Hyungjun 'Kjun' Kim, the director of Krafton's life-sim game InZoi, might be the most honest game developer I've ever met. He admits that he gets scared whenever he releases an update for InZoi, and that he thought he "may fail [making a life simulation game] because it was just too difficult" – that explains why The Sims has dominated the life sim genre since 2000.
But, with InZoi selling over 1.5 million copies in its first year of early access, Kim's life sim has far from failed, even with a barebones launch and a litany of bugs and performance issues. I was invited to InZoi Studio in Seoul for an exclusive Q&A session to hear from the InZoi boss and learn about the struggles of the first year, and how the game is evolving on the road to its full 1.0 launch by March 2027.
Not so Simple
InZoi had a shaky first year. It shot past Kim's target of 500,000 sales, but the director also says via a translator that "a few hundred thousand returns" had been issued – due to the overall sales success of InZoi, Kim says he is actually happy to accept these refunds too. As well as technical and stability problems, there were complaints of soullessness and a general sense of disappointment that it wasn't quite on the same level as The Sims, points we brought up in our own InZoi review.
It's clear that Kim still feels he's bitten off a bit more than he can chew. "If I could go back in time and re-do [InZoi], I think I would be a bit hesitant," he says. "We have a lot of developers on the team because we need to review a bunch of code but the more code you have, the more complex the game is going to get."
Nevertheless, the team at InZoi Studio has persevered through one year of early access to deliver six major updates and one premium DLC, with Kim saying that launching in early access has been essential for development. He's also honest about the state of the game too, admitting that the game is "a bit unstable". "This genre is bound to have a lot of bugs," he says. "As a developer, this bugs me. I feel really sorry for the players."
Looking ahead to InZoi's second year, which is meant to culminate in its official 1.0 release, there's still a lot of work to be done. "This year, the goal is to complete careers and school so that one person's life can be enjoyed in full inside the game," Kim says, affirming that the InZoi team is still committed to building out the foundations of basic gameplay.
Other additions, including prisons, vehicles, and a karma system, are on InZoi's release schedule too. The team plans to ramp up its user-generated content (UGC) features to help make a dent in a list of roughly 200,000 player requests, which Kim admits he wouldn't be able to work through even if he spent the rest of his life working on InZoi.
The main addition for this UGC push is Canvastown, an expansion to the existing social media-like Canvas system that allows players to upload custom save files or craft specific experiences using a vibe-coding generative AI system for other players to try. Overall, Canvastown has been designed to help players get to the fun faster, a goal which Kim says was inspired by surfing YouTube and being repeatedly told by his nephew that becoming a criminal in InZoi by stealing things was taking too long.
Canvastown will also be joined by enhanced support for mods and even optional multiplayer, though this will be tested in phases. Altogether, Kim says that he's "a bit intimidated" and "afraid of how players will receive [Canvastown]". But he ultimately believes that building a robust modding system is important for the health of InZoi too.
This year, the goal is to complete careers and school so that one person's life can be enjoyed in full inside the game.
Speaking of InZoi's long-term health, I wondered whether Kim saw his life-sim ever getting the same absurdly large and pricey backlog of DLCs as The Sims 4, which currently has around $1,300 dollars' worth of add-ons on the Steam store. Aside from the resort-focused Island Getaway DLC, Kim says there are no plans for more expansions right now, with the focus being solely on the 1.0 launch and PS5 version of the game.
He doesn't rule out a change of direction from those above at Krafton, but Kim does jokingly wonder why InZoi Studio should have to pump out premium expansions. "InZoi is making a lot of money already, PUBG is making a lot of money," he says. "So, I always think 'why do I have to contribute to it?'"
With InZoi feeling more like a sandbox with each update, baking all these UGC features into the game this early feels like a good way to set it apart in the life-sim bubble before the 1.0 launch. Offloading development to fans in early access seems cheeky but given how ambitious InZoi is and how challenging it is to develop, I can hardly blame the team.
I'm still left wondering if InZoi really can take on The Sims. Its four-figure player numbers on Steam and bustling Discord indicate it's found a small and engaged audience, but with such an extensive roadmap and Krafton's recent shift towards making its Korean studios go global, it feels like InZoi's success hinges on being able to crack the Western market – not unlike PUBG's ongoing refocus on the West.
InZOI is one of many games like The Sims 4 if you want a little variety in your life simulation games.
