InZOI director Hyungjun "Kjun" Kim marked the one-year anniversary of his weekly "Brainstorm with Kjun" developer diaries this week with a pair of substantial posts. The September 25 entry, shared on Chuseok (a major Korean holiday), reflected on a year of direct community dialogue while the accompanying video offered early looks at the celebrity system planned for December. A mid-week follow-up on September 23 carried the bigger structural news: InZOI is shifting how cities and new content work going forward.
City Immigration is out, City Travel is in
The most significant change concerns how Zois move between InZOI's three existing cities (Dowon, Bliss Bay, and Cahaya). Kjun announced that City Immigration, introduced alongside last August's Cahaya DLC, will be removed and replaced with a new system called City Travel. Under the new model, Zois can freely join parties and schedules with Zois from any city and move between them more easily.
The reasoning is practical. City Immigration's complexity caused persistent errors, and the September patch had already loosened many of its restrictions. Removing it entirely clears the way for a broader shift: new content will primarily arrive through new cities rather than being squeezed into existing ones. As Kjun put it, building a prison for every city would mean fitting it into each city's theme without breaking it, and the team would rather focus their efforts than spread them thin.
When City Immigration is removed, duplicate homes players own through it will be sold automatically. Players will receive the proceeds, and those homes will be saved as presets. An official feature for owning multiple homes as assets is planned for later, though no date was given.
The team is also exploring ways to let players place content-specific lots in the city of their choice through commercial or dedicated lot editing. Scope may vary depending on the content type.
October: better starting families, prison content delayed
The October update will focus on improving the premade families living in each city. The team is refining NPC relationships, backstories, careers, and appearances so that the Zois players encounter have stories worth discovering, not just interesting faces. The developer diary video showed before-and-after shots of several NPCs with updated looks, and Kjun asked for player feedback on the redesigns.
Prison and incarceration content, previously expected sooner, has been pushed back. Kjun acknowledged the demand from players who enjoy crime gameplay and Active Mode but said there are underlying systems that need to be overhauled before prison content can work properly.
Celebrity system previews for December
The bulk of the developer diary video was dedicated to early footage of the celebrity system, currently targeted for December 2026. Screenshots and clips shown by the team included:
- New buildings, lots, and areas that may arrive in a new city
- Concert and event stages with special effects
- Performance and dancing animations
- Microphone accessories and new outfits (including purses)
- Build and Buy objects like trophies, cameras, and backdrops
- L-shaped stair sets
- New furniture pieces
Everything shown is still in active development, and Kjun noted that the team recently ran a small test with players and modders before making adjustments based on their feedback. He also mentioned a structural change to support mod creation using MCP, promising more details next week.
A year of talking directly to players
Kjun's reflective post offered a rare personal glimpse into how the developer diary started. He described sitting in a parked car in Incheon, replying to Discord posts one by one until he realized he could not keep up with every message. That first day shaped the twice-weekly posting routine he still follows.
A year in, the format has become one of InZOI's defining features as a live-service life sim. The developer diary has functioned as both a feedback channel and a way to hold players over between major updates, something especially relevant given the PS5 version's delay into the first half of 2027. All of the timelines mentioned, from October's NPC refresh to December's celebrity system, are subject to change based on development progress, as Kjun himself noted when asking players to share their thoughts before the team makes final decisions.
Source: Sims Community via Google News - InZOI