Image: Paradox Interactive
Paradox’s planned Sims-like game Life by You has been abruptly cancelled.
Paradox Interactive has announced that its life simulation game Life by You has been cancelled. The title was first revealed as an up-and-coming competitor to Electronic Arts’ The Sims franchise, but has now been axed right before its early access release, and its development studio shut down permanently.
In response, Life by You’s game designer Willem Delventhal posted on LinkedIn to call recent events, “a real shit show.”
Sims rival Life by You gets cancelled before early access launch
Paradox Interactive officially cancelled development on the life simulation game Life by You this week, before closing down its studio Paradox Tectonic permanently. The game's publisher broke the news via a news release on its website, saying:
For a long time, we’ve held hopes for Life by You and the potential we saw in it, but it is now clear that the game will not be able to meet our expectations. A version that we’d be satisfied with is too far away, and therefore we are taking the difficult decision to cancel the release. Moving forward, we should perform at a much higher level, and it’s obvious that we have work ahead of us.
In the post, Paradox admitted that it has, “performed poorly in recent releases,” and, “must make further changes so that quality is more consistent and the promises we make to our players are met.” The 24-person game studio behind the game, originally founded back in 2019 with former Sims boss Rod Humble, was closed down one day after Paradox’s announcement.
Life by You was originally unveiled by Paradox in March 2023, as one of the few life simulator games to compete with the juggernaut Sims franchise. The game was set to enter early access on September 12, 2023, but was delayed three times. First, to March 5, 2024, and then to June 4, 2024. After that, its early access release was postponed indefinitely.
The game promised to deliver a Sims-like gameplay loop with English-language conversations, customisable open worlds and an emphasis on player choice. In a LinkedIn post, game designer Willem Delventhal called this week’s events, “a real shit show,” and that development on the game had actually been going, “extremely well,” according to unspecified internal metrics. Delventhal notes that the studio was told that it wouldn’t be launching the game two weeks before its release date, and learned that they had lost their jobs in a public announcement.
Delventhal says that the team, “spent a month in purgatory, and did everything we could to prove to them we were worth launching, including things like finding potential buyers or suggesting cutting ties and going indie. We heard virtually nothing back.” This is only the latest of many studio closures this year, as multiple games publishers look to tighten their belts by laying off staff and cancelling projects.