A human overview of Paralives: what you need to know about the upcoming indie life sim

The hunger for a hot new life sim in the Sims-like style is still going strong and everything we know about Paralives suggests it's going to be a worthwhile new contender next to The Sims series and Inzoi. It's being made by a much smaller team than either EA or Krafton, but is still planning to include features that have been long asked-for among Sims fans.

Paralives has been in development for quite a few years at this point, and it will initially launch into early access while continuing to work on expanding the possibilities of its Live Mode simulation. While we wait for launch day, here's what you should know about Paralives and how it stacks up against the current life sim crop.

Paralives release date

When is the Paralives release date?

It's a long time coming but the Paralives release date is May 25, 2026 for PC and Mac on Steam. It was previously scheduled to launch into early access on December 8, 2025 but was delayed into the next year about a month beforehand.

"Players enjoy the flexibility and the customization of the Paramaker and Build Mode," said Paralives Studio in its delay announcement. "However, there are still impactful bugs in the Live Mode and a lack of activities to do in the town, which dampened the enjoyment of the players, and we feel it is necessary to work on these before delivering the product to the community."

Paralives gameplay features

Paralives vs The Sims 4 and Inzoi

How do characters evolve in Paralives?

One big part of making a fun Live Mode is providing ways for your characters to evolve as you direct their lives. Paralives has a few systems it's shown off so far that give you incentives and rewards for the time you spend with a particular 'para'.

• Fulfilling "wants" to gain personality experience points
• Personality upgrades that give passive bonuses like special moodlets when using skills
• Unlocking additional interactions by leveling up relationships with other paras
• Unlockable job perks and opportunities like more daily pay for longer shifts or passives like bonus moodlets

What will Paralives add during early access?

Here's a list of things that Paralives is planning to add after its early access launch, according to its store page:

• Weather and seasons
• Dogs, cats and horses
• Cars and bikes
• Boats and houseboats
• Pools and swimming
• Calendar and organizing social events (parties, weddings)
• Story progression for NPCs
• Family tree
• Gardening and fishing
• Tools to edit and create towns
• More personality traits, wants, emotions, jobs, etc
• Advanced roof tools
• Advanced stairs tools
• Placing windows and doors on curved walls
• Basement tools
• Lake and pond tools
• Creating pets in the Paramaker
• Editing the genetics of a Para with advanced tools

Paralives Studio also keeps a development roadmap where you can track features currently in progress or planned for the future.

Paralives system requirements

What are the system specs requirements for Paralives?

System spec requirements are a big question for life sim players given that The Sims 4 doesn't always run so hot these days and Inzoi was pretty demanding on specs to account for its hyper-realistic visuals.

Paralives Studio says that it is "working on optimizing the game to make it run on laptops and lower end computers as much as we can." Final requirements may not be decided yet, but here's what's listed so far on the Steam page as the Paralives system requirements:

Minimum:

• OS: Windows 10
• Processor: Intel Core i5 or AMD Ryzen 5 @ 2.5 GHz
• Memory: 12 GB RAM
• Graphics: GTX 1060 or RX 6600 XT
• DirectX: Version 11
• Storage: 8 GB available space

Recommended:

• OS: Windows 11
• Processor: Intel Core i5 or AMD Ryzen 5 @ 3.0 GHz
• Memory: 16 GB RAM
• Graphics: RTX 2060 or RX 7600 XT
• DirectX: Version 11
• Storage: 8 GB available space