10 InZOI Features & Mechanics That Are Better Than The Sims 4

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The Sims

A K-Pop Idol from InZOI singing with some fans in the background.

Although The Sims has dominated the life sim genre since its inception, with its fourth entry currently holding the crown, InZOI appears as though it will finally rival the series, and it looks like it will be just around the corner. Other titles hoping to do the same, like Life by You, have been canceled or seem very far away, as is the case with Paralives. InZOI, on the other hand, offered a character creator demo from August 21-26, showing that the time for players to get their hands on the game is soon.

Ever since its announcement, InZOI has looked almost too good to be true, offering many features that The Sims 4 either didn't in the base game or at all. Players have been given even more insight into how big of a project InZOI will be after a seven-minute gameplay trailer broke down many of the game's key features. The title looks more than promising, and with everything it offers, it seems as though it will improve the life sim genre as a whole, one-upping The Sims 4.

9 InZOI Has Better Graphical Fidelity Than The Sims 4

The Title Looks Incredible

The least surprising thing about InZOI is that it is better looking than The Sims 4. This isn't necessarily the impressive part, considering that The Sims 4 is ten years old and can be run on practically anything, but the gulf between this title and InZOI is vast. At times, InZOI looks like an Unreal Engine 5 tech demo, which shows off how good the engine is with visuals, and the more realistic art style will help players make characters look like they would in real life.

Although it was revealed in May 2020, Unreal Engine 5 officially released in April 2022.

Of course, the downside of having a game as good-looking as InZOI is that players need better hardware. The game will launch on PC alone at first, and players will need beefy PCs, preferably with an RTX 3070, but this is a worthwhile trade considering the game's graphical fidelity. This extends to the characters, too, who look very realistic, and the added detail with more polygons means that InZOI has one of the best character creation systems around.

8 Cars Are Functional In InZOI

Driving Around The City Is A Key Feature

Without mods, cars were not a feature in The Sims 4, which is odd considering that vehicles were a key feature in The Sims 3. The Sims, presumably, take place in the US, where cars are the most used form of transportation, so their omission in the fourth title, even from a decorative standpoint, was disappointing. This won't be a problem with InZOI since the game has made sure that cars are front and center in traveling around the open-world city.

InZOI's gameplay trailer made a big deal about cars, showcasing them moving in the city and getting stuck in traffic jams. The realistic graphics help the cars look amazing, too, and there seems to be a great variety of vehicles in general. As a part of this, traveling about the city will be more immersive than teleporting from a household instance to another destination, as is the case with The Sims 4.

7 AI Can Be Used To Make Custom Textures

These Textures Can Be Used To Make Something Truly Unique

Decorating and furnishing homes is also a big part of life sims. For some, it is the biggest part, allowing players to bring out their inner architect and interior designer, and InZOI seems to have everything that The Sims 4 has to make the perfect home. One of the key changes is the use of AI to create custom textures to decorate a home. This seems to be simple to do, with players only needing to write a prompt to create an image.

These images have been shown to work on posters, wallpapers, and flooring, but it is implied that the AI will also work to help players decorate their homes. Not everyone who plays life sims wants to spend hours building a home and would rather get on with actually simulating life, so the AI decorating for them will save time and give their characters a nice place to live. This also helps pad out a finite number of decorations.

6 The World Of InZOI Is An Open World

Just Like In Sims 3

The Sims 4 suffers from putting every single household into its own individual instances that require loading. This isolates characters and means that interactions out in the world are rare. This wasn't an issue in previous titles, since The Sims 3 had an open world, and the added loading can make the game frustrating at times, while isolating Sims from each other when activities are happening.

The Sims 4 can be made into an open world with the Brookheights mod.

InZOI won't make the same mistake, and its world, which constitutes a city, is open to explore. This will encourage more interactions out in the world, which is more realistic, and means that players don't need to go to specific locations just to see other characters. Interactions can happen more organically because of this, and characters won't be as isolated as they would be in The Sims 4.

5 Images Can Be Imported To Make Textures & Models

Not many games allow players to import images. In fact, this seems to be a feature of older or more traditional CRPGs where a player can import images for their character's portraits, but InZOI has taken the logical step of allowing players to use their own images in the game. This makes sense from a decorating standpoint to help create a (technically) infinite number of items alongside the AI feature.

These images are not only used for 2D textures, which is cool enough on its own. They can also be used to make 3D objects for decoration, which uses the AI feature to give these objects depth. These items can be named and saved, but it could also mean that the InZOI game files will continue to grow and bloat as time goes on, meaning that players will need to prepare for more space than the required 75GB of space listed on Steam.

4 Players Have An Entire City To Customize

Make A City That Characters Want To Live In

Rather than just giving players a single household to customize at a time, as is the case with The Sims 4, InZOI lets players customize the entire open world. It isn't clear how much of the open world can be altered, but there are a few cosmetic things that can be altered at the very least. This includes changing billboard images and altering street elements, like trees and animals that wander about the city.

The characters that inhabit the city in InZOI are called ZOIs, and custom ZOIs can be made in the limited-time demo .

The game also gives the player power over the elements. The weather can be changed at any time to better set the mood for specific scenes and give characters the perfect environment for their activities. When paired with the extensive photo mode, this can be used to make in-game images very scenic. The city's settings can be altered too, with its cleanliness, safety, friendship rate, and many more all adjustable.

3 InZOI Characters Can Be Seen Cooking In Detail

The Food Looks Realistic

Cooking in The Sims 4 isn't bad at all. The animations are fun and expressive and show off certain levels of proficiency in the kitchen, but these animations tend to be shared across several dishes. In 2014, there wasn't the graphical fidelity to have realistic food, especially because this wasn't a key feature, but in 2024 and with Unreal Engine 5, food has never looked more realistic in a life sim.

Characters can be seen cooking in more detail, to the point where animations are specific to the food being made. The food itself looks picturesque, too, and is somewhat reminiscent of some of the dishes cooked by Ignis in Final Fantasy 15 despite being seen from afar. Just like in The Sims, characters can fail at cooking, requiring an extreme fire extinguisher after the hobs burst into flames.

2 Characters Can Have Violent Interactions

There Is More Than A Cartoon Cloud For Fights

Anger is a common emotion in life sims, but there doesn't appear to be many ways to express it in The Sims 4 other than starting a Looney Tunes-style fight, with the cartoon cloud and all. This isn't necessarily the most realistic, even if it is charming, but InZOI offers more in this regard. Characters are seen punching each other in the gameplay trailer, as well as comically throwing items at each other in frustration.

This shows the ugly side of human interaction, but it is realistic. All these interactions are very well animated, too, and this animation quality extends to practically everything in the game. Characters are shown break dancing, working out, doing yoga, posing for photos, and much, much more. All look to be lovingly animated and detailed enough to still look great when a player zooms in close to get a better view.

Sims 4 characters with money overflowing in the background.

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1 Activities Are More Interactive In InZOI

Players Can Go On A Roller Coaster In First Person

Although Sims in The Sims 4 can interact with their environment to a decent degree, InZOI characters can do far more, which makes sense given the open world. Characters can do yoga, play with sparklers and basketball, go to a fair, and play with many arcade machines. It even seems like characters can go to work, with the trailer showing off characters in a fast food restaurant, which is something that can't be done in The Sims 4's base game.

A good example of this level of interaction, and the impressive detail that has come with it, is the roller coaster, which allows players to enter a first-person viewpoint while on a ride, similar to GTA 5. It shows how InZOI appears to pay attention to the little details, and just like in real life, characters can pose and take photos in front of anything. These interactions will hopefully make the world feel more lively than any other life sim that has come before and make a game that can dethrone The Sims.

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