InZOI's developers say that the studio had no choice but to launch the game in early access due to its increasing complexity, and was inspired to do so by Western studios that built their games alongside players.
GamesRadar+ attended a private Q&A session at Krafton's InZOI Studio in Seoul, where InZoi director Hyungjun 'Kjun' Kim said via a translator that the ever-increasing amount of code within the life sim meant the developers "could not see the end result," but it seems taking some cues from studios like Larian helped.
Another InZoi developer present at the Q&A session adds: "Early access was not really a thing, especially for Korean developers, but we took a lot of inspiration from the Western companies that took that model of asking the community directly what they wanted, to adapt that immediately, and to have that be part of the development process."
"It was a new concept for us, but we saw the success stories of games like Baldur's Gate [3] and games that were literally created with the players, and we saw the effect of that and the end result of that," the developer says. "We found that to be a very new experience but an entertaining one as well that we wouldn't have otherwise."
Kim also says that, when developing InZoi, early access helped him understand its audience and reckons that older developers can end up trapped in their own thinking. "I figured that my target audience is going to be 20, 30 years younger than me," he says. "So, there is a gap and a discrepancy as to how the developer can understand the reality of the market."
He is also "always kind of apologetic to players" due to InZoi's early access launch, adding that he feels some players know the game better than himself at this point. Even so, Kim strongly recommends early access as a game development strategy, particularly to other Krafton studios.
The company itself has already stated it will be using early access to allow teams to "quickly validate a game's potential". Recently, PUBG: Blindspot – a free-to-play tactical multiplayer shooter – was permanently shut down on March 30, 2026, following an early access stint that lasted just over seven weeks.
Kim and the InZoi development team are continuing to make the most of the life sim's early access period, and it'll be interesting to see if the studio can stick the landing for the full launch.
