The Sims 4's colorful competitor Paralives is bringing one of my favorite features from The Sims 3 back – the ability to customize literally everything

As EA continues releasing new content for The Sims 4 and hyper-realistic competitor inZOI gears up for its early access release later this month, another colorful life sim begins its hold on my heart – Paralives, an indie spin on the genre launching sometime this year.

The upcoming life sim incorporates some of The Sims community's most highly requested features, including throwback mechanics from EA's older entries like The Sims 3. Paralives' developers show these off regularly online, with their most recent post highlighting something I've been yearning for ever since The Sims 3 introduced me to it: the color and pattern customization tool. Everything in Paralives can be edited by players freely.

The game's items come with fun, premade swatches to choose from, too, just like those found in The Sims 3. It's a nostalgia trip with better, more vibrant visuals.

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"We now have premade swatch colors for close to 1,000 items," write the devs, with an attached clip of object customization in action. "Players can also edit their own to customize their builds," they add, showing off the color and pattern changing as well.

It's one of many features I'm excited about that the Paralives team has so far showcased, and there's hopefully not much longer left to wait now until the game's 2025 launch into early access on Steam.

After all, the past couple of years haven't exactly been kind to hopeful games like The Sims 4, with examples like inZOI's delay last year as well as Life by You and its cancelation springing to mind. For the time being, however, Paralives seems safe.

And if you're anything like me and are chomping at the bit to play Paralives, you can wishlist it now on Steam to keep up to date with any news from the devs. There are all sorts of progress updates to browse on Steam, too, from a look at the loft building in-game to a deep dive into the life sim's stunning day and night cycle.

Now, if you'll excuse me, I think I'm going to pour another thousand hours into The Sims 3 while I wait.

"Without any shareholders to please," The Sims competitor Paralives isn't doing paid DLC, because "the money we make from selling the game alone will be enough"