InZOI is experimenting with something no life sim has pulled off before: a persistent social multiplayer space where up to 50 players share the same world. Game Director Hyungjun "Kjun" Kim revealed the mode, called Canvastown, in a forum post and accompanying showcase, describing it as a passion project built by a small dedicated team alongside the core single-player game.
The name, Kjun explains, "represents the idea of you and I living together in a creator's village." But he is upfront about where Canvastown stands right now: "Looking at the current build makes me sigh. There are so many lacking areas, and we have a very long way to go."
How it works
You start by creating a single custom Zoi and designing their house. From there, you can visit a shared hub area called AR Company, where around 50 players can "converse and interact in the same channel under mutual consent." NPCs also populate the space, but Kjun says the goal is "a world where you simply coexist with other people" rather than chasing objectives.
Inside AR Company, a control tablet lets you teleport into other players' homes to explore what they have built or hang out together. The setup has clear echoes of Sony's defunct PlayStation Home and, more broadly, of Second Life. You can play in private sessions or invite friends into whatever public space you are currently occupying; the 50-player cap per channel is intentional, designed "to keep it from becoming chaotic."
Creator-built minigames and modding
Canvastown leans hard into user-generated content. Kjun wants the mode to serve as a canvas (hence the name) where creators use InZOI's native tools and modding support to build entirely new experiences from scratch. During the showcase, the team demonstrated kart racing and a Fall Guys-style obstacle course, both made by creators within the system. Kjun is realistic about the quality ceiling right now, admitting these offer "a lesser experience than dedicated racing games," but envisions the tools improving over time.
He also describes an AR Company feature where players can take on assigned roles in pre-made scenarios, comparing it to being a movie director who can "assign roles and cast your actors to create your scenario." Script mods will eventually let creators implement small behavioral tweaks to support more elaborate setups.
A side project with an uncertain future
Kjun repeatedly frames Canvastown as optional and secondary. It will appear as a separate menu option, and he insists it has "at no point ever superseded our efforts to improve the main life simulation aspect of Inzoi." Rumors that the mode would include full city-building or road-laying are, for now, just rumors. "Building an entire city from scratch or laying down roads, as rumored online, are not available yet," he clarifies, though terrain editing and city decoration are on the long-term plan.
The mode's future depends on how the community responds. Kjun told Krafton that he would "decide the future of Canvastown" based on reception at its initial showcase. "It might go well, or many shortcomings might be exposed, but I believe it's a necessary process to move forward to the next step."
His philosophical touchstone is Ready Player One: a place where players can step away from reality into a different life, with the unpredictable social interactions between real people providing the stories.
What is happening with InZOI's core game
The life sim side of InZOI continues on its own track. The most recent update focused on improving autonomous Zoi behavior, better needs-and-wants representation, and more natural social interactions like sitting and eating together as relationships deepen.
An October update is planned that will let players define specific behaviors for usable objects in build mode, so "when a Zoi uses this object, they behave like this" becomes something you control. Two restaurants could function entirely differently based on how you set them up. The studio is also reworking the original resident family designs to give them more personality and adding the option to start a household in a run-down lot, in a nod to classic Sims-style rags-to-riches play.
For more on InZOI's ongoing development, including the PS5 delay into the first half of 2027, keep an eye on our InZOI coverage.
Source: PCGamesN via Google News - The Sims