Free online life simulator: play in your browser, no download
Be born as one person out of eight billion, live that life year by year, and see how it ends. Free, with no account.
Eight Billion Lives is a life simulation game that runs in your browser. This page explains what a life simulator is, what kinds there are, and how this one plays.
What is a life simulation game?
A life simulation game lets you live a life, or run one, in a game. The name covers several kinds, and they play quite differently:
- Text-based life simulators. You read what happens each year and choose what to do next. BitLife is the best-known example. See games like BitLife.
- Sandbox people-and-home games. You run the daily life of characters in a house and a town. The Sims is the best-known example.
- Birth-lottery simulators. You are born as one person chosen by chance, and the game is about living with that start. Eight Billion Lives is this kind.
How Eight Billion Lives plays
- You are born. Your country, sex, family and year of birth follow the world’s actual birth odds. Or pick a country, a city or a year.
- You live year by year. Pixel-art scenes move with the years. School, work, family, health and the world around you, including wars and disasters of your time and place, shape the life.
- You make a few choices. They bend the odds. They do not remove them.
- It ends. You get an epitaph and a record of the life. Every life replays exactly from its seed, so you can share one.
Free, with no download and no account
The game runs in your browser on a phone or a computer. There is no account and no advertising today, and your notes stay on your device unless you share them. See the privacy page for what is counted, anonymously.
Real data, labeled
Births and life tables come from the United Nations, income and prices from the World Bank, wars from the Uppsala Conflict Data Program, and places from GeoNames, the US Census and Statistics Canada. Every number in the game is marked Sourced, with its source, or Extrapolated, with the model used. See every source and how accurate it is.
Where you could be born
See the chances of being born in each country, ranked, or look up any country, state or large city.
Common questions
Is there a free life simulator I can play online?
Yes. Eight Billion Lives is free and runs in your browser, on a phone or a computer.
Do I need to download anything or make an account?
No. There is no download and no account. Your lives and notes are kept on your device unless you choose to share them.
Can I choose where I am born?
You can leave it to chance, which follows real birth statistics, or pick a country, a city or a year. Browse the places you could be born.
Are the numbers in the game real?
Your birth odds and life tables come from named public datasets, such as the United Nations World Population Prospects. Each number is labeled Sourced or Extrapolated. Read how accurate it is.