LifePlay Revival — Unreal Engine 5.5 port

Community continuation of LifePlay by Vinfamy, a free, open-source and moddable life simulation RPG (adult content), ported from Unreal Engine 4.27 to Unreal Engine 5.5.

Download the full project

This Git repository does not contain the heavy assets (see Repository contents). To build or play, download the full source archive.

LifePlay_Revival_V1.3_UE5.5_Full_Source_Code.7z (Mega, 4.95 GB)

• SHA-256: 24e7d58f759ca8998fe0d7ddc8c6a4c30262978806903e6d3deb68b37c46512a
• Previous versions:
  • LifePlay_Revival_V1.2_UE5.5_Full_Source_Code.7z (4.94 GB, SHA-256 fb298583743497799dd274cc62b8cf80fbef3445766be5898201924c64674f1a);
  • LifePlay_Revival_V1.1_UE5.5_Full_Source_Code.7z (4.94 GB, SHA-256 6dbfb18e55e51558708239856b54f757b6044307d2d1cf261e88c94baaf617ae);
  • the V1 archive is no longer hosted (storage space); its Git state remains available with the v1.0 tag.
• Same layout as the original author's full source archives: the project folder at the archive root, 7z LZMA2.
• Contains the complete Content folder (including Content/Heavy converted to UE5 format), the compiled editor modules in Binaries (the project opens without compiling), the StreetMap and ModdingExtra plugins, and a .git folder matching this repository.
• Not included: Saved, Intermediate (regenerated on first build), local development tools.

Check the file after downloading (PowerShell):

Get-FileHash .\LifePlay_Revival_V1.3_UE5.5_Full_Source_Code.7z -Algorithm SHA256

Status: V1.3 (tag v1.3, 2026-10-02)

Data-loading release. Measured with Unreal Insights and verified in game.

	V1.2	V1.3
Game data loading when starting or loading a game	≈ 12.6 s	≈ 1.3 s
Scene header parsing (PopulateScenes)	3.6 s	0.15 s

• Data layer. The ≈ 2,000 text files of Content/Modules are loaded once, in the background while the main menu is shown, into a compiled cache (one JSON file per data type, Saved/LPDataCache, in %LOCALAPPDATA%\LifePlay\Saved for the Shipping build). Only new or changed files are read again. The text files stay the source for the base game and for mods: modding is unchanged.
• Scene headers in C++. The WHAT:/WHERE: expansion of scene headers, 94 % of scene loading, now runs in C++ with exactly the same results (verified against the original Blueprint on every call: 0 difference).
• Fixes. No more HairStrands errors at startup. ERR-038 (characters from the previous room briefly visible) is still open: an experimental fix was withdrawn after testing.

Status: V1.2 (tag v1.2, 2026-10-02)

Optimisation release. Every change was measured with the engine profilers (CSV profiler, memory tracker, Unreal Insights) and validated in game. Details: Docs/Migration/11_Audit_Optimisation.md.

Shipping build	V1.1	V1.2
Size	3,246 MB	1,494 MB (−54 %)
Files	24,249	2,084
Loading a saved game ("Continue")	≈ 71 s	≈ 15 s
Physics memory	463 MB	83 MB
Total memory	≈ 3.5 GB	≈ 3.1 GB

• Faster loading. The city map gave a physics body to each of its ≈ 160,000 decorative trees, cars and building markers (the same in UE 4.27). Their collision is now disabled; clicks on map icons are unaffected.
• Compressed content. Game content now ships in UE5 IoStore containers compressed with Oodle (the engine defaults). Content/Modules (all mods, text files) and the intro movie stay as plain files, so modding works as before. The ModdingExtra plugin finds cooked assets through the asset registry when they are not plain files (city list).
• Smaller build. 20 engine plugins the game never uses (neural network denoiser, Interchange, Fab…) are limited to the editor, and debug symbols are no longer shipped.
• Textures. 29 clothing, road and pavement textures now have mipmaps (less shimmering at a distance).
• Fixes and improvements carried over from the post-V1.1 work: the phone call box now frames the contact's face (was empty in UE 4.27); characters' feet are no longer hidden in outdoor locations (a ceiling 18 cm above the floor, also in UE 4.27); explicit rendering settings and SkyAtmosphere instead of the deprecated AtmosphericFog.
• Documentation (French) for developers: architecture after the migration, developer guide, useful commands, operating protocol — start at Docs/Migration/README.md.

Status: V1.1 (tag v1.1, 2026-10-01)

Changes since V1, each validated in game against UE 4.27 on an identical play path:

• Text search fix (CX-B12). In UE 5.5, searching for an empty substring reports a match at position 0, whereas UE 4.27 reported no match. Blueprint Contains, Split and Find Substring nodes therefore behaved differently (for example, face morph filtering let every morph through). 385 nodes in 28 Blueprints now call LPStringCompat functions that keep the UE 4.27 behaviour. Runtime errors per character went back to UE 4.27 levels (session errors 30 → 7, out-of-bounds reads −22 %).
• Deprecated nodes replaced. 56 Get SkeletalMesh and 6 GetRandomPointInNavigableRadius nodes (same behaviour, non-deprecated calls): Blueprint compilation and cooking now report 0 warnings.
• StreetMap verified. All 280 cities (roads, buildings, amenities) and their 280 static meshes are identical to UE 4.27; the smaller files come from the UE5 asset format, not from data loss.
• Shipping build. The Shipping configuration builds and was played without issue, with the same layout as the original releases (loose files, no .pak, so the game stays moddable).
• Issues found during testing that also exist in UE 4.27 are documented in the error register and left unchanged.

Status: V1 (tag v1.0, 2026-09-30)

• The LifePlayEditor target compiles with no errors; every Blueprint loads and compiles.
• All 8,563 project packages are saved in UE5 format.
• A packaged Development build was played for about two hours with no crash: distinct, visible and dressed characters, scenes, saving and reloading.
• Known issues and planned work: Docs/Migration/Registre_Erreurs.md (error register) and the L7 work packages in Docs/Migration/04_Cahier_Des_Charges.md.

Branches

Branch	Contents
main	reference: the latest validated UE 5.5 version, base for further development
ue5.5-v1.3	the V1.3 as validated
ue5.5-v1.2	the V1.2 as validated
ue5.5-v1.1	the V1.1 as validated
ue5.5-v1	the V1 as validated
archive/ue4.27	the project as it ran on UE 4.27, before the migration (archive)
archive/original	Vinfamy's original repository, V3.6 (archive)

Developer documentation (French)

Start with Docs/Migration/README.md. Main documents: architecture after the migration, developer guide (build, packaging, commandlets, writing a fix), useful commands (including in-game diagnostic options) and the operating protocol followed for every change.

Each migration step has <step>-avant / <step>-apres (before / after) tags. The change log Docs/Migration/Journal_Modifications.md records every change with its rollback procedure.

Repository contents

Same rules as the original repository (see .gitignore): C++ code, configuration, the ModdingExtra and StreetMap plugins, gameplay content (BPs, UI, Structs, Render, Scenes), the text data in Content/Modules, and documentation.

Not in Git: Content/Heavy (3D models, textures, animations: about 6 GB), Content/Saves, *.png, *.7z and *.mp4 files, binaries and caches. The repository alone is not enough to build or play: use the archive above.

Requirements

• Unreal Engine 5.5 (validated with 5.5.4), Windows 64-bit.
• Visual Studio 2022 with the "Desktop development with C++" workload, to rebuild the C++ modules.
• The .uproject references McpAutomationBridge, an optional AI editor-automation plugin used during the port (ChiR24/Unreal_mcp, MIT). It is not distributed here: when the editor asks, let it disable the plugin.

Migration documentation

The migration documentation is written in French. Entry point: Docs/Migration/README.md (LifePlay architecture, software audit, test plan, specifications, change log, error register). The checking scripts (Tools/*.ps1) and the diagnostic and fix commandlets (Source/LifePlayEditorTools) are described there.

Licenses

Code and content are licensed under AGPL-3.0 (LICENSE), like the original project. Third-party licenses and credits (StreetMap, OpenStreetMap, ManuelLab, MakeHuman, 3D models, modding): see Licenses/.