Paralives, the long-in-development life sim game designed to rival The Sims, is officially out now in early access. While critical reviews appear to be rare, the game has currently hit a ‘Very Positive’ rating on Steam, where users have already left comments recording a host of responses.
Audience impressions are incredibly important for a game like Paralives, which has been released in early access so that ongoing development can take into account direct feedback and player input, with this audience determining the game’s future direction and new content.
For now, it appears the game is satisfying its target audience, with its early access launch being met with wide praise, alongside some constructive negative feedback.
Here’s what people are saying about Paralives so far.
Paralives early impressions – quick links
A feature-rich life sim
The overwhelming majority of comments on the game’s Steam page indicate surprise at how robust Paralives is at launch. Previously, developers had made it clear this would be a distinctly early access release – as in, a game leaving room for new features, providing players with only a grounding in the basics.
As shared, it does appear Paralives is more developed than that, with players particularly enamoured by its customisation features, with plenty of options to dress up and style the game’s virtual humans, known as Parafolks.
As one of the most important features in any life simulator – allowing players to self-express through character creation – it makes sense that this feature would be given plenty of attention prior to full release. As many early players have commented, there’s already a solid basis here, with room for new and better accessories, outfits and hairstyles in future.
Building tools have also been highly-praised, with players noting you’re able to pick and choose any colour for your builds, change the scale of objects and place furniture anywhere you like to create the perfect home. For a long time, this has been one of the primary complaints about The Sims – that home building and decorating is fairly rigid.
Players also note that custom content is very easily made, and that there’s significant potential for the game to shine with player-driven mods.
Summing up much of the sentiment among players, Steam user anniemaeherring said: ‘After two kids, five house moves, and seven years of waiting… Paralives was absolutely worth it.
‘This game feels like it was made by people who genuinely love life sims. The amount of detail, personality, freedom and charm packed into it is honestly incredible. From building cosy homes to the little everyday moments that somehow feel real, you can tell the devs poured their hearts into this!!!’
What still needs improvement in Paralives
Beyond the good, there are also some features of Paralives that aren’t quite as polished, with the caveat that this is to be expected from an early access release.
The biggest issues currently facing players are bugs and lack of optimisation. Players have noted that the game’s performance may be slow, even on high-powered PCs, and that there are an array of minor, inconvenient bugs that disrupt gameplay. These include characters disappearing when doing a task, sold items suddenly reappearing, and some interactions glitching or lagging.
It’s worth pointing out these are likely to be patched as development work continues.
The other big bugbear has to do with gameplay itself. As many players have noted, dialogue in Paralives remains fairly light, with some pacing issues making it difficult to smoothly build relationships between characters.
There is also the feeling that while building mode is strong, the live mode isn’t quite fleshed out. Players believe there’s plenty of room for new activities and interactions to make living in this world a bit more exciting and rewarding.
As with the bugs, however, these issues will likely be addressed in future updates, as the Paralives team has committed to expanding the game with player support and feedback, to ensure that ‘Para life’ is as compelling and layered as players desire.
We’re likely to see much more of this progress in the coming months, as the Paralives team begins to release new, free updates, and leans into its growing player community.
