Paradox Interactive announced today that the upcoming The Sims competitor, Life by You, has been canceled. Originally announced back in March 2023, Life by You was to be the debut title for Paradox Tectonic, an in-house Paradox development team led by former The Sims head Rod Humble. The cancellation resulted in a MSEK 208 write-down in Q2 for Paradox which according to Google Conversion is roughly $19.8 million.
Rough times for new IPs at Paradox
Paradox Interactive has long been considered the power player when it comes to grand strategy and 4X title releases, with hit franchises like Stellaris, Hearts of Iron, Crusader Kings, and Europa Universalis. However, recently the company has expanded its scope and begun publishing and developing more titles in the strategy genre, but not necessarily grand strategy. In October 2023, Paradox published a turn-based tactical RPG titled The Lamplighters League but just one week after release also wrote it off as a loss due to poor sales.
With Paradox willing to outright cancel Life by You instead of putting in the time and resources to get it where they want to be, it seems as though the project may have been far off from where the company hoped it would be. Life by You was originally scheduled to be released into Early Access in September 2023 but was delayed to March 2024, then June 2024. Just a few weeks before its intended June release, Paradox revealed the life sim had been delayed indefinitely, and now we know why.
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.
– Fredrik Wester, CEO of Paradox Interactive
Fans looking for a new life sim will now have to wait and see what The Sims 5, codenamed Project Rene, will turn out to be.
