[06.19.26] After the Update: Our Focus on the Base Game (Updated)

Hello everyone, this is Kjun.:folded_hands:

I’m posting this a little earlier than usual after finishing the update.

I wanted to leave this message because I feel sorry that we released the update before fully stabilizing the base game. Strangely, the more we continue development, the more issues we seem to discover. Still, we are learning little by little, and although I feel heavy-hearted, we are continuing development with hope.:psycat_sad: :psycat_sad: :psycat_sad:

I know very well that many of you have been patiently waiting for improvements. Starting next week, we will focus only on fixing issues in the base game and strengthening the connection between existing content.

For the next update, our goal is to make the features we have already developed connect more naturally with each other, so that inZOI can feel more like real life.

We are approaching this problem in two main ways.:smiling_face:

The first is through better numerical control. This means improving the internal values, priorities, and conditions that affect character behavior, needs, schedules, and the overall simulation flow.

The second is by adding active situation-control features. We want to give players better ways to understand, guide, and manage what is happening in the game, so the simulation feels more connected and intentional.

Once again, I’m sorry that this build still did not achieve the most important goals: the stability of the base game and the depth of the simulation.

However, I hope you can continue to trust that the inZOI team is listening to your feedback, improving from it, and growing through the process. There is a saying that it is always darkest before dawn. Although the inZOI team still has many shortcomings, I believe that if we keep working sincerely and consistently, we will eventually reach the game we are aiming for.

I’m sharing today’s video a little earlier because I was worried I might forget again.

In the video, we also wanted to show one possible direction. If some of the areas where we are still lacking can be improved more easily and quickly through mods, perhaps the community could help expand the game in ways that are difficult for us to address immediately.

We are curious whether this kind of approach would be satisfying to you as well.

Please share your thoughts with us.:folded_hands:

Thank you.

Kjun :growing_heart:


Kjun’s Reply to Your Comments

Hello everyone,

Thank you once again for taking the time to share so much feedback with us. We have carefully read through all of your comments, and while organizing this round of feedback, it gave us another opportunity to reflect on what the community is truly hoping to see from inZOI and where we should focus our efforts moving forward.

This week, many players responded positively to the new features that have been added to the game, including schools, businesses, vehicles, family systems, shopping, relationships, and various life simulation activities. We are grateful to see that these additions are being noticed and appreciated.

At the same time, one message appeared repeatedly throughout the feedback:

“It is no longer about how many features exist, but about how those features connect with each other.”

For example, if schools exist in the game, they should be more than just places where Zois attend classes. School life should influence grades, friendships, personality development, future career opportunities, and family relationships.

Businesses should be more than a way to earn money. They should connect with customers, employees, economic activity, daily routines, and lifestyles.

Vehicles should not simply function as transportation. They should influence schedules, commuting patterns, lifestyle choices, and everyday decisions.

Ultimately, what many of you are asking for is not a game with many separate systems, but a simulation where every system affects every other system and creates experiences that feel closer to real life.:saluting_face:

As we think about the future of development, our focus is shifting from simply asking “What should we add next?” to asking “How can we make the systems we already have interact more naturally?”

One example of this direction is our upcoming improvements to the cooking and meal systems. Ingredients obtained through farming and fishing will be usable in recipes. Leaving food unattended in the oven may cause fires. We want more situations where different systems naturally interact with one another and create meaningful consequences. By strengthening these connections, we hope to create a world that feels more immersive and believable.

We also saw a great deal of excitement surrounding mod support. Many players pointed out that modding communities can greatly extend the lifespan of a game, and we completely agree.

However, we also noticed a concern that appeared frequently in your feedback.

Mods should expand the game, not complete it.

We share this view.

Core gameplay systems, simulation depth, stability, and natural interactions are areas that should be the responsibility of the official game. Mods should serve as a platform for creativity and expansion, not as a requirement to fix or complete missing fundamentals.

Stability remains another major priority for us.
Recent feedback included reports of crashes, regressions, UI issues, unexpected behavior, and bugs affecting various features. While adding new content is important, we fully understand that a stable and reliable experience is the foundation of everything else.

Regression bugs, in particular, can significantly impact the player experience after updates, and we are treating them with a high level of urgency. Alongside new feature development, we will continue dedicating resources to stability improvements, bug fixing, and overall quality enhancements.

One of the most frequently discussed topics in this round of feedback was the depth of the Zois themselves.

Many comments discussed schools, hospitals, businesses, families, and other systems, but underneath those discussions we saw a common desire:

“We want Zois to feel more human.”

Players want Zois who react differently based on their personalities, experience different emotions depending on their relationships, remember important moments from their past, make decisions based on context, distinguish between family and friends, and experience conflict, growth, and reconciliation.

The more these elements are strengthened, the closer the game moves toward becoming a living simulation rather than simply a collection of features.

We have already begun moving in this direction through systems such as newborn development, personality evolution, and the acquisition of traits through life experiences and consequences. Going forward, we plan to expand personality diversity, lifestyle archetypes, contextual behaviors, and reactions to surrounding situations. We want relationships to feel more meaningful and immersive, and we will continue improving how Zois understand and respond to the world around them.

Our current priorities remain clear.

First, we will continue addressing crashes, stability issues, performance improvements, and major bugs.

Second, we will deepen the core simulation systems, including personality, relationships, emotions, memories, and autonomous behavior.

After that, we will continue expanding the world and introducing new content in a more sustainable way.

Modding and UGC will also remain important long-term pillars of the project, but we believe they should grow on top of a strong and complete foundation.

The feedback you provide is much more than a list of feature requests. It helps us understand the direction in which the game should evolve.

We still have many areas where we can improve, and there will be times when we cannot solve every problem as quickly as we would like. However, one thing is certain: we continue to learn from your feedback every day, and our goal is not simply to add more features, but to create a simulation that is more stable, more natural, and more deeply connected.

Thank you, as always, for your honesty, your support, and your passion for inZOI. We will continue listening, improving, and doing our best to show those improvements inside the game itself.

And finally…:smiling_face:

This may technically be another new feature, but hopefully you’ll forgive us for that.

We’ve implemented family photos!

As a small celebration, we’d like to share one with you. Maybe one day we’ll all gather together and take one giant inZOI family photo.

Wouldn’t that be something? :grinning_face_with_smiling_eyes:

KJUN :growing_heart:

35 Likes

I really like that that responses to events, such as a partner cheating, are becoming more personal. A similar area I think needs improvement is the scenario in which a spouse discovers infidelity through a friend or family member who witnesses the affair.

For example, I had a zoi who cheated on his wife in front of their son. The son showed no emotional response to the cheating except a thought bubble with an unrelated icon next to the father’s image. The father then received a text from the wife suggesting that she knew he was cheating but the wife showed no emotional response or any indication of knowing about the affair until after the father opened the text message.

Zois need to have an emotional response to witnessing someone cheat on their partner, depending on their relationship with the cheating zoi (or their partner). Also, if a zoi finds out that their spouse is cheating, the events leading to this discovery should be clear. Perhaps, in the situation above, the son could have called his mother or even sent a text message to let her know.

12 Likes

I love the furniture customization feature! It’s so cool.

I’m a bit worried about his question on mods. I don’t think mods should ever be used as a replacement to official features because they can’t be as easily maintained and a creator can abandon their mod at any time. There are also people that can’t or don’t want to use mods for whatever reason whether it be game stability or the desire to keep it “original”.

Obviously mods can be a great tool that can help to expand the game, but I really hope that it won’t because an issue where the devs rely on modders to make their game for them like some other games do.

12 Likes

What exactly do you mean? You can play without mods if you want. But there are also people who like mods like me and that’s perfectly normal.

7 Likes

How this is big, good news am so excited!!! Well, am more excited on the zois behaviors and autonomy, on the I don’t know if it’s active game play :play_button: and lastly on the advanced customizations, so that’s why I say thank u K-Jun and your team for the good work.

But what I would like to see is a more flexible Hospital because, you’re updating it, but it would be greater if we can go inside well, I know this is a lot of work but thank u if u could consider it!!!

Oh and we would also like height sliders :innocent:

3 Likes

I was referring to this paragraph. “In the video, we also wanted to show one possible direction. If some of the areas where we are still lacking can be improved more easily and quickly through mods, perhaps the community could help expand the game in ways that are difficult for us to address immediately.”

Maybe I’m reading it wrong, but it made me concerned because it sounded like he was implying that modders should be working on improving the game because it could be “easier and quicker”.

4 Likes

In the video, we see a character interacting with a ball in a way that feels surprisingly free rather than fully scripted. It almost gives the impression of a mini-game emerging naturally from the game’s systems. If this level of interaction could be extended to more objects and activities in InZOI, it could make the world feel more dynamic, increase player freedom, and create many more opportunities for spontaneous fun.

10 Likes

The update looks wonderful and the letter to us about how the team is focusing on fixing issues in the base game is truly excellent. Those that want new and exciting game play has received and those that want deeper immersion in the experience are being heard too. K-Jun and the teams are focusing wholeheartedly on making this game the best it can be and this is why we are all happy and grateful for the dedication. I don’t really have anything to add but my message is that taking care of the base game whilst modders take care of new innovative gameplay interactions and objects etc is a great way to keep the good content coming and stabilization of the game, all at the same time. Thank you guys!

5 Likes

“Steam Verification Failed” error still appear

1 Like

I for one do NOT want to rely on third party mods to customise anything , I have seen them break games too often especially when a game gets updated ,

4 Likes

I just updated it. I successfully activated about 500 mods. :wink:

6 Likes

we do need pets

7 Likes

Thank you for the update!

I look forward to the non-linear scaling for objects that you showed in the video. Also, the zoi being able to follow the ball and continuously kick it is amazing and that is exactly the kind of free will the game needs!

You asked for areas that are still lacking: I would say the most obvious is Terrain Tools for Build mode so the game isn’t so flat, and would allow basements, which are common for many people. For CAZ, adding height options is a thing people would enjoy very personally. Maybe something as simple as allowing tall women at the current men’s height, and short men at the current women’s height. Adding those things would help a lot for immersion.

Thank you for making unlocked items permanently added to CAZ and Build mode. I hope that includes holiday themed items going forward. The game is coming along wonderfully!

7 Likes

I’m looking forward to this update and the next one. I think focusing on connecting the existing game experiences is an excellent goal.

I still would love home decorating as a full career. The Dream Home Decorator was my favorite Sims pack, and I hope to get something similar in a future update.

As for the school updates, I’m perplexed about having a weekly prom. I don’t know if the weekly proms are due to the limited gameplay features in high school, but I think prom should be once every Zoi year. At most, 1 homecoming (basically a prom but more related to football) and 1 prom event per year.

Even if no one in my Zoi family is in high school, it would be immersive if you see everyone dressed for the occasion of prom or graduation. It would make the game more whimsical and something I want to play often.

I don’t like the idea of relying on mods for new features. I think mods are great for decor items and minor tweaks to the game, but modders are not paid, so it’s not fair to use them to complete the fun aspects of the game. I think it’s better if you temporarily hire 1-3 of the most experienced modders and pay them a small stipend through an internship. Even a $1000-3,000 stipend and a strong letter of recommendation in exchange for a 6–9-month internship is better than nothing. Their work during the internship would be released as part of the core game, not a mod we have to download. Just a thought. I know you have many things to consider, and I look forward to the next update.

Take time to rest and recover. I appreciate all the hard work of the dev team.

1 Like

I’m waiting for the ability to scale and raise objects!

I’d also be happy with the ability to add objects above doors and modular windows stacked on top of each other. I tried it but it’s not possible yet, and that would give us the ability to create our own windows.

And of course, I’m missing terrain editing tools, especially painting as well as some tool that would allow visually connecting residential plots to the sidewalk - maybe that area could be painted with appropriate textures?

7 Likes

Kjun and Co please look into this immediately I am not the only one having this problem.

2 Likes

I really enjoyed the designer career where people would create requests, and you could choose whose renovation you wanted to do (with brief descriptions of what the person wanted and what they hoped to see). What made it special was that it took into account what the person themselves wanted to add (certain items or furniture), while the rest was up to your own creative discretion—whether you knocked down walls or added a piano in the middle of the room and some small picture frames. And when the person came to accept the work, they would appreciate that you’d added certain details they hadn’t even asked for, or they’d thank you for staying within budget and not spending everything.

3 Likes

I really like the idea of being able to freely resize objects but I was hoping to see this as a feature in the game, even if only as a cheat. I am currently playing on GeForce now and cannot use mods.

3 Likes

I hope the next update will include a local video playback feature.