Paradox reveal Life By You, a competitor to The Sims from former EA boss
Life By You is getting a full showcase on March 20th
Paradox pulled a nifty trick when they supplanted EA's urban city builder with their own, and they're now hoping to strike twice with Life By You, a competitor to The Sims 4, complete with all the top-down interior design and people management you’d expect. We only have a very brief glimpse at Life By You, but developer Paradox Tectonic and former Sims boss Rod Humble are holding an announcement event on March 20th - so, we’ll see more of the life sim later this month.
Life By You’s first trailer teases an open-town with cars and a bus - revolutionary for Sims-likes. There are also some quick looks at housebuilding, sunny beaches, and your Sims (Lifers?) enjoying some time at home. Paradox have already shown a Sims-like attitude to their post-launch plans (i.e. they release tons of DLC) but, we’ll see if they can nail the other fundamentals.
I haven’t been a Simmer since the Bustin’ Out days, so I turned to the resident Sims authority in my life: my older sister. Her expert opinion concluded that “it looks like Sims 3.” Very insightful stuff.
Life By You isn’t the only Sim-like aiming for a piece of EA’s pie. Paralives is another life sim that’s been gaining traction for a couple of years, and it’s even drawing more than £30,000 a month on Patreon. AliceB’s very excited for Paralives as it’s promising Simmers the kind of control and customisation that they've been craving for a while. Seriously, how does The Sims not have curved walls yet? I’ve always been surprised by the lack of competition in the genre and I’m excited to see how The Sims evolves with some heat at its feet.
Life By You was announced as part of Paradox’s Announcement Event where we also saw the long-awaited Cities: Skylines 2, another strategy game from the devs behind BattleTech, and a boatload of DLC for Crusader Kings 3 and more.