Underneath Paralives’ cozy façade, is an unsettling and mysterious horror game waiting for you to uncover its secrets. What's with all the skeletons? The secret passageway in the town hall with multiple hidden bodies? The graffiti crying ‘c’est la fin!’? Who is Mustache Man? Is this a town run by a death cult? Or does the town have its own serial killer? Something isn't right about Melino, and it's time we talked about it.
If you are approaching Paralives as if it is a simple life sim, you will be missing out on some deep, dark, and sad lore. From the outside, Melino looks like a cute coastal town with some interesting medieval history, if the castle ruins near the town center are anything to go by. The thing about Paralives is, the more you explore, the more unsettling it starts to feel.
Abandon Hope Ye Who Enter Here
In the industrial area of the town, most buildings are abandoned, boarded up, or sprayed with graffiti, including an ominous message warning ‘this is the end’ in French. Bus stops and trash cans are regularly vandalized, offering an insight into how disgruntled many residents are in Melino. Perhaps it is your job as a player to help rebuild this run-down town, but you should be wary...
The people of Melino are encouraged to go mushroom hunting, with some donated to the museum and others sold, used in recipes, or eaten raw… at your own risk, of course. Alongside the delicious array of restaurant-quality mushrooms such as shiitake, morel, and oyster mushrooms, are deadly variants like the fly agaric. One bite and your Para is no more than a name in an obituary.
Death in the town is an odd subject, as the local graveyard is full of headstones with ominous, sarcastic, or snarky messages, like ‘Don’t Laugh, You’re Next’, and ‘Not Resting In Peace’. A murder of crows is obsessed with one of the graves (Hugh Lee: If Looks Could Kill). Is this a portent of what once was, or what is to come..? Perhaps a clue to what happened to poor Hugh?
It is strange that a town like this could have such a small graveyard, and yet have dead bodies practically littering the place. Any new resident, visitor, or tourist entering the town on the train will see their first skeleton sat casually against the cliffside, backpack and sneakers at their side. Anyone exploring further will not go far without noticing other weird signs that this town is no normal seaside space, starting with how many sad and stressed Paras live in Melino.
Good Mourning, Melino
Emma Wake has outlived her artist husband and now lives alone in her large house, untouched since his passing. What’s more devastating than his death is the nursery full of unpacked boxes and an unused cot, suggesting that Emma was once expecting a child that sadly never arrived. She now spends her time lighting candles in memory of her husband and her lost child, sipping wine as she stares out to sea.
At a house across from the abandoned lighthouse, is another family: the Patels. The house is in disarray, with trash bags, dirt, and boxes littering the place, and grime covering most surfaces. It is as if the family just gave up a long time ago. Despite being springtime in Melino, Christmas decorations still adorn the house outside, with a sadder story in the couple’s living room.
A dry, brown, clearly-dead Christmas tree still stands, and three stockings still hang on the wall; one for Asha, one for Rahul, and the third for a child named Kiran. Kiran’s bedroom is untouched upstairs, and is actually the neatest in the house, but he is nowhere to be found.
Not to mention the single mother who has a worrying amount of medications on her bedside table, and always looks so sad and unwell.
His room is still full of toys and books, and his inhaler sits abandoned on the desk. It isn’t clear whether he died or is missing, or whether his disappearance has anything to do with the old teddy bear that guards an old well.
Going missing and dying in Melino is not a rare occurrence, it seems. Some may see the secret passageways, creepy decor in the town hall towers, and the coffins and skeletons strewn about the place, and assume there is some kind of death cult running Melino. Either that or there is a sick and sadistic killer running around at night.
Could it be the mysterious Mustache Man, as mentioned in the Melino newspaper? Or could the deaths be at the hands of the Para who has access to the secret passageways from his living room (I’m looking at you, Sebastian Marquez).
Paralives may be in early access, but they have set up some of the best and most unnerving lore we have seen. I assumed Paralives would be just another cozy life simulation game, but now I’m not so sure.
Paralives Like Follow Followed Life Simulation Sandbox Immersive Sim Systems OpenCritic Reviews Released May 25, 2026 Developer(s) Paralives Studio Publisher(s) Paralives Studio Engine Unity 5 Images CloseWHERE TO PLAY
DIGITAL
