Life by You was shaping up to be a stellar competitor to The Sims. It boasted a similar gameplay loop but offered unparalleled customisation opportunities, and the game was due to enter early access soon. Sadly, the game’s publisher, Paradox, has suddenly decided to cancel the game entirely, shutting down the project after years of development. In the last few months, Life by You was delayed three times, with the most recent delay not having an end date attached to it.

In a statement, it was referenced that it was ‘a mistake’ letting the game get this far, which suggests there were problems from the outset. It looked like Life by You was being pieced together quite nicely from an external perspective, with the project being led by a Sims veteran – Rod Humble. Now, there are concerns regarding the future of the studio – Paradox Tectonic.

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End of Life

Since The Sims 4 went free-to-play in 2022, it has effortlessly dominated the life-sim genre, and there were hopes that Life by You could have stood against the titan of a franchise.

In a statement published by the deputy CEO of Paradox Interactive, Mattias Lilja, it was explained:

‘Sadly, we’ve decided to cancel the release of our long-awaited life sim Life by You. This was an incredibly difficult call to make and is a clear failure on Paradox’s part to meet both our own and the community’s expectations. We realize this raises some large questions; here we hope to shed at least some light on why we opted to cancel, rather than delay as we communicated earlier.’

As the statement unravelled, it was revealed that the game was ‘lacking in some key areas’ despite years of development. It was decided that the road ahead was ‘too long and uncertain’ to be weathered, despite there being a strong following made up of gamers waiting in eager anticipation for Life by You to be delivered. Throughout the post that was published by Lilja, it’s never made clear if there was one particular thing that led to the downfall of the project, instead, it seems as though it was a general failing across the board.

Unfortunately, some prospective fans have taken the news of the cancellation quite hard. In a comment posted in response to the original statement, one user wrote: ‘This is the biggest disappointment and I have to say after all of this being strung along, I will never support another PDX game, ever again.’ Other users were trying to offer solutions to the situation: ‘Maybe Paradox could post the build of the game in the public domain so that fans/modders can complete it themselves?’

It has been a troubling 18 months or so for the industry, and this is far from being the first project that has been cancelled or shelved.

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