Life by You was too big to be saved, but Paradox has not given up on making a Sims-like

Deputy CEO Mattias Lilja on the canceled project

Paradox Interactive

Paradox Interactive challenging Maxis’ life sim king The Sims sounded like a match-up made in heaven: Life by You could have been the competition EA’s juggernaut needed. Helmed by former The Sims 2 lead Rod Humble, the ambitious game was supposed to bring deep customization options and an open-world feeling to the genre, giving players an experience they could not have in the category’s flagbearer. However, Life by You was canceled after several delays and will not see the light of day.

Speaking to us at a press event about what Paradox wants to change to overcome its current rough patch, Deputy CEO Mattias Lilja admitted that the company had been “overconfident” in recent years, which resulted in setbacks like Life by You’s axing.

“We thought we had a good idea and we invested too heavily early on, so the team was too big and making changes became expensive and slow,” he explained. “Then you end up in a place where, like for Life by You, every step we take from here is going to be more expensive and will probably not solve anything.”

It looks like the Sims-like, which was in development for over four years at Paradox Tectonic, went too far into the wrong direction and yet was too unwieldy to be turned around.

Paradox leadership told us that it wants developers to work much more closely with fans again, listening to their feedback and finding themes and mechanics that resonate with players. This is an approach that was obviously not practiced with Life by You, which seemed centered around its creative leadership team’s vision alone and was unable to create that valuable resonance.

While Life by You’s cancellation was a very costly setback for Paradox – and one that has led to a fundamental change in how the company will approach future endeavors into uncharted waters – Lilja emphasized that he still “would defend Life By You as a good strategic idea. [...] We did not execute it in a good way. It didn’t work out.”

“We should definitely try to do that again, if a similar opportunity comes up,” he added. It seems like Paradox has not given up on making a Sims competitor quite yet – though it seems like it’ll need some luck and a lot of patience.