What We Know About Paralives Before The Early Access Release

Author’s Note: This post has been updated to reflect the postponement of the original early access date.

Paralives is the upcoming life simulation game from Alex Massé and the Paralives Studio’s Team. This is the indie studio’s first release, with the game originally launching into Early Access on the 8th December 2025! This date has now changed, with the game launching in May 2026 instead.

Back in 2019, we began to see our first glimpses of what Paralives was planning and hoping to be. Through a series of regular updates, through Patreon, Alex and the Team have since shared hundreds of posts detailing their development journey.

Paralives has always been a game that many life simulation players have been highly anticipating. In a time when we’ve seen The Sims as the traditional leader of the genre, Paralives is one of many to offer an alternative for players to experience.

Early Access Launch Delayed

After originally sharing this post, the Paralives Team shared the news at the end of last week that Paralives would now not be launching into early access this December. The new launch date for Paralives is now 25th May 2026.

In a detailed social media post, they took the time to explain the reasons for the delay yet reassured fans and players that the game was very much on the way. A follow-up stream planned for the 25th November will also showcase 45 minutes of continuous gameplay over on the Paralives YouTube channel. This will be the time for the game to be showcased in its current state, as well as explaining the team’s plans in the run-up to the new early access release date.

What Exactly is Paralives?

As per the Paralives website, the game is described as an upcoming dolls house style life simulation game which will be launching on PC and Mac.

Have a look at the full game description below:

Paralives is an upcoming doll house life simulation indie game for PC and Mac. In Paralives, you are free to build homes, create characters and manage their lives inside their homes and all around an open world town. The game features innovative build tools that are easy to use but powerful for advanced builders. The simulation mode allows players to explore a city full of events, people to meet and ways to make their Parafolks evolve and live a happy life (or not, if they choose to)!

Building a dream house requires a lot of flexible tools. In Paralives, builders are not limited to a grid. Players can build walls of any length and at any angle. Your perfect house contains curved walls? Paralives has the tools for that. You want to recreate your real life home? Use the in-game measuring tape to recreate the exact dimensions! You can also fully customize object colours and textures, as well as the size of windows and furniture. Just select an object, pull the corner anchors and make that window larger or upgrade that single bed to a king bed!

Creating the best life for your Parafolks couldn’t be possible without enjoying what the town has to offer beyond the walls of their houses. That’s why Paralives lets you explore a cosy open world neighbourhood filled with shops, parks, workplaces and other interesting spots to discover and meet people.

The name Paralives is a reference to parallel lives, allowing players to live different virtual lives and build homes to stage them.

Via Paralives

Curious? Here’s the most recent trailer, which was shared for the news of the official release date for Paralives.

What We Know So Far

What we know so far about Paralives, is that it will be packed full of a variety of content. That’s a given, however what about when we have a closer look?

Players will not only be able to create their own characters called Parafolk, but you’ll be able to explore an open-world town packed full of shops and parks as well as restaurants and museums.

Parafolk will also be able to choose a job and follow various progression pathways, create groups and participate in activities and more as a group. Find love, create a family, have children and live a long and interesting life. Discover a variety of personality traits, build skills, fulfil wants, needs and experience different emotions with your Parafolk.

But wait, what about building and crafting your own homes? Well, of course!

Paralives will also play host to a wide variety of flexible building features, allowing players to really craft the homes that they dream of! In addition to this, players can also be able to experiment with the game’s in-game modding user interface to share and create content in the game. This goes alongside being able to utilize the Steam Workshop to discover other community crafted creations.

Early Access

With Paralives quickly approaching it’s Early Access release date of 8th December 2025, the Paralives team isn’t stopping there. Confirmed on the Steam listing page for the game, there’s still a whole host of features being planned in to be added during this time. These include:

• Weather and Seasons
• Gardening and Fishing
• Cats, Dogs and Horses
• Swimming and Pools
• Boats and Houseboats
• Cars and Bikes
• Calendar System
• Family Tree
• Social Events – Parties and Weddings
• Story Progression for NPCs
• Town Editing Tools
• More Jobs and Careers
• More Personality Traits, Wants and Emotions
• and plenty more!

Even based on the information that we know from the Paralives website, Steam Page and the information that the team have shared, there’s plenty still to come from Paralives once the game launches.

Game Requirements

Interested in possibly playing Paralives when it launches next month? Here’s the recommended and minimum systems requirements for the game.

PC Minimum System Requirements

• OS: Windows 10
• Processor: Intel Core i5 or AMD Ryzen 5 @ 2.5 GHz
• Memory: 12 GB RAM
• Graphics: GTX 1060 or RX 6600 XT
• DirectX: Version 11
• Storage: 8 GB available space

PC Recommended System Requirements

• OS: Windows 11
• Processor: Intel Core i5 or AMD Ryzen 5 @ 3.0 GHz
• Memory: 16 GB RAM
• Graphics: RTX 2060 or RX 7600 XT
• DirectX: Version 11
• Storage: 8 GB available space

macOS Minimum System Requirements

• OS: macOS Big Sur 11 (or newer)
• Processor: Apple M2
• Memory: 12 GB RAM
• Graphics: Apple M2

macOS Recommended System Requirements

• OS: macOS Big Sur 11 (or newer)
• Processor: Apple M3
• Memory: 16 GB RAM
• Graphics: Apple M3

My Overall Thoughts

For me, this is likely a game I’ll pick up around the game’s early access release. I’ve followed the game’s development quietly over the last few years, having first heard about it when I was creating content for Sims Community.

I’m curious to see how Paralives works hands on from both a storytelling perspective, building and the general overall experience. The art style is lovely and adds to what makes Paralives stand out, the features showcased will help my Parafolk and I share a fun and adventurous life, and the soundtracks shared on YouTube fit wonderfully with the Paralives vision.

I’ve loved following the development of the game through Patreon, YouTube and various other news outlets over the years, and the fact the game is so close to release is exciting, and I’m looking forward to exploring the game hands on soon.

Paralives launches into Early Access on 8th December 2025 on PC and Mac devices via Steam.

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Are you thinking of checking out Paralives when it heads into Early Access next month? Let me know in the comments below!