Muss KI auch ein "The Sims" spielen? Vielleicht verstehen die Spiel-NPCs die menschliche Natur besser als Sie | Entdecken Sie tolle Spiele!

‍‍Text | Liu Chongjiang‍

Editor | Liu Shiwu

This weekend, North China will experience a rare and extremely strong wind weather. Many friends may have already planned to stay at home and watch dramas or play games. Recently, the editorial team of "36Kr Games" tried out a new game called "inZOI", which is quite similar to "The Sims". It might be a good game choice for everyone this weekend.

The game poster of "inZOI"

Before analyzing this game, we asked ourselves a question: Can AI replace humans in creation? This has probably been the most debated topic in the past two years, and it's also one of the biggest controversies surrounding this game.

Currently, the views can be roughly divided into two camps. The opponents believe that AI has no life experience and cannot truly understand human emotions, so it's impossible for it to carry out real creation. However, the supporters have a more straightforward view: Since you say AI can't understand humans, well, why not just put AI in a virtual world and let it live there for a while?

In the past, the supporters would easily face such a counter - argument: It's easy to say, but where can we get a virtual world for AI?

However, now AI might really be ready for a "simulated life".

An ambitious challenger, new blood in the "simulated life" game track

"inZOI" was officially launched on March 28, 2025. The most remarkable feature of this game is that it uses generative AI to create virtual digital characters and build "intelligent NPCs".

Some players have shared their experiences: "I wanted to matchmake two Zoies to get married, but one of them suddenly quit their job and went on a wandering journey, while the other became addicted to stock trading. My matchmaker plan completely fell through!"

As the developer said: "We don't want NPCs to just repeat scripts. They should have emotions like real people."

Producer Kim Hyung - jun has rich game - making experience

In addition, it's worth noting that before the release of "inZOI", the technology of "simulated life" games had been stagnant for a long time. Even in September 2024, EA announced that it "would no longer launch 'The Sims 5'".

With the spirit of technological innovation, "inZOI" successfully topped the Steam wishlist before its release. On the first day of its launch, the peak number of concurrent players reached more than 80,000, and it successfully made it to the top of the popular game list on the Steam platform. Moreover, it received an 83% positive rating in more than 10,000 reviews.

The Steam page of "inZOI"

In the highly competitive game tracks, there is one type of track that stands out: The big players have almost eaten up all the market share, and they can even define the name of this type of track with their own existence - "simulated life games".

The reason is simple. The "The Sims" series has come a long way. Since its debut in 1999, the "The Sims" series under EA has always been regarded as the industry benchmark. So far, four works have been released. For example, "The Sims 4" alone has launched more than 90 content expansion packs. Just buying all the content expansion packs would cost thousands of yuan.

After four generations of development and countless content expansion pack updates, the "The Sims" series has almost filled every corner that players can think of and even those they can't. For later - comers, it's extremely difficult not only to surpass but even to match it.

The game "The Sims 4"

For example, Paradox Interactive's "Life By You" was once highly anticipated because of its luxurious development team. "Paralives" also attracted a lot of attention in the past two years because of its unique painting style.

However, challenging the industry leader is not that easy. "Simulated life" games are not only difficult to make but may even end up not being made at all:

"In June last year, Paradox Interactive suddenly announced the cancellation of the development of 'Life By You'. The project had been postponed several times before, and finally couldn't be saved. 'Paralives' has been six years since its first public appearance. Although the official announced that the Early Access version would be released in 2025, it's still uncertain whether it will be launched as scheduled."

Finally, "inZOI" became the only challenger that officially entered the arena. "The Sims", which has monopolized this genre for more than twenty years, has finally met a worthy opponent.

"AI +" becomes the solution for "inZOI"

For a category that has been without a leading product for 10 years, how to take the first step is completely unknown. In order to get a share in the industry monopolized by "The Sims 4", the first card that "inZOI" played is "AI +". Its application of AI can be said to be integrated into every aspect.

Among them, the most remarkable is the "Smart Zoi" system. "inZOI" uses NVIDIA ACE technology to build intelligent NPCs. They can not only perform preset tasks like traditional NPCs but also show autonomy and human - like behaviors through AI technology.

A game screenshot of "inZOI"

These characters have independent life goals and social behaviors. They can respond dynamically according to the surrounding environment and events, providing players with a more real and in - depth simulated life experience. For example, when encountering someone in need of help, an outgoing NPC will take the initiative to talk, while an introverted NPC will just walk away silently.

In the official detailed introduction, the functions of Smart Zoi mainly cover the following four aspects:

① Dynamic behavior and interaction:

Each Zoi has its own personality, motivation, and life goals. They will adapt to environmental changes autonomously, such as arranging their work and rest according to the time or adjusting their actions according to events. The interaction between players and Zoies will affect their behaviors. For example, a Zoi may change its lifestyle because of the player's decision.

② Real - world social simulation:

Going to work, socializing, shopping, participating in community activities, etc. According to the player's game world settings, Zoies may join the storylines designed by the player and participate in complex social situations. The behaviors of Zoies in the city are similar to those of real - world people.

③ Generative narrative:

The AI - driven dynamic narrative of Smart Zoi makes each player's game experience unique. Different Zoies will produce different behaviors and events, promoting the development of the game world's story.

④ Highly immersive interaction:

Through the language model, players can have conversations with Zoies like they are talking to real people. Zoies can understand the player's instructions and give reasonable feedback on their actions.

A game screenshot of "inZOI"

The developer evaluated their new technology like this: "We hope to provide players with a brand - new perspective and way of participating in city building through NVIDIA's technology, allowing players to truly participate in the life of the city and experience the vividness and changes of this simulated city in various ways."

In the specific game, in the settings option on the main page, players can see the switch for "Smart Zoi". After turning it on, NPCs can make dynamic judgments based on various parameters such as economic status and interpersonal relationships, thus realizing more complex behavior logic.

For example, an ordinary NPC will only eat when it's hungry, but an intelligent NPC will flexibly adjust its behavior according to its schedule. For example, in order to visit the art museum at noon, an NPC may eat in advance, and the Smart Zoi selection box will explain this "abnormal behavior".

In addition to the surface - level behavior logic, Smart Zoi also performs well in emotional logic. For example, in a real - test video by Bilibili UP master "sims Ami", when she was observing an NPC family, she encountered a "strange family": The family savings were very low, both parents were unemployed, and they quarreled constantly. The only girl was still in school and often in a sad state. It was only later that the truth was revealed: This family had just experienced the pain of losing a child.

A game screenshot of "inZOI"

Although the logical rationality of NPCs still needs to be improved. For example, it's hard to understand that parents will go to a boutique store as soon as they go out, both from an economic and an emotional perspective. However, compared with the hasty ending of character death in "The Sims 4", "inZOI" has taken a big step forward in this regard, making NPCs more "alive".

In addition to watching the lives of NPCs, players can also use the "Zoi Pen" tool to interact with NPCs. After inputting an instruction within 100 words, players can directly affect the life goals of NPCs. Therefore, you can not only help the desperate father mentioned above get out of the shadow but also turn other NPCs into "the people you want them to be".

For example, if you input "You dream of becoming a Hollywood star", then that NPC will devote the rest of its life to becoming a "Hollywood star". On the contrary, if you input "You want to fight with others regardless of the consequences", then it will become a bully.

A game screenshot of "inZOI"

The "Achilles' heel" of "AI +" games

However, the "intelligence" of highly intelligent AI comes at a cost.

The first problem is the picture quality. Taking the latest RTX5080 graphics card as an example, once the Smart Zoi function is turned on, the picture quality will be affected, and the frame rate will drop sharply from 120 to 45. A player pointed out in a review that in some scenarios, the frame rate of his 4090B graphics card would drop directly to 20 frames. In crowded scenarios, a 3070 graphics card would even have a catastrophic freeze like a PPT.

The game configuration table of "inZOI"

On Bilibili, "inZOI" is therefore called a "graphics card killer" by netizens. Although in the Smart Zoi settings of the game, the developer provides more detailed options, such as applying it within the city range, within the screen range, and queue limits. However, from the results, these "thoughtful solutions" to reduce the pressure on the graphics card don't seem to work very well.

In addition, the intelligence level of Smart Zoi is also questioned. Taking the NPC emotion system as an example, although the developer has set up more than a dozen emotional states for the characters, the emotional changes of the characters lack a transition process: "A character who was smiling one moment may suddenly become furious just because they stepped on a puddle, as if they had a mental illness."

It consumes a lot of graphics card resources and doesn't work well. When it comes to the root cause of all this, we have to go back to the "GSLM" technology proposed by Bluehole. However, before that, we need to review the "LLM" technology first.

The large - language model can simulate the human language cognition and generation process to a certain extent

AI tools such as Deepseek and ChatGPT have been integrated into every aspect of our daily lives. They are all based on a technology called LLM (large language model). However, because these models are very large, consumer - grade computers can hardly bear the required computing power, and they