How to Stop Aging and Adjust Life Stages

Aging in Paralives is opt-in. The default lifespan is balanced for a roughly 50-hour playthrough, but the game ships with three layers of control: a global on/off toggle, a per-stage duration slider, and a per-Parafolk freeze. Combined, they let you run a multi-generation legacy at full speed or freeze your favourite couple in their twenties forever.

Quick answer

Open the pause menu, go to Gameplay → Aging, and switch Enable aging to OFF. To freeze just one Parafolk while time still passes for everyone else, click them and toggle Freeze age from the relationships panel.

Turning aging off globally

1. 01Press Esc to open the pause menu while in Live Mode.
2. 02Click Game Options, then the Gameplay tab.
3. 03Scroll to Aging and uncheck Enable aging.
4. 04Confirm — the lifebar above every Parafolk's portrait greys out immediately.
5. 05Re-enable any time; the game resumes from each Parafolk's exact remaining time.

This is per-save, not per-profile, so each save file remembers its own setting. Cloud sync respects it too.

Adjusting life-stage duration

The duration slider is in the same Aging panel. It applies to every Parafolk on the lot and the entire neighbourhood, including off-camera families.

• Short — about half the default. A full lifespan finishes in ~25 in-game years.
• Normal — the default. ~80 in-game years from baby to elder.
• Long — roughly double. Good for build-focused saves where you want skill progression without generational churn.
• Custom — set each stage individually (see the next section).

Per-stage custom durations

Switching the preset to Custom reveals a stage-by-stage list. Each stage takes a number of in-game days; the slider previews the equivalent in real-time hours assuming default game speed.

• Baby — 3 days (default). The shortest stage; can be set as low as 1 day.
• Toddler — 7 days. Locked at 1 day minimum to allow basic skill seeding.
• Child — 14 days. The stage most players extend; up to 60 days.
• Teen — 14 days. School cycles assume a multiple of 7; pick 7, 14, 21, or 28 for the cleanest schedule.
• Young Adult — 25 days. Career-heavy stage; long durations keep promotions feeling earned.
• Adult — 25 days. Same as Young Adult by default.
• Elder — variable, ends in death by old age. Set to 999 to effectively make elders immortal.

Freezing a single Parafolk

1. 01Click the Parafolk portrait, then the … overflow menu in the portrait header.
2. 02Choose Freeze age — a snowflake icon appears next to their lifebar.
3. 03Time still passes for them in every other way (relationships, careers, pregnancy), but the aging meter stops moving.
4. 04Repeat the steps to unfreeze; the meter resumes from where it stopped.

Frozen Parafolk can still die from accidents (fires, drowning, exhaustion). Freeze is age-only, not invulnerability.

Console commands for aging

If you'd rather work from the cheat console, every menu option above has a command-line equivalent. The full command list lives in our cheat console reference, but the aging-specific ones are worth memorising.

• aging off / aging on — global toggle, equivalent to the menu checkbox.
• freeze_age — freezes the selected Parafolk. Run again to unfreeze.
• set_age <stage> — instantly promotes the selected Parafolk to baby, toddler, child, teen, young_adult, adult, or elder.
• set_age_days <number> — sets exact remaining days in the current stage; useful for staging a birthday party for a specific date.
• age_up — fires the birthday transition right now, complete with cake animation if a cake is in inventory.

Stopping deaths from old age

Death of old age fires when an elder's stage timer hits zero. The cleanest way to prevent it without breaking gameplay is to set Elder duration to a very high number rather than disabling aging globally — that way younger Parafolk still progress.

• Set Elder duration to 999 days for an effectively immortal late life.
• Or run freeze_age on each elder you want to protect; the rest of the family keeps aging normally.
• Or install a gameplay tweak that removes the death event entirely — useful if you've already let an elder hit zero days and want a one-time rescue.

Tips for legacy and challenge saves

• For Sims-style 25-generation legacies, drop child and teen to 4 days each and leave young adult/adult at default — heirs grow up fast, then have full careers.
• For builder-only saves, freeze every Parafolk on arrival; the world stays static while you decorate.
• For story-driven saves, leave aging on at Normal speed but freeze key plot characters and unfreeze them only when their arc requires it.

Where to go next

If you're rebuilding a family around new aging rules, our moving households walkthrough is the natural next step. For finer narrative control, browse the gameplay mod shelf — there's a steady stream of new traits, ages, and event mods landing every patch.