I'm beginning to think I made a mistake by missing out on playing Once Human. Because, despite its shooter-focused exterior, everyone in this free-to-play survival game seems to spend most of their time just building houses. Damn, I love building houses.

I was under the mistaken impression that Once Human would be more DayZ-like PvP shooter action than Valheim-like craft survival. But now, a month later, the nightly group voice chats, which are usually filled with talk of "Rainbow Six Siege" and "Call of Duty," have become suspiciously quiet. 'What is everyone doing? one person asked in the midst of this unusual quiet. I'm working on my house," another replied. And they had been doing so for hours.

Everyone is just working in their own homes. Aside from the goofy auto-physics clips, most of the top posts on the Once Human subreddit since the service's inception have been of huge, complex base builds. And even one of my favorite cozy game influencers has joked about what would happen if Sims players started playing Once Human.

I fully expect this in most craft survival games; I wouldn't be surprised to see massive builds in Palworld, Ark, or even Fallout 76. I just didn't think a game like PUBG would inspire the same homebrew instinct. But apparently it does. One of my friends admitted after I warned him that I would abuse them, "For the past three days, all I've been doing is grinding out furniture blueprints."

I recall former Sims series leader Rod Humble telling me last year that men lie in focus groups about what they spend their play time on, when in reality they just redecorated the bathroom. I am glad that we have now evolved as a gaming community and are ready to admit that we spend an inordinate amount of time on severe shooters to unlock new blueprints for our homes. We are all Sims players inside.

As a celebration, here are some of the cool things Once Human players have made so far: