The director behind The Sims competitor InZOI spent 20 years making MMOs, but he ditched the massive RPGs after playing life sims with his son

InZOI screenshot from creation studio demo which depicts a shockingly realistic character model rendered in Unreal Engine 5 — (Image credit: Krafton)

The Sims franchise recently celebrated its 25th anniversary back in February of this year, and in that time – despite its massive popularity – The Sims’ reign has remained uncontested in the life sim genre. That could be about to change next month as the Krafton-published life sim InZOI is hitting early access on PC. However, the game's director, Hyungjun 'Kjun' Kim, revealed he was inspired to ditch his 20 years of creating MMOs thanks to his relationship with life sims.

Speaking with PC Gamer, Kjun explained why the life sim was what drew him away from MMOs, saying, "This is a genre I've enjoyed for a long time, especially since I have a wealth of memories playing these games with my son." He later added that his son was the inspiration behind InZoi, recalling, "My son asked me why there aren't more games like the ones we enjoyed together. That made me realize the need for something new in this genre – something that fans like us could cherish and enjoy for years."

Despite being vastly different genres, Kjun’s time working on MMOs actually turned out to be extremely valuable when it came to the development of InZoi. "My experience in creating vast maps and intricate items for MMORPGs has been incredibly valuable in developing inZoi," adding, "Designing and implementing expansive worlds is a core aspect of MMORPGs, and this expertise allowed me to effectively design the open world of inZoi."

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In what’s sure to be devastating news for the horny community, it was recently confirmed that InZOI will only "sort of" have sex.