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- Paralives is a life simulator game currently being developed by the {aralives Studio, an indie game development company founded by Alex Massé who has previously worked on simulator projects including Pewdiepie’s Tuber Simulator.
- The game gained hype when it was announced in June 2019 because it allowed players to resize objects, use a color wheel, and curve walls – features that Sims 4 fans have been requesting from the EA’s Sims team.
- Paralives has since gone on to have more fan-requested features such as height sliders, pets and weather in the base game, and a more robust personality system for its Parafolk.
In this house, we love and cherish the Sims 4 but Paralives looks like it’s going to be a competitor to the Sims franchise or, at the very least, a decent alternative. Alex Massé, the developer who began Paralives, officially announced that the game was in production back in June 2019, much to the excitement of Sims fans who were frustrated with what they saw as subpar in-game items, shallow gameplay, and lacking build mode features.
Paralives quickly gained traction online after the Paralives Studio published a video on YouTube that showed off the game’s fully resizable items that retained functionality and could be customized with a color wheel. And then, the biggest departures from the Sims 4 dropped: The ability to make curved walls and create custom size lots.
So, is Paralives going to be a competition for the Sims 4 and 5 or will it be another overly ambitious project that will fall short of the fan expectations?
Everything We Know About Paralives So Far
After Paralives was first announced in June 2019 on Twitter, the Paralives YouTube channel published a video showcasing the game’s window and curtain resizing features. This was soon followed by a clip that showed off two key build features that fans have wanted from the Sims 4: curved walls and split levels.
While the Sims 4 eventually added split leveling and curved walls in their build mode, the game is yet to have split walls. Plus, it still can’t add stairs curved corners and along diagonal walls the same way that Paralives can.
A follow-up clip in August that showed how players will be able to set their own lot shapes and sizes helped catapult the game into popularity. Compared to the Sims 4, which had fixed lot sizes that fans complained were spaced too far apart from each other, Paralives seemed to be a more powerful building game that offered more flexibility in terms of how you wanted your builds and neighborhoods to look like.
Fans were able to vote for and request additional features such as base game-included pets and weather systems thanks to the game’s Patreon page. By subscribing to the Paralives Patreon, fans could both assist in the conceptual side of the game and support the team’s development efforts.
By the way!
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Because of this, Paralives currently has all the most wish-listed features for the Sims 4 such as fully-customizable hair colors, picture frames where you can add your own photos without having to use custom content, and separatable clothing layers.
The game also introduced its Paramaker, its version of Create A Sim, in December 2021 where fans can adjust everything from a Parafolk’s height to their neck size. It also allowed them to give characters tattoos that could be placed anywhere on their body.
The latest gameplay update for 2022 was a video uploaded in September that showed Maggie, the first Parafolk revealed to fans back in May 2020, interacting with outdoor objects such as flowers and trees. The video showcased cute details such as letting your Parafolk smell flowers and lean against trees, both of which added a subtle realism to the game.
The popularity of Paralives has fans wondering if it will be a Sims killer or, at the very least, a decent competitor. That said, previous Sims competitors have been revealed to be scams, making fans wonder if they’re really going to get a game from the Paralives team that lives up to the hype.
Is Paralives A Decent Sims Competitor?
Paralives isn’t out yet so whether it’s going to hold a candle to the Sims franchise in practice is anyone’s guess as of 2022. However, given its small team of just 9 employees has been able to put together features that fans have asked from the Sims team for years, it may have a decent shot at becoming a serious competitor that offers a similar, but in some ways better, game.
For us fans, though, it’s best to temper our expectations. Paralives is an indie game made on a much smaller budget compared to the Electronic Arts-backed Sims series so the game may take years before it offers Early Access to Patrons, let alone gets released.
Plus, there’s also the matter of an upcoming Sims 5 release. While there’s no word yet on whether there will be one, fans have speculated that the Sims 5 may already be in development because of job listings posted by Electronic Arts back in 2021 that seemed to suggest that the next Sims game is going to be multiplayer.
While fans of the game have expressed dislike for fully-multiplayer sims game, that may change if the Sims 5 delivers the same features that Paralives already revealed were in demand. If that’s the case, the hotly anticipated Sims competitor may find themselves outshined with the very same gameplay features they’ve been working on.
Having said all that, a competitor to the Sims franchise would be more than welcome for life simulation game fans as the Sims hasn’t really had other games of its kind that deliver the same in-depth slice-of-life gameplay while being different enough to make its specific niche in the life sim genre seem fresh again.
When Will Paralives Be Released?
There’s no word yet on when Paralives will be released nor on when the Early Access for the game begins. There are currently a lot of rumors about a potential 2022 or 2023 release, but since there really isn’t even a beta for the game yet, it’s likely that we can expect to wait a few more years for Paralives.
For a polished Sims competitor that has ultra-powerful build mode capabilities, that doesn’t sound too bad.
Paralives PC Spec Requirements
The game isn’t out yet but if you want to be ready for its release, expect that it will have similar PC requirements as the Sims 4 which currently recommends the following specs:
Windows
- OS: 64 Bit Windows 7, 8, 8.1, or 10
- PROCESSOR: Intel core i5 or faster, AMD Athlon X4
- VIDEO CARD: NVIDIA GTX 650 or better
- MEMORY: 4 GB RAM
- HARD DRIVE: 18 GB of Hard Drive space
MAC
- OS: Mac OS® X 10.11 or later
- PROCESSOR: Intel Core i5 or better
- VIDEO CARD: NVIDIA GTX 650 or better
- MEMORY: 8 GB RAM
- HARD DRIVE: 18 GB of Hard Drive space
Paralives Updates 2022
Stay tuned to A Little Bit Human for more updates on Paralives because we’re just as excited as you are! You can bookmark this article if you want to check back for updates in the future as we will be adding more info to it whenever the Paralives team makes a major announcement.
