With the recent delay of the upcoming life simulation Paralives, moving their early access date from December 2025 to May 2026, many players have been itching to know where the game is in terms of development, especially when it comes to gameplay and the Paralives Live Mode. On November 25th 2025, Community Manager Rina hosted a livestream which gave the first extended look at Paralives Live Mode, showing off gameplay features and the current state of the game. This stream was pre-recorded and unedited to show current progress and gameplay in the game, with multiple team members in the chat to assist and answer questions.

Per the announcement of delaying the release of the game, the team still has many bugs in multiple aspects of the game that they want to fix before it is released in early access. They have committed to providing the best possible product, even as an early access game. Note that while this list will have many features and ideas listed, nothing is final as it is still in early access.

The Paramaker

While it was a Paralives Live Mode stream, surrounding gameplay details and functions, it did begin in the Paramaker to show off certain features and introduce the main Para in this video, Milo Caruso. While the Paramaker has many aspects that include the appearance and clothes of the Para as well, this video primarily focused on the personality system, vibes, social perks, talents, and lifestyle choices.

Paras can currently dedicate a certain number of points to four categories that dictate their disposition and their skills; Physique, Mind, Creativity, and Charisma. You can select your Para’s Vibe, which dictates how they interact with the world around them. These vibes currently include Overjoyed, Gloomy, Energetic, Serious, and Jester.

A Para’s Social Perk will give them certain advantages in drawbacks using the new relationships and Together Bar system. Currently, Paras have five available Social Perks, including Good at Being Alone, Good at Making Friends, Good at Taking Care of Others, Good at Romantic Relationships, and Good at Cooperating.

Depending on your plans for your Para’s skills and career, you can also choose a Talent, giving them a slight advantage at skills within certain categories. These Talents currently include Music, Fitness, Food, Technology, and Art. You can also choose for your Para to be a Jack-of-all-Trades, or even to be Good at Nothing!

Lastly, Lifestyle choices will dictate certain habits or decisions your Paras will make without influencing their personality. You can decide if your Para is or is not a Vegetarian, as well as whether they have standard or not so standard sleeping and cleaning habits. Is your Para an Early Bird with some Sloppy Habits, or a Neat Night Owl?

Outfits

Paras currently have four outfit categories available, which may change as we get closer to Early Access and will likely change with later updates that will include things like Pools, Seasons, etc. Paras can currently have Casual, Work, Exercise, and Pajamas outfits, and they can have multiple outfits per category.

Time Progression

Time progression in the Paralives Live Mode seems to run similarly to other Life Simulations like The Sims franchise, where 1 minute in-game is approximately 1 second in real time. Time can be paused, standard speed (1), or sped up to 2x or 3x. There is currently no “Ultra-Speed” option as is available in The Sims 4 and other mainline Sims Franchise games, even when Paras are sleeping.

Time seems to be tracked in Days of the Week and Days of a Season. The livestream takes place over about four days, from Monday Spring 1 to Thursday Spring 4. We don’t yet know if the length of seasons can be altered, if time can be sped up or slowed down on average, or if years are tracked once you pass the first year. These features may also change closer to the Early Access release, or at the full release of the game.

Currency

The currency in Paralives uses the US Dollar Symbol ($) and is called Paradimes. You can track your Para’s available Paradimes on the top right of the screen, and they can gain more money through their job, individual opportunities, skills, and more.

The Town & Shopping

The town explored in the Paralives Live Mode Livestream features multiple restaurants, stores, cafes, and other buildings to explore. While the world does not seem to be a true “Open World”, there was a noticeable lack of loading screens. When Paras want to visit a new building, clicking on the building and selecting “Visit Building” will load the interior of the building, causing some lag but quickly loading and avoiding any distracting loading screens.

In the Paralives Live Mode livestream, we got to see a few shops around town, including a plant store called Bloom, a cafe called The Story Nook, and an antique furniture store called Market Antiques. Paras can enter these stores and purchase items by clicking on what they like. Items can randomly be on sale or full price, and the store Bloom has a free plant available every day! When you purchase items in town, they will load into your Inventory to be interacted with, gifted, or placed in your Para’s home.

Food & Cooking

Cooking and purchasing are two of the ways your Paras can satisfy their hunger need. They can cook in their own kitchen and learn more complex recipes, starting off with options as simple as microwaved hot dogs and frozen pizzas for the lowest levels of the skill. If cooking isn’t their thing, the Paralives Live Mode Livestream showed that a quick walk to a nearby cafe lets them buy a quick bite for there or to-go. Paras noticeably eat quickly, giving them enough time to prepare prior to leaving for timed events like work. Paras can also satisfy their needs with quick snacks available in their home or out and about, if they’re not one for cooking.

There is also a food spoilage system in place. We did not see if there are specific timers or if foods spoil at different rates depending on skill level, individual chef, environment, etc. during the gameplay shown in the Paralives Live Mode livestream. However, it looked like a frozen pizza cooked the night prior spoiled when left on the counter by the next afternoon.

Aspirations, Wants, and Vibes

Per the paramaker, your Para’s Vibe will help to generate their reactions, wants, and general outlook on their life and the world around them. They can also develop lists of goals they want to pursue, like quests, in reaction to events (Like moving to a new home), or aspire to new things. Wants will generate in reaction to low needs, skills, your Para’s vibes, aspirations, and personality, and more. Wants reset everytime your Para sleeps at night, so they tend to be more short term, like Milo wanting to Practice Music for Two Hours.

Building Skills

As your para performs certain actions and practices their skills, their abilities or actions will become more complex. For example, Paras with a low musical or guitar skill will play simple and slow songs while they’re still grasping the basics of the instrument, or paras with a low cooking skill will only be able to microwave or prepare pre-made and quick food options. As your paras develop their skills, new abilities and options unlock, and these skills will help them progress in their aspirations, wants, and careers.

Skills seem to be separated into overall categories and individual niches. We noticed while watching the stream that while Milo practiced his guitar, he developed a slower-developing overall Music skill while also building a Guitar skill. Similarly, Milo developed a slower-developing Technology skill while also building a Programming skill. This is likely connected to a Para’s chosen Talent in the Paramaker.

Careers

For the early access build of Paralives, there is a surprisingly extensive amount of career options. Paras can enter different levels of careers based on the skills, general knowledge, and experience. Most will start at Rank 1, but some careers go as high as Rank 30.

To get a job, Paras can view an overall list of available openings on their phone, or visit buildings directly in town with a “Hiring” posting on their window or door. Since paras can enter different ranks of jobs based on their experience or skills, this likely means they can pursue higher paying positions at new companies while keeping their title and work progress. They can also get experience in general things like Management, and likely switch industries.

When Paras level up or rank up in their career, they can choose a Perk. These options often include a rank up, so a direct promotion to the next level, or a perk with a drawback that keeps them at the same level but provides other bonuses. For example, Milo had the opportunity to progress to Rank 2 after a great day at work, or Milo could choose to work Overtime as a perk. This perk doubled his take home pay, adding $250 per day, but extended his shift time 3 hours.

The careers available to Paras vary, as they are separated by category/field, and certain careers can appear in multiple categories depending on the exact role and location. Jobs that Paras are or are not qualified for will appear, including their rank, take home pay per day, and the location. Some of these locations are specific to areas found around town, while some are as simple as “Fancy Restaurant”. The current categories available while searching for a job include Software Development, Art, Service, Music, Education, Management, Maintenance, Healthcare, Science, Fitness, and Food.

Relationships

Relationships in the early access version of the Paralives Live Mode progress based on the moods of Paralives, their traits and compatibility, and the actions chosen as well as the success of those actions. Actions and interactions can have a certain mood or vibe attached to them, indicated by the color of the card; White seems to be standard or neutral, Green is positive, Red is negative, Gold is happy/friendly, and pink is Flirty. Certain actions come with percentages to indicate their chance of success, and a meter will pop up to show the result of your Paras interaction and how it progressed the together bar and the overall relationship.

Paras can also easily do activities as a group, by highlighting all the Paras you would like to move in a conversation and giving them an activity to do. They will walk to areas together to continue chatting, do interactions together, and take turns performing single para activities.

The Together Bar shows the progress in a conversation and relationship, takes roughly 25 minutes in-game to fill up, and allows you to Develop a para’s conversation with another and sway them towards becoming friends, enemies, or even lovers.

The New Paper

The New Paper is a daily newspaper and overall update for your Para. Appearing at the beginning of every day while in the Paralives Live Mode, it will announce news around town, provide insight for opportunities available around town, and leave quotes from residents and the mayor, Mayor Bloomberg. When reviewing newspapers, you can also select from the left side and review previous newspaper copies in case you missed something earlier.

Are there any features you’re excited to dive into that were covered in the Paralives Live Mode livestream, or anything you want to see more of? Let us know! Make sure to follow The Sims Community for more upcoming news of Paralives and its early access release, as well as the Paralives Development Team for more details of their timeline and the background creation of Paralives!