Inzoi is The Sims on steroids – and I’m optimistic about it

Michelle Brändle

20.3.2025

Translation: Katherine Martin

Pictures: Michelle Brändle

Krafton’s new life simulator is beautiful enough to make you fall in love with it. However, when it comes to games, looks aren’t everything. Though the developers didn’t disappoint me on that front either, my PC did have some trouble with the game.

On a leisurely stroll along the beach, I treat myself to a tasty hot dog and strike up a chat with my fellow beach-goers. The new outfit I bought at a boutique in town looks good on me. So good that I just have to capture it with a selfie. After that, I head off to my job at an IT firm, opting to take a taxi this time to avoid being late.

Sounds like a typical day, right? Putting aside the fact that my character lives on the beach and not in Switzerland, that is. In life sim Inzoi, there’s a wealth of possibilities available to you. Using an infinite money cheat, I finally manage to bag myself a beach house, dine out on the best food and drive around in an expensive car. All I need to achieve this is a computer (and a pretty powerful one at that).

Early Access and hefty performance requirements

I’ve got two forewarnings for you. One, when Inzoi’s released on 28 March, it’ll only be available in Early Access. It’ll remain at that stage for about a year, so it’s likely to have a few bugs and glitches. This is something the developer has warned me about. Two, your hardware will work up quite a sweat. Krafton has published a compatibility list in advance of the game’s release, and it’s pretty demanding:

I have an AMD Ryzen 9 3900X processor, 32 GB of RAM and an Nvidia RTX 3070 Ti. That puts me somewhere between the minimum requirements and the recommended ones. Plus, you need between 50 and 75 GB of memory. When you play the game for the first time, it automatically adapts to your hardware. The result’s usually fine in my book. Imperfections crop up on viewing platforms or when I do things like rotate my building in the game. In those situations, the game often freezes briefly or doesn’t display the graphics in the quality I’m after. The flow of the game is okay, but the frame rate stays firmly at 30 fps.

Creating Zois

Right from the moment you start creating your Zois (that’s what the characters in Inzoi are called) you have a ton of options available to you. As well as their appearance, you choose their desired life. Your Zoi’s life aspirations, hobbies and preferences can be changed later in the game. It’s during the character creation process that I notice the first glitches. Many of them are set to be fixed by the time the game’s launched in Early Access.

All manner of age groups can be assigned to your character right from the start – an option that The Sims only gradually introduced. I go for a married couple consisting of two young adults. The game allows for same-sex relationships, so I make both characters female. After that, I start looking for a home for my little family.

You get the choice of two locations for your Zois to live in: Dowon (a big city) or Bliss Bay (a seaside town). The second reminds me of Los Angeles, but according to the intro, the similarity is «purely coincidental». Keen to build a house on the beach, I go for Bliss Bay. The developers haven’t yet activated the third option, Kucingku, which apparently shares some similarities with a place in Indonesia.

Cooking and painting are learnable skills

Although you have a lot of freedom in designing your Zois’ everyday lives, there are a few things to guide you. The main thing is their basic needs – hunger, hygiene, sleep...you get the picture. If you set your Zois to «autonomous», they can usually look after themselves without intervention.

The second reference point to guide you along is ambition. This differs depending on the desired life you’ve assigned to your Zois. If you give a Zoi «family» as their main aspiration, they’ll want to get married and have kids. Choosing «perseverance» as a desired life puts the focus on sport and activities.

Zois also need to improve their skills. They even have to be taught things like cooking and cleaning. My girls, for instance, are only able to make themselves simple meals such as toast or salad at first. Later, there are more sophisticated dishes on the menu. If cooking doesn’t matter to your Zois, they can also just order food from their phone – these things are entirely up to you.

You also need to help your Zois pursue their hobbies. If you want your character to become a talented musician, you have to get them a piano and make them practise. You can even choose a genre for them to play. Aside from that, you can give them the task of learning how to compose music either on a PC or with the help of a book. As a result, you gradually build your Zoi’s talents, giving them level in that area. If you teach your Zois to paint, you can also sell their artwork. The more talented they are, the more money you can make.

Speaking of talent, your Zois also need to work on their speaking skills. They can develop their oratory talents by rehearsing in front of a mirror or having conversations. Your characters can interact with any other Zoi, be it at home or on the street. Options for these interactions include flirting, telling jokes and making impromptu bets.

If you befriend a Zoi, you’ll be able to send them text messages. Depending on how these conversations go, your relationships can improve or worsen. So far, most of the text message interactions I’ve started have been between my married couple. Right from the beginning, there have unfortunately been numerous duplicate messages. You don’t get to write them freehand. Instead, you choose whether your Zoi’s message should be positive or negative. Mind you, maybe that’ll change. You can type words into the text bar – you just can’t send anything yet.

Whenever you don’t fully understand certain behaviours or mechanics of your Zois, you have your Psicat on hand to help you. It’s basically a meowing reference book on four legs. In the German-language version, some of the translations aren’t quite right, causing the explanations to sound cryptic. However, I’ve coped just fine without the Psicat explanations so far.

Job-hunting via smartphone

In addition to sending texts and ordering food, you can use your Zoi’s phone to get all sorts of things done – including finding a job. Vacancies range from little part-time jobs and internships to university courses to full-time roles in the navy or IT. There’s a huge selection.

Once you sign up your Zoi for work or study, you can see their schedule on their phone. Although you can’t see the work itself, you can assign your Zoi tasks to complete. This earns them money and develops their skills and talents.

You can also add visits to public places or specific buildings to your schedule. If you go to the amusement park, for example, your Zois can meet new people, ride the Ferris wheel or try their luck at the claw machine in the arcade. Not all of the places and buildings have been unlocked yet. A chocolate shop near the amusement park is still a black spot in the game – at least in Early Access.

Construction mode and furniture design with AI support

Of course, alongside the right hobbies and leisure activities, Zois need the right living space. My favourite activity in the game is designing their home. You can build an entire house from scratch in construction mode, but it’s been complicated and fiddly for me so far. Although you can choose between different wall heights, pillars and basic shapes, the heights and widths never really add up. Something’s always a little off. I’m not sure whether the problem lies with the construction mode itself or me. Either way, it proves too much for my computer, making it freeze too often.

Designing the interior of my Zois’ home, on the other hand, is easy – and really fun. There’s a really wide selection of furniture, so I manage to fill everything from the bedroom to the hobby room. You also have a fair bit of freedom to choose the colour and some materials of individual objects. Certain furniture, such as chairs, can be combined from two different components.

Krafton even gives you the option of adding objects to the game using your own photos. You just upload them to the 3D printer in construction mode. Once the software has transformed your image into a three-dimensional object, you can use the coordinate system to specify the position of the bottom and top of the object. This allows it to be correctly placed in the game.

In typical AI fashion, the object turns out to be unattractive and takes too long to load. A chair I upload shows up with only three legs; the fourth is left hovering in the air. On the bright side, my guitar looks slightly better. And besides, I can’t actually use these objects anyway – they’re purely for decoration.

That’s not the only AI gimmick Krafton has squeezed into the game. One of the features allows you to create textures for furniture and clothes in construction mode using a prompt. The results are a bit of a lottery and take time to load. To try it out, I give the floor a pink fur rug with yellow dots.

The initial verdict: tons of possibilities, sluggish flow

In Inzoi, Krafton gives you a wealth of possibilities right from the get-go without overwhelming you. This way, you can comfortably get to grips with the game world, and never get bored. The everyday things my Zois do make me smile. My character often walks down the street with her eyes glued to her smartphone.

However, the game’s complex world, elaborate graphics and countless possibilities come at a price. The game often freezes when I turn the camera or try to pan out over the wide landscape. Although you should have the option to display the building with and without walls, switching views doesn’t always work. It pushes my computer to its limits too.

A few glitches caught my eye too. My characters are prone to walking inside walls instead of alongside them. Or they hover in front of park benches instead of sitting on them. Even so, imperfections like these are common in Early Access games, and aren’t a big deal.

After seven hours of gameplay, my two Zois have already improved a few skills, thrown a successful housewarming party and started their careers. Minor limitations, glitches and problems aside, I’m really taken with the game.

The parallels with The Sims are unmistakable. And yet, Unreal Engine 5 helps Inzoi set itself apart with fantastic graphics. Other aspects such as freely moving around using the keyboard also open up new possibilities. The complex text message interactions between the Zois are unique. I’m excited to see what else the game has in store. In the meantime, my Zoi’s off to take a nap on her roof terrace.

The publisher provided me with the PC version of the game for testing purposes. Inzoi will be available from 28 March for PC.

Michelle Brändle

Editor

Michelle.Braendle@digitecgalaxus.ch

In my world, Super Mario chases Stormtroopers with a unicorn and Harley Quinn mixes cocktails for Eddie and Peter at the beach bar. Wherever I can live out my creativity, my fingers tingle. Or maybe it's because nothing flows through my veins but chocolate, glitter and coffee. more

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