Cheerful is one of fifteen new personality characteristics introduced in the v0.4.0 patch on October 30, 2025 as part of the mentality system overhaul. Cheerful defines a Zoi who slips easily into happiness whenever something goes right. The official description reads: "I easily feel joy and happiness from liked activities or positive conversations."
Overview
Cheerful is selected during Zoi creation. Every Zoi has two characteristic slots, and the two chosen must not conflict. Cheerful is the lightest of the emotional characteristics and sits opposite darker entries like Depressed and Malicious on the v0.4.0 characteristic roster.
The v0.4.0 patch notes frame characteristics as personality layers that "influence which emotions and needs arise as a result of particular actions." Cheerful is the clearest example of that principle: it does not add new verbs to the Zoi, it just lowers the threshold for positive emotional reactions to actions the Zoi already likes.
Description
In personality terms, Cheerful reads as an optimistic, upbeat temperament. The description is written in first person, "I easily feel joy and happiness," which fits a Zoi whose default emotional gear is contentment. Two triggers are called out by name: liked activities, meaning hobbies and actions the Zoi already has positive preferences for, and positive conversations, meaning friendly social interactions with other Zois. In practice the Cheerful Zoi will laugh more, smile more, and bounce back from setbacks faster than a Zoi without the characteristic.
Gameplay Effects
Cheerful boosts the emotions system on the positive end. Because characteristics in v0.4.0 are wired to the emotion and needs engines, actions the Zoi classifies as "liked" fire joy or happiness moodlets more easily when Cheerful is active. The same is true for conversations that are already going well: flirts that land, compliments, shared interests, or affirming dialogue from friends and family.
Concrete in-game consequences that follow from that description:
Faster mood top-ups. Routine hobbies already produce small happy moodlets; on a Cheerful Zoi, those moodlets are easier to trigger, so maintaining a positive mood line is less work.
Stronger social payoff. Positive conversations feed relationship gauges across the board, and the Cheerful Zoi pockets joy moodlets from interactions that a neutral Zoi would receive little or no mood shift from.
Shorter emotional downswings. The description emphasises easy joy but says nothing about how the Zoi handles negative events, which means Cheerful is not a shield against bad moods. It just makes the climb out of them faster.
Urge alignment. The v0.4.0 urge rework links urges to personality, so Cheerful Zois surface urges that chase positive activities, like meeting friends, attending events, or doing favourite hobbies.
KRAFTON has not published specific mood magnitudes, durations, or probability changes for Cheerful. Any guide quoting exact percentages for this characteristic is inferring, not citing, so use this article's behavioural summary rather than numeric targets.
Compatible and Incompatible Characteristics
The v0.4.0 two-slot limit only says the pair cannot conflict; the game does not publish a full conflict matrix. Based on published descriptions, the following table captures how Cheerful reads against common pairings.
Relationship | Characteristic | Reasoning |
|---|---|---|
Natural fit | Extroverted Zois actively seek conversation, which is one of the two trigger categories for Cheerful. The pair produces a bright, socially active Zoi. | |
Natural fit | Lively's love of music, dancing, and clubs creates a steady stream of liked activities for Cheerful to react to. | |
Natural fit | Workouts are a liked activity, and the gym triggers excitement for Fitness Enthusiasts, which Cheerful then converts into strong joy moodlets. | |
Tension | Depressed makes negative conversations and disliked actions produce sadness easily, which reads as the direct opposite of Cheerful's trigger logic. The two will likely be blocked as a conflicting pair. | |
Tension | Malicious takes pleasure in conflict and discomfort, which conflicts thematically with Cheerful's bias toward positive interactions. |
The in-game selector will disable any pair the engine actually blocks, so the "Tension" rows are expectations rather than confirmed coded conflicts.
Recommended Careers and Lifestyles
Cheerful rewards social-heavy careers and day-to-day patterns full of preferred hobbies. Pairings that work well:
Public-facing roles: performers, streamers, entertainers, and hosts all lean on positive social exchanges, which Cheerful amplifies into steady mood gains.
Service and hospitality jobs: baristas, retail staff, and helpers benefit from the characteristic's habit of turning routine chats into happiness bumps.
Family-focused saves: the Cheerful temperament shines in households with kids, because daily bedtime stories, meals, and shared play count as liked activities.
Party-runner archetypes: throwing events, hosting dinners, and visiting festivals all lean into the characteristic, especially on a Lively or Extroverted pairing.
Tips for Playing a Cheerful Zoi
Keep their preference list full. The characteristic keys off liked activities, so the more hobbies you mark as favourites, the more opportunities the Zoi has to trip joy moodlets.
Prioritise positive social branches. Friendly, flirtatious, and funny interactions all count as positive conversations; save confrontational dialogue trees for Zois that are not built around Cheerful.
Use the mood runway for risky actions. Cheerful's easy joy makes it a good cushion for career tasks, public performances, or skill grinds that need a confident or inspired mood to succeed.
Follow urges when they appear. The v0.4.0 urge rework ties Cheerful's impulses to positive scenarios; accepting those urges keeps the Zoi looping through mood-positive interactions.
Avoid darker roleplay setups. Cheerful will feel mechanically wasted on a villain or shut-in save; pick a different characteristic if the planned story leans heavily on melancholy or cruelty.