If you're one of those waiting for the release of Life by You, we have bad news for you. That's because Paradox Interactive announced that they won't be releasing the game. It was first revealed about a year ago.
In a statement, Paradox Interactive CEO Fredrik Wester revealed in a statement that while they saw the potential the game had to offer, it was clear that it wouldn't meet their expectations. He added that a version that's acceptable to them is still far away and this resulted in the decision to cancel the release. He went on to say that the studio has been performing rather poorly when it comes to their recent releases.
Life by You was envisioned to be a game where players get to have total control of the humans they create, the towns they build, and the stories they tell. It was pretty much seen to be a possible competition for The Sims.
While Wester's statement didn't reveal much, Deputy CEO Mattias Lilja offered more information. He actually reiterated Wester's statement that the cancellation of the game was a result of failure on the part of Paradox to meet not only their expectations but also that of the community.
In a post, Lilja revealed that they've decided to delay the release of the game twice. This was to studio time to make sure that the vision for the game was realized. However, for each delay made it seems that the improvements made were only incremental. He added that a few weeks back a decision was made to hold off the Early Access release. This was to re-evaluate the game since it seemed that it remained to be lacking in some key areas.
Lilja shared that there was a time to extend the release further, but it later became clear to everyone that the road which led to the game's release "was far too long and uncertain." To be fair, the game had quite a few strengths and the development team were on the way to making it happen. The problem was, according to Lilja, more time wouldn't get them any closer to what they wanted, and it was "better to stop."
That's not the only bad news for the studio. It seems that Paradox Tectonic (Tectonic) in Berkeley, California has been shut down. This is the same studio that worked on Life by You since 2019.
What do you think? Was this a good reason to cancel the game?
