I would like to start with, I love this game and have been enjoying the progress the developers have made!
When I first saw the Island Getaway DLC and was able to download it for free I was beyond excited but that excitement quickly died when I loaded into the resort lobby and my worst fear was swimming in a tank right behind my zoi, and not only was it that animal but the very worst specific type (a GWS). Unfortunately this has prevented me from exploring all that Island Getaway has to offer, as every time I see the animal it truly frightens me.
Is there anyway to create a setting allowing us to opt out or zero out the appearances of the sharks. Although this may seem like a non-issue to some, it really hinders me from getting the full experience of the expansion. Especially seeing that the new update has really expanded on the Island Getaway experience.
Well, no, I think this shouldn’t be done. Why should developers waste time, resources, and money on people who are afraid of something? Your fears are only your problems, not the developers’. Of course, I’m not trying to insult or belittle those who are afraid of something, but if you’re afraid of something, then why do you put yourself in a situation where your fear lies? If you’re afraid of sharks in real life, you don’t go swimming in seas and oceans — where they live, right? Or you don’t watch TV shows or videos about them, and you also don’t go to an aquarium to see them. So why do you then deliberately go to the location where they live in the game, get scared, and demand that they be removed from there?
Phobias are very irrational things. You can’t blame someone for having one. And logic won’t work here. Especially now that the game has a real shark attack. It’s not just “a little scary” — it can be very seriously shocking for the affected audience, even causing screams of terror and making it completely impossible to continue playing.
As for “Why are you going where they are?” What are the options if someone wants to enjoy safe underwater swimming, searching for treasure, coral, and shells? Especially if the fear is so serious that even seeing a drawn shark in an aquarium is unbearable?
So it would be helpful to have an option to “Enable — Disable dangerous fish/animals.” Especially if the game will later implement land-based dangers, like lions in the jungle or wolves and bears in forests when they appear. There are quite a few people who would want underwater and countryside walks to never end with the outcome “You were killed by a panther that jumped on your head from a tree.”
Yes, it’s not scary for me and you. But a 12-year-old kid, especially one with a possible phobia… Should they never walk in a forest and never swim in the ocean? They can’t do it in real life anyway, so let them at least have the chance to do it virtually!
Especially since I think a toggle like this won’t affect anyone, who still wants to keep sharks. There are games already that have an arachnophobia toggle. The new update introduces scuba diving and the Cahaya DLC is mostly about water. I get that this might raise questions as “but what about xyz phobia?” and that is fair, but the new update basically advertises the freedom of scuba diving and I don’t think shark phobia is that uncommon. There were people requesting pests and bugs as well and one of the first comments were “okay, but only if I can turn them off”. Same situation there.
I agree with @Carnel and @Minthyuyu here. As long as there’s a toggle for shark attacks, it should definitely be a good addition for anyone with shark phobia and won’t affect all other players. A phobia shouldn’t keep anyone from playing life-sim games, so I hope to see a toggle for this effect anytime soon
I’m not demanding the change, i’m simply suggesting an opt-out option. Which I thought this forum was meant for. To be honest with you, I never planned on using the scuba option because like you just said I imagined there would be sharks there. But for it to be in the resort lobby??? That’s my fault?? So I just shouldn’t use an expansion for a game I paid for? I appreciate everyone else in this thread who had some compassion and I would hope any of your SUGGESTIONS are given the time of day by the developers. <3
as someone who plays the game and has a fear of sharks i completely agree! it’s not your fault that you have the phobia and it was literally just you expressing something that isn’t a bother to anyone. a quick toggle button is a cool option as well.
Just so you know, sharks are only found in special danger zones where their presence is clearly marked. So you can absolutely go scuba diving right now or simply snorkel not too far from the shore — and nothing bad will happen to you.
Give it a try! Maybe this will gradually help you overcome your fear in real life too
Well, first of all, as you’ve already said, players don’t have to go into those zones that are there. They’ll figure out for themselves where to go and where not to go. Second, if we give in now, what’s next? For people with social phobia — we remove people, for people with claustrophobia — we remove houses, and so on Besides, implementing a single on/off toggle in a large project is quite costly in terms of time and finances. Making an on/off toggle isn’t enough — you also need to attach all the necessary objects to the locations, program them, and then debug it so it works without errors + also check that it doesn’t affect other aspects of the game. Yes, for small projects that’s not a problem, but InZoi is a big game, and you can’t just do it on the fly here.
I get the technical argument. Adding a toggle is obviously not just “press one button and done”; the sharks would have to be properly accounted for in the relevant locations and interactions, and that would need testing.
But the rest of the comparison honestly feels pretty weird to me.
Claustrophobia is not “being scared of houses,” and social phobia is not “being scared of people existing.” Those are completely different kinds of fears and situations. In inZOI, you can also simply avoid most social interactions if you want to, and there is literally an introvert trait that prefers being alone.
A shark phobia is much closer to a specific visual/animal trigger, similar to why some games offer arachnophobia settings. You can be triggered just by seeing the animal itself.
And “just avoid the shark areas” does not really solve the original issue either, because there is already a shark in the resort lobby aquarium. The OP did not deliberately swim into a marked danger zone and then complain that sharks exist there.
I also don’t understand this slippery-slope argument of “if we add one phobia option, then what about every other phobia?” Accessibility options do not have to work like that. Devs can look at each case individually and decide whether an optional toggle is technically reasonable or not.
So yes, the technical side is a fair point. The comparisons with “remove houses” and “remove people” really are not.
Edit: Maybe a toggle to at least remove the sharks in areas that are not as easy to avoid like the lobby would already be sufficient then, since OP mentioned they wouldn’t even go scuba diving. But to at least avoid it in an area where it really is not necessary to have a shark.
First of all, you got the island DLC for free, just like the rest of us — you didn’t pay for it, so don’t lie. Secondly, you’re right — the developers will decide, but I still think there are too many settings and they need to be reduced. Even so, your fears are only your personal responsibility to yourself, and you’re trying to shift that responsibility onto other people. Why do I say that? Because in hundreds of hours of playing, no shark has ever attacked my Zoi — what do you think is the reason? The answer is obvious: I simply don’t swim to the place where they are — see how simple it turns out to be.
I also have phobias, but for some reason I don’t demand that game developers remove them. I’m smarter — I just don’t go where they’re present, or I don’t play those games at all. Because my fears are only my problem. And that’s normal for adults, for reasonable people.
But if you ask me — it’s the opposite: the more settings, the better.
At the same time, the game starts with a default set of settings, so nobody has to spend hours configuring the game to their liking just to start playing. But then, as you play, anything you don’t like can be flexibly adjusted — is that bad? It immediately removes a whole bunch of questions in the style of “no, I want it this way, and everyone else should just bend to my will.” Everyone gets exactly what they want.
And I want to emphasize the most important point, which you apparently really did miss: the shark — in the aquarium in the lobby! It’s not even trying to swim in the ocean, it just came to the resort — and can’t stay there because it physically makes it feel bad. The discussion was primarily about this shark that appears on land. I already suggested afterward that they could be disabled all at once — both in the ocean and in the aquarium. Of course, an option like “Disable shark in aquarium in Cahaya resort lobby” would be very strange. But “mass disabling of predators” would solve both this problem and the dangers in the ocean (and in the forest in the future) at once. Remove all sharks and jellyfish in one go — and done. And for all other players they’ll still be in place — both in the ocean and in the aquarium.
In this case, it’s actually not that much work. Each zone in the ocean is already regulated — when we swim there, we get a message. All that’s needed is simply to “turn off” two types of fish — sharks and jellyfish, plus “turn off” those zones. They weren’t always there anyway; the developers added the fish — which means those lines of code are fresh in the developers’ minds right now.
Let all the treasures and other things stay. And nothing else changes in the game — the same jellyfish burns. It’s just that when they’re not there, there are no burns, meaning it doesn’t affect deep zone-world interactions at all.
We can already disable “active mode” so there are no fights. Because that’s violent content. How is the other category of violence any worse? I’m personally not sure that in the future I’d be happy if in the forests where zois go, they’d have the risk of being stung by a viper or strangled by a python. Or, as I already wrote, mauled by a wolf or bear. I don’t have phobias, but for me such game behavior would only be desirable in specific cases when there’s an “experimenter’s thrill.”
So introducing such a toggle right now could create a good foundation for the future, so we don’t have to break the entire game code all at once later. Otherwise, I can imagine a young player’s tears when their favorite character is killed before their eyes, when they just wanted to look at a bear cub they encountered in the forest. Better without the bear, but then without the consequences too.
Besides, implementing a single on/off toggle in a large project is quite costly in terms of time and finances. Making an on/off toggle isn’t enough — you also need to attach all the necessary objects to the locations, program them, and then debug it so it works without errors + also check that it doesn’t affect other aspects of the game. Yes, for small projects that’s not a problem, but InZoi is a big game, and you can’t just do it on the fly here.