Excellent, flexible build mode
Mentioned in ~1 in 3 positive reviews
“the ability to make furniture and decor items bigger or smaller allows for so many different creative builds”
Steam review · 51.5 h played ↗
Paralives
Worth buying? What 300 Steam reviews say.Worth buying? Here’s what 300 Steam reviews actually say.
Very Positive · 90%Very Positive · 90%Alex Massé and team2026Life Sim · Sandbox · Simulation
The verdict
A charming, very flexible life sim with excellent building and character creation, but live mode is still shallow and buggy. Skip it if you mainly want deep gameplay now.
Great for
Builders and character-creation fans who want a Sims alternative and will support early access
Main risk
Live mode is thin and buggy, so the $40 early access price may feel unjustified
What changed in the last 30 days
133 recent reviews
Recent negative reviews cite constant crashes since the last update, mods breaking after patches, and few meaningful content updates. This is a moderately confident read from the recent sample.
133 recent reviews
What players love
Better than The Sims, great potential
Mentioned in ~1 in 5 positive reviews
“Brilliant, already surpasses the sims 4 especially with the interior design and build aspects”
Steam review · 9.4 h played ↗
Deep character customization
Mentioned in ~1 in 5 positive reviews
“By far the best character creation of all the Simslikes.”
Steam review · 8.4 h played ↗
Charming art style and cozy feel
Mentioned in ~1 in 7 positive reviews
“A breath of fresh air, it's so cozy, and it feels good to play it after a long day.”
Steam review · 24.3 h played ↗
Mod and Steam Workshop support
Mentioned in ~1 in 9 positive reviews
“There's [b]mod support[/b] from day 1 and there's hundreds of mods/cc, parafolks and houses already in the Workshop.”
Steam review · 66.8 h played ↗
Responsive devs, free updates, no DLC
Mentioned in ~1 in 10 positive reviews
“every update and DLC will be free. They've been putting out patches at least once a week”
Steam review · 66.8 h played ↗
What players complain about
Shallow, empty live mode
Mentioned in ~1 in 2 negative reviews
“Paralives feels like someone released the skeleton of a life sim and said, “don’t worry, we’ll add the organs later.””
Steam review · 13.6 h played ↗
Too many bugs and lost progress
Mentioned in ~1 in 3 negative reviews
“game is just a complete buggy mess. 9 hours and i ran into bugs nonstop.”
Steam review · 13.6 h played ↗
Overpriced for current content
Mentioned in ~1 in 4 negative reviews
“overpriced. just wait until it is actually playable.”
Steam review · 6.5 h played ↗
Crashes, lag and poor optimization
Mentioned in ~1 in 4 negative reviews
“it hard crashes like every 20 min so its unplayable at this point”
Steam review · 134.8 h played ↗
Little autonomy and no multitasking
Mentioned in ~1 in 9 negative reviews
“Autonomy, which is one of the core parts of life sims, is non existent in Paralives.”
Steam review · 20.4 h played ↗
Frustrating card-based social system
Mentioned in ~1 in 15 negative reviews
“The conversation system which turns social interaction into waiting for permission to play.”
Steam review · 26.6 h played ↗
System requirements
From the Steam store page
Steam Deck: Unsupported8 GB
Minimum
OSWindows 10
ProcessorIntel Core i5 or AMD Ryzen 5 @ 2.5 GHz
Memory12 GB RAM
GraphicsGTX 1060 or RX 6600 XT
Storage8 GB available space
Recommended
OSWindows 11
ProcessorIntel Core i5 or AMD Ryzen 5 @ 3.0 GHz
Memory16 GB RAM
GraphicsRTX 2060 or RX 7600 XT
Storage8 GB available space
OSWindows 10
ProcessorIntel Core i5 or AMD Ryzen 5 @ 2.5 GHz
Memory12 GB RAM
GraphicsGTX 1060 or RX 6600 XT
Storage8 GB available space
More games to check
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− Extremely expensive DLC
analyzed 3 h ago
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− Poor optimization and low fps on strong PCs
analyzed 8 h ago
Dressmaker
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− Game-breaking bugs and softlocks
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