10 Paralives Features That Already Make The Sims Feel Surprisingly Outdated

The Sims franchise stood alone for over two decades as the leader in the life sim genre, with The Sims 4 enjoying success without competitors for over ten of those years. While it has had many updates over the course of its run, the release of Paralives has highlighted a lot of the ways it's been outpaced when compared to what video games are now capable of.

This is even considering how far The Sims 4 has come since its launch. The Sims 4 launched without pools, basements, ghosts, toddlers, and essential features like family trees, all of which are in the game now. But Paralives comes with a beautiful art style, intriguing lore, and some new features that truly make it a modern life sim. Here are some of them.

10 Build Mode's Click and Drag

A Modern Tool for the Modern Era

One of the standout features of Paralives and one I can't get enough of is click-and-drag. Windows, couches, beds, TVs, picture frames, kitchen counters — all of these and virtually every object you can encounter in Paralives can have their size changed by clicking and dragging.

The Sims 4's build mode was groundbreaking back in 2014, even without swimming pools and basements, and it got better with updates. It's still a fantastic build mode and one of the best in the life sim genre. However, this feature in Paralives has shown what is possible from a life sim's build mode as it's intuitive, easy to use, and works.

9 Uploading Custom Images

Create Any Room You Want

Customization options are one of the most important features of a life sim, and Paralives really nails it. All photo frames and posters are blank in Build and Buy mode — the idea is to put your own picture in the frame, rather than The Sims 4's mechanic where each one has a limited set of preselected images.

There are dozens of images you can choose from in Paralives, but you can also upload your own. This isn't limited to frames and posters, and cushions can also be customized with any image you like. The level of customization here is truly a step up, and goes a long way in making unique builds.

Ditch the Bloat

The Sims has used a bubble conversation screen since its very first iteration 26 years ago. This bubble mind map actually worked really well, but as more and more options were added, it became more and more bloated, complicated, and difficult to use. This wasn't a problem until The Sims 4's many expansion packs and content add-ons, which made actually finding the interaction you wanted to use a long process that required clicking through multiple screens that may or may not have the correct option.

Paralives gets rid of this system entirely, and replaces it with conversation cards. This means only a few interactions are possible, but you don't have to click through endless subcategories, and you can guide the interaction the way you want it to go. This isn't a perfect system, but there's a lot of potential with nowhere to go but up.

7 The Height Slider

This Paramaker Feature Does a Lot of Heavy Lifting

Being able to choose your character's height has long been barred from all games where you can create your character, so The Sims 4 isn't alone in this. Custom heights bring in a lot of animation issues, as animators need to account for every height between two points. This is an enormous amount of work, and many developers don't deem it worth the cost.

The thing is, there is a lot of value in giving players the tools to change their characters' heights. Height can do a lot of visual storytelling, and it's charming to see the Para children grow into theirs. As a representation of real life, many players like to create themselves, or see themselves in their games, and height plays a big part in that.

6 Black Hairstyle Options

Fans Didn't Have to Beg and Plead for the Basics

The Sims 4 has more Black hair textures than it used to, but it was too little, too late. The expansion pack that added the biggest selection of these hairstyles was Royalty & Legacy. This was also the last expansion pack, was the cheapest to make, came out after the EA buyout announcement, and had a small neighborhood representing the whole of Africa alongside another European neighborhood. The Sims 4 players were forced to rely on modders to get Black textured hairstyles in their games.

Paralives has a wide range of Black hairstyles available right from the get-go, and certainly far more types with better quality than The Sims 4 had even after ten years of updates. Excluding an entire group of people and making them an afterthought in updates is a very dated way to update a life sim, and Paralives got the memo to do it right the first time.

5 Disability Representation

A Reflection of Real Life

Another aspect of representation is disabilities. Many of us live with a disability, and yet we hardly ever see characters with disabilities onscreen, especially in video games. This is especially egregious for life sims, games that are supposed to reflect the world.

The Sims 4 community made a lot of noise about its lack of disability representation, and in response, The Sims 4 added hearing aids and glucose monitors in Create-a-Sim, but there aren't any mobility aids or other items in Build mode. Paralives, on the other hand, had mobility aids from launch, including glucose monitors, hearing aids, leg prosthetics, and a lot of items in Build and Buy mode, including asthma inhalers, wheelchairs, wall bars, and canes. The mobility aids aren't currently functional, but just their inclusion goes a long way.

4 An Emphasis on Clutter

No More Fighting with Cheats and Placement

Clutter is essential for most builds, and especially home builds, because it makes a build look and feel lived-in. Visual storytelling and getting an aesthetic right are so important in life sims, and a room can tell the history of a character. You need clutter to do that.

Placing clutter has always been a pain in The Sims 4, and requires a lot of know-how and finagling to get it to look right while being functional. Clutter was also at a premium, spread across multiple paid add-ons including kits. Paralives already has a ton of clutter that can be resized, and placed anywhere on any surface, on top of other clutter, without needing to use cheats and other weird moves to get it to work.

3 Personality Traits Define Gameplay

Each Para Feels Different

Paras can have several traits that inform their general demeanor, their conversation cards, wants, and animations. Different greeting options show up for different personality types, and there are bonuses and drawbacks for all of them. A Para who isn't particularly good at anything can influence the people around them while they build skills in different ways depending on their mood and skill level.

The Sims 4's moods were supposed to make Sims feel more realistic, but the moodlet system doesn't translate in practice. Moodlets can be influenced by everyday objects in The Sims 4, and events such as the death of a Sim they never even met can put them into a depressive slump for days.

2 The Color Wheel

Experiment with Color and Texture

The Sims 4 removed its long-standing color wheel in favor of preset swatches, which devastated customization. This affected everything from skin tones in Create-a-Sim to furniture. A color wheel was eventually added for Create-a-Sim after pressure from the community, but Build and Buy mode is still held back without one. This is especially noticeable in a genre where a color wheel for customization is a staple feature.

Paralives not only includes a color wheel, but lets you edit every part of an item, as well as the item's textures. This makes The Sims 4 feel both outdated and limited in comparison, especially when it still has furniture sets with color swatches that don't match.

1 The Open World

Unparalleled Immersion and No Load Screens

The Sims 4 abandoned The Sims 3's open world in favor of enclosed neighborhoods. This was to make The Sims 4 easier to run on lower-end devices and to reduce the amount of load screens and rabbit holes. However, as more content was added, The Sims 4 became bloated with load screens despite the closed neighborhoods.

Paralives has an open world that matches the standard of other cozy games and life sims, such as My Time at Sandrock and Starsand Island. Having an open world that works makes the game more cohesive and really feels like a singular experience. I love being able to follow my Para across Melino's world map, enter any building, meet anyone, and seamlessly switch between households without having to go through menus and load screens. It's a breath of fresh air in the life sim genre.