“Inzoi is a good-looking game with a lack of anything meaningful to do” is a sentiment I’ve shared often. And hey, now I have some numbers to back me up.
Developer Krafton recently held a livestream for a handful of its content creators—headed up by director Hyungjun ‘Kjun’ Kim—divulging some statistics like most-requested features and things players liked the most and the least. Some of the slides were shared by YouTuber Fantayzia, and they paint an interesting picture of where the game is at right now.
It’s no surprise to see that, by far, the things that hit the most with life simmers were the character customisation and the graphics, at 43% and 22% respectively. Create-a-Zoi is easily the most fleshed-out aspect of the game, and a big selling point that pairs perfectly with Inzoi’s more realistic art style compared to The Sims’ more cartoonish presentation.
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While I’ve personally always been a defender of The Sims 4’s looks, I totally get why so many people have been enamoured with Inzoi’s whole realism angle. All you have to do is take a look at the sheer amount of Alpha CC (user-created custom content that is more detailed and realistic than Maxis’ own style) out there for The Sims to see how hungry folk are for it.
Interestingly, coming in third with 15% of votes was the fact that Inzoi has created some competition in the life sim space. It’s something I’ve pointed to often as one of the game’s biggest wins. Even if Inzoi doesn’t particularly hit with me, I’m glad it exists, and anything to try and get EA and The Sims trying a little harder is a net positive in my books.
Some other positive notes were given to Inzoi’s build mode, “Korean and other Asian-inspired elements,” the inclusion of cars and driving, as well as each map being open world.
So then, what do people dislike? Overwhelmingly, people’s biggest issue with Inzoi is the fact it lacks simulation content, with 42% of responders touting it their least favourite part about the game. Sort of tangential to that is the game’s awfully stilted and awkward interactions, with 11% of players noting “unnatural relationships, interactions, and emotions” as their least favourite aspect.
Honestly, these statistics don’t surprise me at all. I had a hard time finding much enjoyment in the way Zois interact with the world and each other—strange texts between spouses about depression and therapy, conversation starters like “discussing the stock market” and other stale choices that often all lead to the same place.
The actual gameplay portion is certainly Inzoi’s weak spot right now, but listening to Fantayzia relay some of the key portions of the livestream, it seems as though working on that is one of Krafton’s top priorities.
There are other criticisms noted here too: Far fewer customisation choices for men and people of colour, weird conservatism that leads to things like every NPC being straight or being unable to have a child out of wedlock, optimisation issues, and a lack of multitasking.
While I’d certainly rank some of these criticisms higher—like multitasking and conservatism—most of the survey responses track with how I feel about Inzoi overall. What doesn’t quite track with my own feelings, though, are the most-requested features which Kjun shared in the same livestream.
Despite gameplay being the biggest critique, the top two most-requested features are, well, more customisation. More outfits, accessories, and hairstyles are what folk are hungriest for right now. I suppose it makes sense—people want more of what they like—but it does surprise me to see significantly more folk asking for that than for better job interactions, which sits at number three.
Simulation-related features do make up a good majority of the top 40, though: More jobs, having actual queer NPCs or non-marital children, better driving, more interactions for younger ages, and being able to actually cook meals for more than one Zoi at a time. There are plenty of smaller tweaks among the bigger asks, and it’s mostly stuff I’ve been wanting to see myself. Even if the priorities are a little out of whack compared to my own.
It’s worth noting that Inzoi is still in early access, which has led folk to be a little more forgiving of this stuff than usual. It’s still quite not enough of a justification for me to overlook certain aspects, but just knowing there’s an awareness and dedication to fix stuff up before a full release is good enough to keep Inzoi on my radar for the foreseeable.
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