part later), I’ve seen some wild stories from other players that genuinely made me giggle.

That said… if you're the type of player who enjoys bringing a little suffering to your ZOIs—whether through drama, danger, or good old-fashioned chaos—the options are pretty limited at the moment.

I spent an entire ZOI day trying to figure out how to kill my ZOI, and honestly? I started to run out of ideas. Fires are basically non-existent, you can’t get hit by cars, and even locking a ZOI in a room to starve doesn’t seem to work. The only confirmed death I managed, beside old age was from catching a cold—which, like… where’s the fun in that? 😅

So yeah, just know that InZOI isn’t quite ready for the chaos player crowd. Outside of the criminal options (which do seem promising!), there’s just not much in the way of risk, consequence, or dramatic demise… yet.

If that's your thing, you might want to wait until deaths and danger get more development—or you’ll find yourself poking around for chaos and getting mostly cozy vibes in return.

The Super Uber sim:

Often these types of players like to try out new things games have to offer with one immortal character that never ages (often townies don't either, but is not strictly the case!). Right now... after you've covered all the skills, there's really nothing much to do. By the time you've developed all the skills, you've probably checked out the lots you can visit and see what's up, but otherwise, you will find the game feeling empty.

As of the latest patch, InZOI does now include an option under the game settings menu to turn off aging though!

Hands-off vs hands-on:

Autonomy in InZOI is actually pretty solid! While it still struggles a bit when it comes to preferences—like, ZOIs who hate cleaning will still go around vacuuming the place—it’s still impressive how much they can handle on their own.

You can literally leave the game running for days, and your ZOIs will continue doing things like progressing crushes, building friendships, or visiting community lots through their scheduled routines. They won’t get married or start families autonomously (at least not yet), but they will move through social tiers in the background, which is great for players who enjoy watching stories unfold naturally.

ZOIs also head out to public lots automatically, using the scheduling system, which gives them a nice level of independence. It makes the world feel more alive, and your ZOIs feel less like Sims waiting to be told what to do.

So, if you're someone who loves letting the game run like a little life-simulation aquarium, and you're not overly focused on controlling every whim, this might totally be your thing.

That said… if you're the kind of player who lives for whims, wants, or goal-oriented gameplay, you might want to hold off for now. The Urges system, as it currently stands, is pretty underwhelming. They’re completely ignorable, don’t feel very impactful, and rarely reflect big life-changing desires like getting married, having kids, or pursuing a long-term dream. Right now, they feel more like mood suggestions than meaningful gameplay hooks.

But... should I buy it?

Generally speaking, I think it has it's charm, and for 40 dollars, if that's not much for you, the game's features and free updates are completely justified in my opinion. However, I would advise not jumping in with the ideas that you'll be getting a full-fleshed new sims game (maybe even replacement) of the sims games you already play. If you are expecting that, I'd wait.

The thing is, InZOI is in it's early access state for a reason and it does really show in it's current state. There's a lot in the gameplay that needs tweaking, and in my opinion, it needs a good look at the core mechanics of the game first before most sims players will feel at home.

As it stands, I do agree with more reviews giving it a 6/10. It's not a bad game, but it also has it's issues that seriously needs to be addressed and hopefully will be in the coming months.

All in all, I wish the developers a smooth development time with InZOI, as it really does have potential and can really become a fun game!

Thank you for reading if you reached it here! ❤