While I’ve never really played all that much of The Sims (does maybe four hours of My Sims Kingdom from when I was 11 count?), my partner certainly has, expositing all of the surprisingly deep lore to me from time to time. Yet nothing shocks me more than hearing both the cost of expansions and the contents therewithin. What do you mean you have to hand over legal tender for bloody seasons? I’m supposed to pretend that this simulation of life exists in a post-weather world right up to the point of handing over 40 bucks? All of this to say, Paralives continues to sound convincing for the expansion fatigued Simmers thanks to its first roadmap.
Ahead of the game’s early access release next week, Paralives Studio shared a sparsely detailed but conceptually promising roadmap outlining what you can expect in the coming months and years. From June to September, the priority will be things like performance optimisation, bug fixes, tweaking features, and overall quality of life improvements. It’s when you get to the bit about free updates that’ll really have you questioning how The Sims does things.
At some point during Q4 this year, the game’s first major update will be released. What that is, I can’t tell you, because they didn’t say! But they did outline other big updates planned for within two years of early access. On the smaller end, there’s pools, a Sims classic for the crueler Simmers out there. On the bigger end, free big updates will include the likes of weather and seasons, pets, “and more.”
I obviously opened this piece with a tirade about how The Sims charges for seasons, so, this certainly seems like a point for Paralives. Not to mention pets (or Cats & Dogs for The Sims 4) have long been an expansion too. No further details about what else can be expected in updates were shared, but this does have me wondering how The Sims will fare if Paralives does well.
Paralives is out next week on May 25th, and you can wishlist it on Steam.
