Paradox Interactive announced that its long-delayed The Sims-style life sim Life by You is officially canceled in a post on their website today.
Life by You was initially announced in May of 2023. At the time, an early access release was planned for September of that year. It was initially delayed to May of 2024, then in February, Paradox announced an additional delay, pushing Life by You's Early Access release to June 4th. Two weeks before the June 4 release, it was delayed again, this time without a release date, because, in the words of Paradox Deputy CEO Mattias Lilja, "additional time [was] needed."
Paradox Interactive released a statement from CEO Fredrik Wester explaining the decision on its website. The full statement is as follows:
Paradox Interactive (Paradox) has today decided to cancel the release of the game Life by You. This means that the second quarter of 2024 will be impacted negatively by MSEK 208 from the write-down of the game’s total capitalized development costs.
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, said Fredrik Wester, CEO of Paradox Interactive.
We’ve performed poorly in recent releases, continued Wester. Even though we now start new projects in a different manner, it is clear that we must make further changes so that quality is more consistent and the promises we make to our players are met. We have to evaluate how we manage projects and how we organize, for we will and must get better. We have a very solid financial position and a strong core game portfolio, which keeps us confident about our future.
This disclosure contains information that Paradox Interactive AB is obliged to make public pursuant to the EU Market Abuse Regulation (EU nr 596/2014). The information was submitted for publication, through the agency of the contact person, on 17-06-2024 21:45 CET.
Life by You's cancelation marks the latest in what has been, by Paradox's own admission, a years-long rough patch that has affected their last few games and development process. Cities Skylines 2 had a disasterous launch that Paradox is still trying to sort out more than eight months after release, and Steam reviews for the city builder remain mixed.
Jail sim Prison Architect 2 has also been the victim of numerous delays, the most recent of which pushed the release date back to September due to "unexpected issues occurring too often.” The Paradox-published Vampire: The Masquerade – Bloodlines 2 has also endured a troubled development that has seen several years of delays, the depature or firing of several senior staff, and, ultimately, a change in developers. Thankfully, it seems to be back on track after new gameplay footage was revealed in January.
The publisher's most recent release, the Ironclad Games-developed Sins of a Solar Empire 2, dropped it's Early Access label earlier this year ahead of its planned August Steam release. In our review, we said "Sins of a Solar Empire 2 is a faithful follow-up to a beloved strategy game, but it is still in a buggy and clearly unfinished state despite its stealth launch out of early access."
Will Borger is an IGN freelancer. You can find him on Twitter @bywillborger.
