Loading...
Loading...
Roadmap and Planned Features
September 21, 2026 at 11:14 AM
Resolved the Q4 2026 table row that still said the update scope was unnamed, added the September 15 major update item preview and the studio's September status note, expanded the extra classes preview with the six subjects, and re-dated verified claims to September 21
Paralives launched into Steam Early Access on Monday, May 25, 2026, at $39.99 USD on PC and macOS. The Early Access period is expected to last approximately two years, after which the game will exit Early Access with a 1.0 release. Throughout the Early Access window, content updates will arrive as free patches under the studio's no-paid-DLC commitment.
This article is the canonical reference for the Day 1 vs post-launch feature split, as confirmed in the May 7, 2026 Early Access feature recap. Where prior drafts grouped pets, vehicles, swimming, weather, and other major systems as launch content, this version reflects the explicit Day 1 carveouts the studio has now published. For the broader Early Access framing, pricing, and language support, see Early Access. For the studio's broader history, see Paralives Studio and Development History.
Update: the features previewed for the August 2026 patch shipped in Patch 0.1.7 on August 10, 2026, including the baby visual rework, the indoor lighting revamp and bed slot assignment. Weather and seasons, pets gameplay and pools remain unshipped and are still listed for the Early Access window. Patch 0.1.8, on August 24, 2026, scaled the patch list back deliberately: the studio said it had begun work on the first big Paralives update, a free expansion aimed at the end of 2026, and that regular patches would be spaced further apart while that work proceeds. Hotfix 0.1.8b followed on August 28, 2026. The studio now labels that end-of-year expansion version 0.2.0, and its public feature roadmap tags eight in-progress entries with that version number; those entries are listed under First Major Content Update below.
On May 22, 2026, ahead of the Monday launch, the studio published the post-release roadmap and a launch-week pricing detail. The summary below collects the dated milestones the studio committed to in that announcement. The roadmap is explicitly subject to change as the studio responds to the launch build's stability and community feedback.
Window | Focus |
|---|---|
May 25, 2026 | Early Access launch at $39.99 USD with a 10% launch-week discount, bringing the launch price to $35.99 USD with Steam regional pricing applied. |
June to September 2026 | Performance optimization, bug fixes, tweaks to existing features, and quality-of-life improvements. The studio has indicated this period will not introduce new systems; the goal is to stabilize the Day 1 build before content updates begin. |
Q4 2026 | First major content update. The studio labels this update version 0.2.0 and its public feature roadmap tags eight in-progress entries with that version (see First Major Content Update below); it is the first scheduled content drop after the stabilization phase. |
Approximately two years | Rolling free updates rolling out the post-launch features listed below (pets, weather and seasons, vehicles, pools, swimming, basements, gardening, fishing, social events, family tree, calendar, town editor, calling and online chatting, and more). The studio has not committed to a fixed quarterly cadence beyond Q4 2026's first major update. |
The launch-week discount is a one-time pricing event tied to the May 25 launch. After the discount window, the price returns to $39.99 USD and rises further as content is added throughout Early Access. Players who buy at any point during Early Access receive every future update for free under the no-paid-DLC commitment.
The launch build covers the three core gameplay pillars and the systems that anchor them. The table below collects the systems and venues that are confirmed Day 1.
System | Confirmed Scope at Launch |
|---|---|
Gender-neutral base preset, sliders for chest, hips, buttocks, and height; color wheel for skin, hair, and eye colors; asymmetry options for eye color and clothing accessories; layered clothing top mixing; tattoos; gender-identity assignment independent of body presentation | |
Color wheel for every object and surface, curved walls and walls at any angle, optional grid-less placement for walls AND objects, split-level platforms, multi-floor construction, object resizing via corner anchors, in-game measuring tape, stairs, roofs, fences, basic terrain tools | |
Open-world town with no loading screens between lots, day-night cycle, character autonomy, multi-Parafolk group selection, personality traits, emotions, wants, needs, skills | |
11 named domains; named workplaces at Bloom, Headlines, Museum, SuperGamezPlus Inc., schools, and cafes; rabbit-hole shifts at launch; daily upgrade choice via the Expertise System; multi-job mechanic when schedules align | |
Rank Upgrade, Expertise Upgrade, Extra Upgrade branches; Application Points hiring; cross-domain expertise transfer | |
Full cooking system covering recipes and food spoilage | |
Weekly lot tax, electricity, water cycle; paradime balance shared across the household | |
Confirmed Day 1; aging and death also Day 1 | |
Baby (Sasha), Toddler, Child (Eli), Preteen, Teenager, Young Adult, Adult, Elder all Day 1 | |
Confirmed Day 1 death-cause set | |
Museum, L'Armoire, Market Antiques, Bloom, Headlines, SuperGamezPlus Inc., Premium Gym, Creme Cafe, The Story Nook, Chez Maurice, schools | |
Park Yoga (Sun / Tue / Thu, Fitness skill), Marketplace (Sun, oddities and painter stalls), Astronomy Club (Mon / Wed / Fri, Science skill at the mountaintop), Buried Treasure Hunt (Thu, around 20 build-mode-asset chests across town and the castle exterior) | |
Day 1 in-game modding tools and Workshop publishing; Control Panel via Ctrl+F2; mod storage under AppData LocalLow Paralives | |
Contextual Live Mode music; 16 mixed and mastered tracks + 12 radio tracks; custom radio music supported via modding | |
Photo Mode capture; assets are moddable; time-of-day adjustment, animation frame selection, filters, depth of field, bloom, frames, and stickers | |
191 new animations added in 2025; 11 new ambient town animations with confirmed variations; walk styles vary by personality + emotional state + life stage | |
Help Menu | In-game help menu introduced March 24, 2026 |
Several systems are confirmed for free updates during the Early Access period rather than at Day 1. The table below collects the post-launch additions the studio has explicitly named. Specific patch dates are intentionally not committed.
Feature | Status |
|---|---|
Pets (dogs, cats, horses) | Free update during Early Access |
Vehicles (cars, bikes) | Free update during Early Access |
Boats and houseboats | Free update during Early Access |
Swimming and pools | Free update during Early Access |
Weather and seasons | Free update during Early Access |
Calendar | Free update during Early Access |
Family tree UI | Free update during Early Access; genetics system itself is Day 1, but the family-tree viewer is post-launch |
Gardening | Free update during Early Access |
Fishing | Free update during Early Access |
Story progression for NPCs | Free update during Early Access |
Organized social events (weddings, parties) | Free update during Early Access |
Free update during Early Access | |
Advanced roof and stair tools | Free update during Early Access |
Basements | Free update during Early Access |
Curved doors and windows | Free update during Early Access |
Pet creation tools | Free update during Early Access (after the pets update lands) |
Calling Paras over the phone and chatting online | Free update during Early Access; carved out of Day 1 explicitly |
Each of these will arrive as a free patch under the no-paid-DLC commitment. The studio has explicitly avoided committing to specific patch dates while the launch build stabilizes. The ordering of updates will be shaped by community feedback, technical opportunity, and the team's evolving priorities during Early Access. See Community for the broader community-engagement framing.
The following features have either been explicitly deferred or were never on the roadmap. Players should treat them as not promised.
Feature | Reason / Status |
|---|---|
Script mods | Not supported. The studio’s official FAQ states that script mods are not planned at the moment; the toolkit covers content and parameter mods only |
Console versions | Not planned; PC and macOS only |
Mobile versions | Not planned; PC and macOS only |
Controller and Steam Deck support | Still not declared on the Steam store listing as of September 21, 2026; keyboard and mouse are the supported input. The studio has said controller support would be the first step toward any console work |
Multiplayer or co-op | Not planned; single-player only |
Mature content (drugs, gore, murder, sexual violence, pornography) | Excluded by the Teen-rating target |
Occult / supernatural characters (vampires, werewolves) | Targeted for post-Early Access, not part of the EA roadmap window |
Cross-platform multiplayer or cloud sharing of households | Not planned; the game is single-player and local-only |
Build Mode continues to grow through Early Access. Day 1 covers the core toolset, but several advanced toggles arrive later.
Curved doors and windows arrive post-launch
Basement construction arrives post-launch
Advanced roof tools (more roof shapes, dormers, complex overhangs) arrive post-launch
Advanced stair tools (spiral stairs, custom landings) arrive post-launch
Town editing tools that let players add or modify districts arrive post-launch
Pool tools arrive post-launch alongside swimming
Live Mode systems also expand during Early Access. The post-launch list below mixes lifestyle, parenting, and routine-life additions.
Pet creation tools and pet behavior, after pets ship
Calendar integration so household members can schedule events
Family tree UI to visualize relationships and ancestry
Story progression for NPCs so the wider town ages and lives independently
Calling and online chatting so social systems reach across the town
Gardening, fishing, and additional hobbies that expand the hobby library
Additional traits, vibes, and lifestyles to deepen personality customization
Paramaker also gains content during Early Access. The launch toolset is already broad, but planned additions include:
More hairstyles and clothing options
Pitch sliders for voice variation
More Vibes, Talents, and Social Perks
Expanded asymmetry hooks for additional accessory categories
Modding support for Vibes, Talents, Social Perks, Together Cards, and Relationship labels
Modding and Steam Workshop is Day 1, but the modding toolkit also expands during Early Access. The Day 1 toolkit covers Build Mode assets, Paramaker assets, Photo Mode assets, careers, genetics, rabbit holes, recipes, TV channels, relationship labels, together cards, vibes, wants, food, and custom radio music. Planned additions during Early Access include broader asset categories, additional file format support, and more granular configuration hooks. Script mods remain under consideration without a firm timeline.
Several April and May 2026 dev showcases helped tighten expectations for the launch build.
Date | Topic | Notes |
|---|---|---|
April 2, 2026 | Town Events Showcase | First public look at scheduled town events including the Sunday marketplace and the Thursday Buried Treasure Hunt |
April 7, 2026 | New Building Sneak Peek | Reveal of an additional commercial building added to the open world |
April 9, 2026 | Museum Showcase | Reveal of the in-town museum venue with the collectibles donation pipeline |
April 14, 2026 | Town Animations | Ambient town animations layered onto venues and pedestrians |
April 23, 2026 | Walking Animations | New walking animation set driven by Vibes, Emotions, and Lifestages |
May 5, 2026 | Early Access Golden Recap | Internal milestone marker that locked the planned Day 1 build |
May 7, 2026 | Early Access Features Recap | Explicit Day 1 vs post-launch carveouts; this article's canonical source |
The studio has indicated that the 1.0 release, targeted for sometime in 2028, will collect every Early Access free update plus additional content. Beyond the post-launch feature list, the studio has noted several stretch goals that may or may not land by 1.0:
Additional death types beyond the launch set
Deeper parenting gameplay and a simple child-services system
Baby carriers for transporting babies around the world
Library and bookshop venue types
Additional retail venue types with ordering and delivery systems
Cell towers and broader NPC communication systems
Non-life-threatening illnesses
Objects that influence Parafolk emotions and behavior in finer-grained ways
None of these stretch goals are committed to a specific patch. They reflect the studio's broader direction rather than a guaranteed feature schedule.
Roadmaps in long-running Early Access games shift as priorities change. The Paralives team has been candid that the Day 1 build is the starting point for an iterative, feedback-driven Early Access window of approximately two years. Players who join at launch should expect both a steady stream of free updates and occasional reshufflings of the order in which planned features arrive. The studio plans to communicate roadmap changes through its public posts and patch notes as they happen, rather than committing to a fixed quarterly cadence.
The studio has stated the Early Access window is expected to last approximately two years, with a 1.0 release targeted for 2028. The 1.0 build will roll up every free Early Access update plus additional content not yet detailed.
As of the Day-0 patch announcement (May 25, 2026), the studio reaffirmed that the four months following launch are reserved exclusively for performance optimization, hotfixes, and quality of life. No new gameplay systems are scheduled for this window; the focus is on stabilizing the launch build, addressing reported bugs, and improving Live Mode behavior before the first major content drop.
The first major free content update is scheduled for the end of 2026, and the studio calls it version 0.2.0. Alongside Patch 0.1.8 on August 24, 2026, the team said it had moved on to that update and that regular patches would be spaced further apart while the work continues, with hotfixes still shipping as needed. The public feature roadmap now tags eight in-progress entries with the 0.2.0 version marker, which is the closest thing to a named scope the studio has published: more Together Cards, broader improvements to social gameplay and Together Cards, a pass on economy and progression balance, new interactions, general quality-of-life improvements and fixes to existing systems, an entry the studio labels only as secrets, more objects, furniture and decoration in Build Mode, and more clothing items, hairstyles and accessories in the Paramaker. Notably, pets, weather and seasons, and pools are not among the 0.2.0-tagged entries; all three still sit under the wider 2026 to 2028 Early Access bucket. The studio continues to describe the roadmap as subject to change and has not published a release date inside the end-of-2026 window.
The exact release date inside the end-of-2026 window for update 0.2.0, and how much of the eight tagged workstreams ships in it.
Post-Q4 patch cadence, the studio has not committed to a monthly or quarterly rhythm.
Whether Steam Deck Verified status will arrive during Early Access. No Steam Deck compatibility rating appears on the store listing as of September 21, 2026.
Console versions, currently no plans; Xbox is described as under consideration but not committed.
In the studio's first post-launch developer question-and-answer session, the team confirmed several features as planned for delivery during the Early Access window. All of the items below are planned future updates rather than mechanics present in the current build, and each will arrive as a free update for existing owners.
Planned feature | Status as stated by the studio |
|---|---|
Gardening | Basic gardening is planned for a future Early Access update. Deeper farming or ranching depends on how players respond to the initial implementation. |
Dogs, cats, and horses are confirmed as planned for Early Access. Other pet types may be considered later. | |
Vehicles and garages | Cars and garages are planned for a future Early Access update. |
Steam achievements | Planned during Early Access, with no committed timeline. Still not implemented as of September 21, 2026: the store listing carries no achievements block and the studio’s feature roadmap still lists Steam achievements as scheduled rather than done. |
Steam Cloud saves | Shipped. Patch 0.1.5 on July 2, 2026 added Steam Cloud syncing for save files. |
Teen romance | Shipped. Patch 0.1.3 on June 6, 2026 let Teenagers flirt and form romantic relationships with other Teenagers. |
Together Cards expansion | Confirmed for the end-of-2026 update. Two entries on the public feature roadmap, creating more Together Cards and improving social gameplay around them, now carry the 0.2.0 version tag. |
The team also named several systems that are not planned for the current roadmap, to set expectations during Early Access:
Occults and supernaturals (including mermaids, vampires, and werewolves) are listed on the roadmap with an "unsure" label. They are not planned for now and would only be considered after Early Access ends.
Schools and workplaces that are not rabbit-hole (offscreen) destinations are not planned for now.
Political gameplay is not on the studio's list of priorities.
Additional towns or cities beyond the launch town are not on the roadmap for now.
A multitasking system is not planned for now, as it is technically challenging.
An alternative to the Together Cards relationship system is not planned, as the system is considered core to the game's design.
On platforms, the studio said it would like to work on console versions later, after bug fixes and gameplay improvements, with controller support as the first step. A Steam Deck pass and cloud-streaming support are both being considered later in Early Access, with cloud saves needed first for streaming.
Through late July and early August 2026 the studio previewed the patch in a series of short sneak-peek posts and confirmed a release date of August 10, 2026. Three changes were shown ahead of the update; all three shipped in Patch 0.1.7 on that date.
Previewed Change | What the Studio Showed |
|---|---|
Updated baby visuals | A reworked look for babies, previewed on July 28, 2026 with the note that "the babies needed some work" |
Indoor lights revamp | Indoor lights look more realistic, have better range, and no longer light up walls as brightly |
Bed slot assignment | Parafolk can be assigned their own side of the bed, so a Para's spot stays free |
Crime-scene themed items | Two chalk body outlines, numbered evidence markers and a knife on a stone floor, shown on September 15, 2026 as new items for the major update |
On September 3, 2026 the studio posted a sneak peek for the next patch: younger Parafolk will be able to take extra classes to raise their grades. The accompanying short clip shows the option on the Elementary School lot as a Take an extra class menu with six subjects: Science, Parli, Physical Education, Art, Music and Math. It is the first feature the studio has previewed since Patch 0.1.8, and it extends the School system rather than the end-of-2026 update. No release date has been given for that patch.
On September 15, 2026 the studio posted a Sneak Peek of the Week teasing the new items its major update will include. The single image shows a set of crime-scene themed decorative pieces for Build Mode: two chalk body outlines, numbered yellow evidence markers and a knife laid out on a stone floor. The studio described them only as items, so they belong to the Build Mode entry for more objects, furniture and decoration tagged 0.2.0 above; no gameplay system was shown or named alongside them, and the official FAQ still lists murder among the mature themes the game does not contain.
The studio's development page carries a dated status line for September 2026: the team is working on new content and improvements to the gameplay systems for the first major update due at the end of 2026, alongside bug fixes for hotfix patches. No patch or hotfix had shipped between Hotfix 0.1.8b on August 28, 2026 and September 21, 2026.
Paralives Studio maintains a public feature-by-feature development roadmap, linked from the official development page, which tracks every planned item by module and status. As of September 21, 2026 it holds 357 entries across five modules.
Module | Entries | Scope |
|---|---|---|
Live Mode | 114 | Simulation, social, careers, needs, autonomy and story systems |
Build Mode | 96 | Wall, roof, stair, terrain and object tools plus catalog content |
Paramaker | 95 | Character creation, genetics, clothing and pet creation |
General Features | 30 | Platform-level work such as Steam Workshop, achievements and lighting |
Modding Tools | 22 | Asset pipeline, data editing and modder-facing utilities |
By status the same list breaks down as 283 entries marked done, 61 scheduled for the Early Access window running 2026 to 2028, 11 in progress, and 2 under consideration for after the full release.
Eleven entries are marked in progress, up from four in July 2026, and eight of them carry a 0.2.0 version tag that identifies them as work on the end-of-2026 update. Three untagged entries sit in Live Mode: fixing bugs related to babies and toddlers, fixing assorted Live Mode gameplay bugs, and letting new characters move into town. The eight tagged entries are listed below.
Module | 0.2.0 entry |
|---|---|
Live Mode | Create more Together Cards |
Live Mode | Improve social gameplay and Together Cards |
Live Mode | Balance the economy and game progression |
Live Mode | New interactions |
Live Mode | Various quality of life improvements and fixes to existing gameplay systems |
Live Mode | Secrets, listed without further detail |
Build Mode | Add more objects, furniture and decoration for the next major update |
Paramaker | Create more clothing items, hairstyles and accessories for the next major update |
Two entries are flagged as unsure and reserved for after the full release rather than the Early Access window: supernaturals in Live Mode, and an automatic roof tool in Build Mode. Neither is a commitment, and neither should be read as a planned Early Access feature.
A sexual orientation and preference system, and story progression for Townies so that non-player Paras form new relationships and change careers on their own.
A calendar menu showing the schedule of Parafolk, and a family tree menu.
Storing leftovers in the fridge, a basic gardening system, and objects that have effects on characters.
Steam achievements, improved lighting systems, and in-game tutorials for both Build Mode and the Paramaker.
Build Mode tools to move whole rooms, place premade rooms from a catalog, generate roads and sidewalks, create garages and parking spaces, and build houseboats.
A pitch slider for Para voices, search and filter in the Paramaker catalogs, and an improved skin tone color wheel.
