Paralives vs Sims 4: Why EA Should Worry Now

With The Sims franchise, EA have long held a stranglehold on the cozy life-simulator genre, with no developer brave enough to challenge the depth found in their long-running series. At long last, a challenger finally approaches, with indie-game developer Alex Massé’s Paralives. With fan anticipation for the title rapidly increasing with each developer update, let’s take a look at why Paralives vs Sims 4 is a battle that should have EA and Maxis worried. 

More Base Game Content!

Looking at Paralives vs Sims 4, one of the essential differences is the approach both games take to base-game content. The Sims 4 is notorious for its never-ending DLC catalog, with the current Steam total amounting to $1066.16 to own the full collection. Many of these should be fundamental to a life simulator, such as the Cats & Dogs expansion, and EA have taken plenty of criticism for cutting out these elements from release and selling them back to players later. Great news – in Paralives pets will be an essential part of the base-game, with dogs, cats and horses already confirmed. 

Paralives devs have also confirmed the four seasons will be in from release. It’s an indictment of EA’s business model that players have had to endure the seasons being locked behind a paywall. We can’t promise that Paralives DLC won’t eventually be released, but it’s refreshing to see a developer show great commitment to creating as complete an initial experience as possible.

Colors, Colors Everywhere

For a game about customization, The Sims 4 has a shocking lack of it. Comparing Paralives vs Sims 4 makes the difference all the more apparent. Paralives are boasting a hex-code colour wheel for character customization, allowing unrestricted boundaries to creating your dream characters. Strangely, this feature existed in The Sims 3, but never found it’s way to The Sims 4. This feature’s absence has led to controversy for EA. Six years after the game’s release, EA were forced to add over 100 new skin tones into the game due to player concerns over the existing amount.

The colours don’t just stop with the player. Paralives’ colour wheel extends to all clothing and accessories, creating a more unique game-world that more closely emulates our own. Home designers can rejoice, too! Every piece of furniture will benefit from the colour wheel feature. Your Parafolk can live in any way you want them to, from a show-home to a dumping ground. In The Sims 4, players are at the mercy of the game’s limited furniture themes. Sure, it’s great for cohesion, but it unnecessarily stifles player creativity as a result.

A Whole New (Open) World

Throughout the history of The Sims franchise, an open-world has been the player base’s holy grail. A brief attempt in The Sims 3 fell flat, and players are yet to see any sign of a return. It bring the question – is Paralives open world? Well – sort of. Paralives claims to scratch this itch, with the game featuring multiple open-world environments. This is as well as a World Creation tool, that’ll allow dedicated players to go further with their creativity and create open worlds of their own.

Paralives are offering players the perfect way around their shiny new open worlds, too, with another feature highly requested among The Sims 4 players – cars. It seems simple. But functional cars have eluded Sims fans for years, and Paralives devs smell opportunity in the water. They clearly know their audience, and know the blind spots of the competition.

When and Where Can I Buy Paralives?

Right now, nowhere. It’ll be ready when it’s ready, though the developers have released a roadmap looking towards the future of the game. It’s a level of transparency that’s rare in the modern games industry. When it’s available, you’ll be able to find it on Steam on Windows and Mac for a currently unannounced price. With The Sims 4 recently going free-to-play, Paralives: Free-To-Play was probably a dream too far. We’ll take what we can get.

With The Sims 5 (Project Rene) still reportedly years from release, for now Paralives vs Sims 4 remains the question on our minds, with the latter currently still the benchmark for which all life-simulators must live up to.

You might have guessed, but we kind of like the look of Paralives. We can’t help it – the ambition on display from this small dev-team is admirable. Seeing the little guy tackle a gaming monolith like EA, we just can’t help but root for the little guy.