InZOI is the life-sim of your dreams, or at least that's what PUBG overlord Krafton is eager to reinforce during my attendance at the studio's Gamescom showcase. At first glance, I wouldn't blame you if your mind darts immediately to The Sims, but InZOI's ambitions extend beyond that obvious comparison point.
Producer and director Hyungjun Kim expresses the importance of playing your way, living by your own rules, and sharing your digital memories of inhabiting a glossy cityscape with your friends. In our hands-off look at best simulation games are already present.
An exceptionally dense character creation suite balances hyperreal fidelity with hilarity that wouldn't feel amiss in Elden Ring's lovably daft customization options. There's also the art of building your own home, whether you want it to be a palace fit for a king or the equivalent of a university dorm room after a messy night out. It's also full of surprising little details. For example, you can take a photo of anything you want and transfer it into the game as a usable asset.
Kim also shows off the nature of existing in a sprawling metropolis with hundreds of interactive citizens, known as Zois. Beyond the obvious social dynamics, there's even an infectious illness system in place. If your in-game child spreads their germs at school, others will soon complain while they sniffle and splutter. Zois have even been known to spread rumors among one another, and at one point during the preview, an in-game text message appears flagging a missed payment for a jacket. Krafton is reveling in the minutia of daily life with InZOI, but it never comes across as uninteresting or tedious.
InZOI isn't aiming for SimCity 4 levels of management grinding, but the world around you best battle royale games blush.
InZOI's sensibilities remind me of Second Life, but with less focus on bringing businesses to the metaverse, and more focus on the version you saw Dwight Shrute grow obsessed with in The Office. It's all about that feeling of the great escape, pulling back the curtains on a world that doesn't need to conform. Yet its irable sense of scope is also worrying. Despite Kim's reassurances that Krafton is taking its time to bring InZOI to fruition, the game's mammoth promise of unparalleled creative bliss sets in the kind of prelaunch doubt typically reserved for RPG titans like Starfield.
I've been trying to wrap my head around InZOI's gargantuan possibilities, letting the game consume my every thought since I left the showcase. The sheer number of things that have to go right for InZOI to transcend its genre contemporaries is staggering, so while its ambition is irable, I'm not yet fully convinced that this can all come together with a cute bow.
Krafton is yet to confirm the PC games on the horizon, don't forget to check back in with us for more Gamescom coverage through the week.
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