PUBG publisher Krafton launched InZOI into early access on March 27, a life sim that aims to challenge The Sims. Built on Unreal Engine 5, InZOI features real-time urban environments, customizable characters, and fully playable careers.

InZOI had ranked first on Steam’s Global Top Wishlists, and upon release, it climbed to the top of Steam’s Global Top Sellers in 40 minutes. Within its first week, the game surpassed one million sales, and at the time of writing, InZOI has 85% positive ratings on Steam.

But turning a good launch into a lasting franchise will be a far harder task. Steam concurrent player counts (from a 80,000-plus peak to 10,000–20,000) and Twitch viewership (from a peak of 170,000-plus to about 20,000) have already come down from their initial highs. Sustaining momentum requires more than strong first-week sales — it means frequent updates, a compelling content roadmap, and building a community that sticks around for years.

APX Concurrent Players on Steam — *Source: Steamdb*

The Lone Reign of The Sims

The Sims has had the genre to itself for more than two decades. Since launching in 2000, The Sims has sold over 200M units and generated more than $5B in revenue. The formula — build a house, create characters, control their lives — has proven endlessly expandable.

EA and Maxis monetize through a modular DLC strategy. The Sims 4 went free-to-play in 2022, eight years after its initial launch and long after the business of The Sims had shifted into selling DLCs on top of the base game. Over time, EA has created an impressive feature and content moat: So far, there are 18 expansion packs for The Sims 4 (priced at $39.99 each), 12 game packs (priced at $19.99 each), and countless stuff packs ($9.99) and game kits ($4.99) that add features, objects, and environments. The newest mainline DLC, Businesses & Hobbies, was released on March 6.

This model has turned The Sims 4 into a platform of sorts, long before that term was fashionable — players build emotional and financial investments over time, often owning hundreds of dollars' worth of content.

Why has EA gone unchallenged for so long? Beyond the massive content moat, it is the complexity of building a viable alternative. A successful life sim requires flexible customization tools and the ability to simulate a vast range of player-driven scenarios in a sandbox world.

Few studios have the experience or budget to pull it off. While indie efforts like Paralives (from a small Canadian team) and Life by You (Paradox’s now-cancelled life sim) have tried, they’ve lacked the scale, polish, or staying power to pose a serious threat.

What Sets InZOI Apart

InZOI may be the first contender with enough weight behind it to matter. Backed by Krafton’s deep pockets, it enters the scene with both ambition and runway. Game Director Hyungjun Kim has publicly cited The Sims as inspiration and appears to be targeting longtime pain points in EA’s design playbook. In interviews, Kim has emphasized the team's desire to create a world closer to real-life cause and effect than the isolated systems of The Sims 4.

Indeed, InZOI sets itself apart through immersion. Unlike The Sims, where careers often happen off-screen and neighborhoods are split by loading screens, InZOI lets players follow their characters to work and explore the city in real time. Moreover, the tone and the visuals are more realistic than The Sims’ wacky, cartoonish style. It also introduces generative AI tools to streamline player customization and creation.

Perhaps even more importantly, modding support is baked in from day one. Krafton has put a lot of effort into the game’s built-in sharing platform Canvas, which helps players distribute their creations. That’s a big shift from The Sims, where much of the modding scene has lived in unofficial forums and third-party tools for years.

Finally, InZOI’s marketing has zeroed in on The Sims community wishlists: drivable cars, realistic jobs, open neighborhoods, and native mod support (all features that EA either removed or never fully embraced).

Still, building is only half the battle. Retention is another, and The Sims community is sticky. It skews heavily female and creatively driven. Players don’t just play: They build legacies, film machinima, and mod their worlds. Many own dozens of DLCs and have curated their installs over years. Convincing this audience to start fresh in a new sim, no matter how pretty or ambitious, is a tough ask. Krafton is doing its best to get The Sims players to at least give InZOI a shot — the base game is priced at $39.99 (the same as a typical Sims expansion!), and all updates and content during early access are included for free.

That said, InZOI may not be chasing the same audience directly. Greater realism, urban nightlife, and high-definition avatars may resonate more with users outside The Sims core, particularly younger and more male-leaning PC gamers. That might be a mismatch with The Sims' core demographic, but it could also work in InZOI’s favor by expanding the life sim audience rather than pulling from it.

Geographically, there’s room to grow too. While The Sims has strong penetration in Western markets, its traction in East Asia has been more limited. In 2023, EA reported that 75% of new Sims 4 players came from outside North America, with standout growth in countries like Brazil, France, Germany, the UK, and Poland.

The absence of Asian countries from that list suggests comparatively lower engagement in the region. InZOI, developed by a Korean team and styled with regional sensibilities in mind, could find success where The Sims never fully resonated. Krafton, with its local roots and marketing infrastructure, is also better equipped than EA to localize effectively and build momentum in these markets.

The Life Sim Genre Finally Moves

APX Sims — *The Sims’ cartoony style (left) vs. InZOI’s realism (right). Source: Steam*

From EA’s perspective, the threat is limited but not irrelevant. Even if InZOI doesn’t peel off a massive share of The Sims’ player base, it introduces real competition in a market that has lacked any. That alone changes the strategic outlook for EA and Maxis.

In 2023, EA began teasing Project Rene, the next generation of The Sims. It is still some way off, and much about it remains unclear, but EA has said it will be free-to-play, support cross-play, and won’t replace The Sims 4, but run alongside it.

A credible competitor could accelerate its timeline or force bolder design decisions, but major innovation won’t come easy for EA. Any major shakeup risks undercutting the DLC-driven cash cow that’s kept The Sims 4 thriving for nearly a decade.

The larger question is whether InZOI becomes a second pole in the market or simply the spark that forces EA to evolve. Right now, both outcomes are plausible and not by any means mutually exclusive. If Krafton executes well on performance, content updates, and community tools, InZOI could become a sustained alternative. If it falters on usability, crashes under the weight of its systems, or fails to attract modders, it risks fading away.

There’s an interesting parallel in how EA lost its hold on the city builder genre. SimCity defined it for years, but the 2013 reboot flopped as DRM issues, lackluster gameplay, and server problems drove players away. It was Cities: Skylines that delivered what players were craving: bigger systems, mod support, and the fundamental mechanics done right.

The life sim space isn’t there yet, but the lesson holds: Dominance can crumble fast when a competitor delivers what core players have been asking for.

Krafton doesn’t need to beat EA to win. Even a small share of The Sims’ audience — whether it’s Asian markets, the male audience, or a new generation of players — could make InZOI a commercial success. By showing that there’s still demand for innovation in life sims, it may help grow a market that’s long been a party of one.

The real impact of InZOI may not be in what it takes, but in what it awakens. With generative AI just starting to shape how games are built and played, the life sim genre is wide open to change in ways we can’t fully predict. If EA doesn’t step up, someone eventually will, just as Cities: Skylines did. Just as likely as InZOI, it could be a surprise competitor from left field, armed with fresh ideas and fewer legacy constraints.

Either way, after two decades of near silence, the genre is finally moving again.

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