InZOI has just been released for Early Access for US$39.99. There’s SO much to explore, so consider this a first introduction to Create A Zoi and making your first virtual character!
Create A Zoi Review
Create a Zoi from scratch!
When entering Create a Zoi (CAZ) you are met with a randomized Zoi. There are six different age groups to choose from at this stage: Child, Teenager, Young Adult, Adult, Middle-Aged, and Senior. At this stage you are not able to create a Zoi younger than a child, but it is nice to see a distinction between adults and middle-aged adults. All of the age groups looked relatively similar to me as the clothing and accessories remained mostly the exact same. You can also choose between male, female, or non-binary gender identities. There are also some customizable options for romantic relationships and attraction. This is a new feature that was not available in the Creative Studio.
There are many different ways to customize your Zoi. You can use Presets, download a Zoi from Canvas, use Facial Capture to replicate yourself (currently only available for iOS users), or design them from scratch!
If you are creating a Zoi from scratch you can use either the basic editing or the detailed editing mode. In the detailed editing mode there are endless ways to manipulate their facial features or body! Once again you can select a face preset or download one from Canvas. Other than full face presets, there are currently no presets for individual facial features such as noses, lips, eyes, or ears. You can toggle the Symmetry Mode to mirror whatever changes you make to the other side of your Zoi’s face, which is quite useful!
Customizing Hair
If you felt overwhelmed by the facial features customization, I’m afraid it is only going to get more overwhelming! InZOI is aiming to add more hairstyles to the game later on, but there are already quite a few to choose from. Hairstyles can be filtered by Short, Medium, Long, or Tied-Up and can also be filtered by “only with color options.” You can select from color presets or create your own entirely unique design using the color options. Most hairstyles have five different color options: base color, sub color, and three different highlights. You can edit the hair length, color ratio, or blur the harshness of colors. You can also opt to apply color options to the whole hairstyle, if you wish. colors can be chosen from a color wheel or by hex code and the swatches can be saved for future use. This is an amazing feature and I can’t wait to see what everyone creates!
Editing your Zoi’s face
After designing the hair, you can customize the skin tone. The skin presets can change the texture and shadows on the face and the skin tone can be edited with a color wheel or a range of preset swatches.
Face characteristics you can edit include brow crease, eye bags, lip line, chin cleft, and more! You can also add moles, freckles, scars, bandaids, pimple patches, or face paint! The face paint includes some neck ‘tattoos’!
Eyes can also be fully customized down to the size of their irises or pupils! There are color wheels and sliders for each part of their eyes, eyebrows, and eyelashes.
Makeup is incredibly detailed. You can customize highlighter, blush, eyeshadow, eyeliner, or lipstick. Within these categories you can also edit the colors, intensity, gloss, and so much more!
Adjusting your Zoi’s body
The Zoi’s body can be customized by dragging anywhere on their body. You can also adjust their muscle mass or body weight using a slider. There is no option to adjust the Zoi’s height. InZOI said on their discord that “the game uses pre-programmed animations, and adjusting heights would disrupt interactions”.
Outfits galore!
There are nine different outfit categories you can design outfits for: everyday, formal, school, sleepwear, party, sportswear, swimwear, summer, or winter. At this stage there does not seem to be any limitations on the clothing you can select for the different outfit categories.
Down the left-hand side you can see all of the items your Zoi has equipped. Items can be removed or hidden from view from this menu.
Once again, you can choose clothing from presets or build your outfit from scratch! No, literally, you can build your outfit from scratch!
Crafting Clothes
Using the Craft tool you can choose from different styles of tops, bottoms, skirts, or even accessories and create clothing that is entirely unique! You can also choose a custom color for each section of the clothes. You can create your own textures by uploading an image or downloading textures from Canvas. Then you can save your creation or upload it to Canvas!
You can also create entirely custom items using the 3D Printer tool and uploading an image.
Accessories
At this stage you can choose from hats, eyewear, necklaces, earrings, headpieces, nails, wristwear, rings, or piercings. It is important to note that you can only have one piercing (either nose piercing or lip piercing) at this stage. I also noticed some of the headpieces and hats clipping through each other, which is understandable. Most of the accessories come with customizable color options, of course. Using the Craft mode you can also create your own necklaces by selecting different chains or charms, or create your own watch by choosing a band and watch face.
All of the hairstyles, as far as I could tell, are compatible with hats! I noticed when you select a tied-up hairstyle, InZOI will automatically convert this to a style compatible with hats, which is incredible!
*This screenshot was taken in InZOI: Creative Studio and is not final software.
Personality
You can select one trait from 18 different options which have their own characteristics. You can also select a desired life. Desired lives align with different traits and skills and determine your Zoi’s ambitions.
I did notice that the traits remained the same for all age groups, at this stage.
Studio
InZOI is particularly focused around photographing your Zoi! The CAZ studio can be customized and you can manipulate your Zoi’s facial expression or pose to create the perfect photo. There are also some interesting animations to choose from!
Relationships
If you survived creating your first Zoi, you can click ‘Complete’ and add a family member! You can have up to eight Zoi per family. You can edit the relationships between the Zoi at this stage and create partners, parents, or children. There are restrictions on which relationships you can select based on the ages of your Zoi.
Once you’re happy with your Zoi you can click ‘Create Family’ and begin playing with them! Most of your choices can not be edited once you create your family, so keep that in mind before you commit.
I think the possibilities of Zoi you can create are absolutely endless and I’m so excited to see how InZOI develops these features!
What are your thoughts on the character customization in InZOI? Has this inspired you to purchase the game? Let us know in the comments and stay tuned for all the latest InZOI News!
the system of nonbinary being a gender separate from, well, the other binary options is much better than what the sims has, where you still have to designate a nonbinary sim as either male or female. i also like how you can exclude them from dating pools, because again, in the sims, they’re still either considered male or female in dating.
Inzoi is incredibly boring and i wasted $40. Not only is it boring *now* its never going to be my personal favorite, in even 5 years, its more of a game for people who want a virtual life to pretend to be an IG/influencer. Not people who enjoy cozy games like sims.
I agree with you Tatiana. There’s no reason for someone who has a life to play inZOI. If I want realism, I’ll just step outside.