‘I was recklessly brave to even think about creating a game of this scale’: Inzoi director admits he now sees ‘why so few companies have attempted to develop a life simulation game’

Inzoi director Hyungjun ‘Kjun’ Kim has not been quiet about how difficult developing a life sim has been. He’s repeatedly lavished praise on The Sims for seemingly achieving the impossible for the last 20 years, and called developing Inzoi “an entirely new frontier and a significant challenge” despite having over two decades of game development experience to back him up.

With Inzoi’s release finally on the horizon—yup, after a delay last year, it’s actually launching in early access this month—Kjun did some reflecting on his past, plucky self in his final Kjun’s Concerns column on the official Inzoi Discord.

“Looking back at myself two years ago, when I first decided to embark on this project, I can’t help but smirk knowing how recklessly brave I was to even think about creating a game of this scale,” Kjun said. “Now, I understand why so few companies have attempted to develop a life simulation game. The challenge isn’t just additive the more you try to build—it’s exponential. At a certain point, finding bugs in this vast world we’ve created feels like playing tag with invisible ghosts.”

Kjun continues by once again expressing gratitude for the foundations EA and Maxis have laid for the genre. “I have to say it again—The Sims team deserves endless praise for their incredible achievements,” he said. “As a longtime game developer, I can only express my deepest respect and admiration for what they accomplished in this genre.”

The director called Inzoi’s development “the biggest challenge” of his life, before thanking the game’s community for its “unwavering support” and adds: “If, by good fortune, the game reaches the level of success I hope for, I’d love to share my untold stories of Kjun and The Sims—the real reason I set out to create Inzoi in the first place.”

Considering Kjun has mentioned several times how big a fan of The Sims he is himself—and playing it with his son has been a major motivator for creating Inzoi—I think I’d get a real kick out of getting a peek behind the curtain of what he got up to in those games. I doubt he was exactly a Wicked Whims sicko growing up, but did he do the 100 Baby Challenge? This is the real, important info I need to be privy to.

With Inzoi just a few weeks away now, the nerves seem to be setting in. “Early access marks a new beginning for our team, and as much as I want to appear confident, I won’t lie—I’m incredibly nervous,” Kjun said. “No matter how hard we try, Inzoi at launch will still be an incomplete game. However, as I always say, Inzoi will keep on evolving and improving with your feedback and contributions.”

Though this isn’t the first time that Kjun has laid out just how difficult this genre is to tap into, I’ll always appreciate seeing him do it. With games like Life by You pulled at the finish line and Paralives still ticking away in development while The Sims goes unchallenged, it’s clear that life sims aren’t as cut and dry as some of us would like to think when we despair at our Sim grabbing a glass of water from the bathroom sink for the thousandth time.

For me, Inzoi is a game I’m cautiously anticipating. From my brief time with it at Gamescom last year, it was an experience that seemed to share similar struggles with The Sims—Zois not always doing what I wanted them to do, for example—and I’m not super jazzed about the all-in AI-ness of it all. But with early access so close now, I’m looking forward to giving it a chance and hopefully seeing it stand side-by-side with The Sims as another life sim to sink entirely too much time into.