Is InZoi the Final Nail in The Sims' Coffin?

As a child, I spent hours watching young Cassandra Goth swing her heart out on a virtual swing set, belting out the world’s weirdest lullaby: "oh-ah-eey-ah--oooh ah oooh ah ah".

This was the beginning of an obsession that haunts me to this day.

From The Sims 2's introduction of aging and genetics to The Sims 3's open world and Create-a-Style tool, it seemed like The Sims franchise was on an unstoppable upward trajectory - with fans becoming increasingly ravenous for the next gameplay development.

But then reality hit hard with the Sims 4.

For 10 years, we intrepid players groaned and cried out in horror as the Sims 4 continued to underwhelm. And despite its underwhelming existence, it has persevered, largely due to a lack of competition.The Sims was all we had, and support for older games was vanishing. The modern mediocrity would just have to be accepted.

How did we get here? And now that InZoi has entered the picture - is it safe to say that the Sims franchise is officially dead?

EA Loves Money

In 2014 when the Sims 4 dropped into the scene, it was to sounds of muffled confusion. Where are the toddlers? Where are the pools? How am I supposed to torture my sims without pools?

The expansion packs that followed painted a stark picture of this new reality. Gone were the days when a single expansion could provide a comprehensive experience. The Sims 2: Nightlife, for instance, once offered vampires, bustling nightclubs, and vibrant city life all for $30. Fast forward to The Sims 4, and those same features are now spread across multiple packs - Vampires, Get Together, City Living, and For Rent - totaling a staggering $140.

For the dedicated player who's kept pace with every expansion pack, game pack, stuff pack, and kit over the years, the investment is sobering. The cumulative cost exceeds $1000 - a figure that feels almost surreal to type, let alone spend (she said, hiding her EA account from prying eyes while sobbing).

And that’s not even getting into some of the controversies (we won’t talk about the Toddler ball pit.) The point is, the Sims 4 has been letting down the players since its release - and no amount of money-grabbing expansions can fix the core issues with Sims 4 gameplay. By August 2024, after years of overpriced expansions and underwhelming gameplay, I’d lost all hope.

Hope On the Horizon

The year is 2024, and there I am, a broken shell of a woman. My beloved Sims franchise is crumbling in my hands like a stale cookie, whispering "I don't feel so good Mr. Stark" as it dissolves into pixel dust. My poor, long-suffering husband is one "The Sims is OFFICIALLY DEAD" rant away from packing his bags and leaving me to my virtual misery.

And then... I see it.

Like a beacon of hope in a sea of disappointment, there it is: the most beautiful, hyper-realistic, nearly uncanny-valley little being. It’s doing that adorable Korean K-pop heart thing with its fingers while striking a pose that would make even the most jaded Instagram influencer weep with envy.

InZoi is here, and for just a few glorious days, we all had access to its character creator.

Other Sims Competitors

I had heard whispers of InZoi by now. But I wasn’t certain it was for me. I’ve been waiting so long for the next “Sims Killer” that I’d stopped listening to new announcements.

Even Paralives continues to taunt me with its soothing designs and promising features, and while it's shaping up to be a delightful, cozy experience, it's not quite scratching that chaotic soap opera realism itch that drew me to The Sims in the first place.

Don't get me wrong, Paralives has potential, and I WILL be buying it - it's just more "peaceful afternoon tea" than "flaming kitchen at 3 AM because someone tried to make Mac’N’Cheese without first reading a cookbook for 4 hours." And with a small dev team, it’s taken a LONG time to come to life.

And then there’s Life By You. We’ll just pour one out for that game - which I was most excited for. We hardly knew ye, and now we never will know…ye…

So what is InZoi and what makes it a competitor to the Sims?

It was with narrowed eyes and a healthy dose of cynicism that made me boot up InZoi’s free character creator. Then I, along with 18,000 other players, proceeded to get our minds blown.

And you can see the results for yourself…

I went friggin ZOI CRAZY, ya’ll. This isn’t even all of the ones I made. That Saturday, my husband came out and said “have you just been making Zois for 5 hours straight?”

YOU’RE DAMN RIGHT I HAVE, BABY!

(Ahem.)

Anyway, InZoi has proven to be hours of fun - with a character creator that gave me the same excited feeling as Dragon’s Dogma 2 or CyberPunk 2077 - and those aren’t even Simulation games. The Sims 4 is just so far behind that non-simulation character creators have rapidly out-paced it.

The facial and body customization in InZoi uses a similar method to the Sims 4: dragging, pulling and clicking facial features in appealing (or horrific) shapes. That, however, is where the similarities end. Customizable colors, hair length, facial feature sliders, makeup sliders - and the ability to eradicate symmetry all make it possible to create a wide array of faces with eerily realistic features.

You can even customize the shape clothing items in InZoi, to a certain extent. Playing with sleeve length and cut on shirts, for example. Even better, you can easily upload your own patterns - or use the in game AI Image Generation tool.

Actually, if I’m being honest, the AI Image Generator tool was actually the worst part. I hadn’t figured out how to get anything even half-way decent out of it. Which actually brings me to my next point…

The Not So Great Stuff

As amazing as InZoi is, it doesn’t show much love to plus-sized members of society. I’m comically pear-shaped, but no matter how much I dragged those thighs, they just wouldn’t get thick enough.

And, there were other glitches - high-necked collars that glitched through skin, patterns not showing up on custom clothing the way they should have. It wasn’t due to my computer’s settings or ability to run this game, either.

But what makes it easy to forgive these details is the fact that this game is pre-early-access. We were given direct access to the unfinished product - so I was expecting glitches. You know where I’m not expecting glitches but getting a lot of them? The game that’s been out since I graduated High School.

I had more fun with that character creator, even with the glitches, and with its in-game photo tool than I think I’ve ever had with the Sims 4.

So Will Inzoi’s Existence Mean The Death Of The Sims Franchise?

The safe answer is, “We’ll see”. There were rumors that the Sims 5 had been canceled, but upon digging deeper I could find nothing substantial to these rumors. But, until Project Rene gets its butt off the ground and starts showing some exciting progress, I’m going to lean toward yes.

The sims will always hold a special place in my heart, I even made Cassandra Goth, Bella Goth and Don Lathario in Inzoi (their Sims 2 versions, of course). But, I’ve officially uninstalled the Sims 4 and added InZoi to my Steam wishlist, and I’m not looking back.