Sims alternative Inzoi is off to a huge start on Steam

By Brittany Vincent Published March 28, 2025

A city scene in Inzoi. — Krafton

Inzoi, a new life simulation game from Krafton in the vein of The Sims, is off to an explosive start on Steam. Launched in Early Access as of March 28, the title quickly surged to over 87,000 concurrent players, according to SteamDB, and is currently holding steady at just over 85,000 at the time of writing.

For comparison, The Sims 4 alone peaked at just over 96,000 concurrent players nearly 3 years ago, though Steam is not the only storefront or launcher that the game can be played from. For a genre long dominated by The Sims, the numbers reflect a growing demand for new and different (or more detailed) approaches to life sim games.

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Developed by Inzoi Studio, an internal team at Krafton, Inzoi was pitched as a next-generation alternative to EA’s long-running franchise. It features fully explorable cities, real-time interactions, and high levels of customization that go beyond what The Sims currently offers.

There’s also the value proposition: spend $39.99 now and get a wide variety of content that could eventually dwarf what The Sims has to offer, including AI customization and 3D item creation, or spend hundreds to build your collections of Sims content. The choice seems like an easy one for new players.

As we noted in our hands-on preview, Inzoi “feels like it was built by players who grew up with The Sims and wanted more control.” That’s exactly what you’ll get. The game offers a swath of deeper, more immersive mechanics. You can get a job, adopt pets, get married, and have a baby through dynamic in-world interactions instead of static menus, all of which should make for some silly or super serious fun, depending on how you play. Combined with its unique visuals, deep character creator, and custom settings, Inzoi offers a simulation that feels more grounded and lived-in.

Inzoi was originally set to launch in late 2024, but Krafton delayed the release to March 2025 for additional polish. As we previously reported, that delay seems to have paid off. With such high levels of engagement at its debut, however, Inzoi may not just be a new player in the genre – it has the potential to become its new frontrunner.

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Brittany Vincent

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Brittany Vincent has covered gaming, anime, tech, and entertainment for over a decade. When she’s not writing, she’s…

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But if you were looking to pick up the game on your Nintendo Switch, we've got some bad news. Here's everything we know about The Sims 4 coming to Nintendo's favorite handheld console.

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As gamers debate whether Xbox Game Pass burnout is actually here, Sony is launching its own enhanced PlayStation Plus subscription service on PS4 and PS5. New higher PlayStation Plus tiers started rolling out in Asia on May 23 and will make their way to the rest of the world over the next month. Unfortunately, a couple of issues already seem to be plaguing PlayStation Plus Premium during its first days on the market.
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A lacking game library
While this issue is subjective depending on how many games you've played and what you're looking for out of this subscription service, the launch library for PlayStation Plus Premium has been largely painted as underwhelming by fans. Even if it's a bit better than what a blog post earlier this month initially suggested, it mainly contains PS4 games a lot of hardcore PlayStation fans like myself have already paid for and played. Some questionable games like Balan Wonderworld and Mighty No. 9 also stand out even more thanks to the limited selection.
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The PS1, PSP, and PS2 game lineups are thin at launch, with major franchises like Sly Cooper and Metal Gear Solid completely missing. Trophy support isn't ubiquitous across all retro games, which is frustrating for trophy hunters. PS3 games are not natively emulated on the console; they stream from the cloud and don't include DLC originally released for them, according to VGC.
While this differs from person to person, the PlayStation Plus Premium lineup is starting off on shaky ground compared to Xbox Game Pass, which already gets flack for whether it has a good month or not.
Problems playing games
Unfortunately, there aren't just subjective problems with the library, as Sony actively seems to be releasing poor versions of classic PS1 games onto the service. According to VGC, the first-party PS1 games in the PlayStation Plus Deluxe tier -- the highest tier in Southeast Asia where the service has started rolling out -- are based on the PAL versions of each game, not the NTSC version. PAL PS1 games only run at a 50Hz refresh rate because they had to accommodate the dominant video format in places like Europe and Australia. Meanwhile, North American players experienced the NTSC versions of these PS1 games, which run at a 60Hz refresh rate.
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Upgrading memberships is messy
Players who bought lots of PlayStation Plus or PlayStation Now subscriptions at a discounted rate in hopes of converting them to higher-tiered subscriptions were met with disappointment on May 23. Sony reportedly requires players to pay the difference of their discount if they want to upgrade to the more expensive tiers. Couple this with the fact that you must upgrade for the rest of your current subscription, not just a few months or a year of Extra or Premium, and some players are having to pay much more than they expected to upgrade PlayStation Plus.
Yes, buying several years of PlayStation Plus or PS Now at a discounted rate in anticipation of the service for cheaper is gaming the system a bit. However, PlayStation's decision to surcharge the fans that are prepared to embrace PlayStation Plus Premium in this way doesn't feel like the best judgment call for a new service hoping to earn players' trust.
Is PlayStation Plus Premium doomed?
Despite these issues, PlayStation Plus Premium isn't doomed to fail.
Any new subscription service will have its fair share of problems, especially right out of the gate. Xbox Game Pass was not an overnight success; it had years to build up to become the popular (and sometimes controversial) subscription service it is today. The game library will improve over time as Sony makes more deals with companies for current-gen games and continues to port older PS1, PSP, and PS2 games to the service. They still have a chance to make sure it's the NTSC versions of the games available in North America, so we aren't playing slower versions of these classics. And once PlayStation Plus Premium's launch is months or years behind us, these discount surcharges won't matter to subscribers as much anymore.
Hopefully, Sony can learn from and correct these mistakes as PlayStation Plus Premium rolls out worldwide and subscribers utilize it for an extended period of time. If it does, PlayStation Plus Premium can be the Xbox Game Pass alternative that PlayStation users seem to want, rather than a rough first draft of something that Xbox is already doing pretty well.