The Sims rival Paralives gives release date update, promises no paid expansions

Paralives, an indie title looking to rival EA's The Sims, has dropped a new gameplay trailer and confirmed a release date.

The life simulation title has been in development since 2019, and now it has been confirmed that it will be released through Early Access on Steam in 2025. The developers state you should expect bugs and missing features, though.

Paralives Studio

Paralives Studio

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The trailer showcases various gameplay elements across an in-game week, as we see character Anisa go through the character creator, get a job, make some new friends, be bad at push-ups, and ends up getting a kiss.

The game has always been pitched as a more back-to-basics life sim, and not only do we see that through the simple and clean UI, but also the announcement at the end of the video that the game will never have paid DLC, and any, and all, expansions will be free.

"The reason for this decision is that, as players ourselves, we believe that purchasing a game should come with the guarantee of a fleshed out experience," designer Alex Massé and the team said.

"We aim to make Paralives our labour of love for years to come, continuously coming up with exciting new stuff to experience in the game. As a small team without any shareholders to please, we believe the money we make from selling the game alone will be enough to support us and the development of free updates in the long run."

Paralives Studio

This isn't the only upcoming game looking to provide an alternative to The Sims, as there's also open-world indie title Life by You. The Early Access release for this one was set for September 2023, but has been delayed to June 4 this year.

Meanwhile, The Sims itself has officially announced its fifth main entry, following over a decade of The Sims 4 content, although it's still a few years off.

Explaining the game's codename, one of the franchise's bosses said: "We chose 'Project Rene' because it's reminiscent of words like 'renewal', 'renaissance', 'rebirth', and it represents our renewed commitment to The Sims.

"And that's what we're doing, we're ushering in a new future for The Sims with a new game experience and more."